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[youen]

Hi,

I have a problem in an outdoor area of my fortress. I evacuated some water there with a pump, thinking it would evaporate (there's only 1/7 water tiles), but it doesn't, even after several years. I think it's related to the climate of the area, it's almost always raining.

I could live with it, but it's getting worst: each winter, the water freezes and forms ice walls. Not only does it kill dwarves and animals from time to time, but also ice that melts after winter generates more water than was before. So it's spreading everywhere and I don't know how to get rid of it. I tried to mine it, but then it seems the ice floor on top of the ice wall falls (cave-in), and it killed a dwarf (found dead, badly crushed). Then I tried to make ramps, and remove them afterward, which seems to work, excepted one of the ramp was on the edge of my fort, which opened a passage for goblins (during a siege of course), and now my fortress is a complete mess (tantrums, blood everywhere, nothing getting done when I need it). I've been miserable lately. I've witnessed death lately. I've been forced to endure the decay of my fortress lately. It's becoming too much fun for me, maybe time to abandon the fortress and build a new one.

Any idea how to get rid of that water? I have a volcano nearby, so I could make obsidian, but I'm not sure flooding my fortress with magma will help in the current situation.

[Telgin]

1/7 water should definitely evaporate sooner or later.  You mention raining: did you pump the water into what used to be a murky pool?  That will accumulate water on those tiles when it rains, perhaps making it look like it's never evaporating.  If you are pumping it onto old murky pool tiles, you can channel / dig them out to remove that property from them.  I'm not sure if flooring over them will remove the water collection or not.

I don't think temperature directly affects evaporation rates, but if someone knows better I'd be interested in knowing that too.

[WJLIII3]

Any idea how to get rid of that water? I have a volcano nearby, so I could make obsidian, but I'm not sure flooding my fortress with magma will help in the current situation.

"I'm not sure flooding my fortress with magma will help in the current situation."

I see the problem. You've been playing the game wrong, you see.

[laularukyrumo]

Temperature definitely affects evaporation. On scorching maps, murky pools can fully evaporate from even 7/7 water. I've seen it happen.

As far as forcing the water... if it's 1/7 then you can build a wall on top and then deconstruct it, and it'll destroy the fluid. Doors/floodgates/bridges also destroy fluids of any height (and EVERYTHING ELSE in the case of bridges) when they close. Check to see if temperature is even enabled? Water should evaporate even indoors, though it can take its sweet time. Also, in regards to cave-ins, if you start at the topmost Z-level and designate a channel, it should guarantee no cave ins.... as long as you're careful not to ever leave a tile both floating and disconnected on all sides, and as long as you NEVER DESIGNATE MORE THAN 1 Z-LEVEL AT ONCE. Dwarves are weird when it comes to channeling, and they're not endowed with the ability to tell if they're about to cause a cave-in, or even just dig out a tile that someone else is standing on.

[youen]

There are murky pools around, but I'm above that level. It used to be green grass.

I saw a few minutes ago that it does (slowly) evaporate when it stops raining. But then it starts raining again, and though no new water appears, it stops evaporating it seems. No problem for underground evaporation on my map. Maybe I can just build a roof.

Thanks for the build/remove tip, I might try that if all else fails, but it feels a little like an exploit.

About digging the ice pillars from above, I just can't, as they are pillars (no more than one or two connected together). But it seems that digging an upward ramp from below works too (when there is no goblin around).

And for flooding the fortress with magma, well, that might work after all. I'm just concerned it will burn my green grass piles of mud. I'll re-try digging ice next winter, and if it fails, I'll try the roof. I'll reserve magma for goblins for now.

[Repseki]

I'm pretty sure putting a roof over the area will allow the water to evaporate normally. Not that it's ever a bad idea to setup a magma flooding system.

[Quietust]

I once observed, back in 40d, that rain prevented 1/7 water tiles from drying up, so I've just now done a bit of testing with 0.34.11 and DFHack. Here are my findings:

1. If a tile contains 1/7 water and it is Above Ground or Light (not sure which), then it will not evaporate if it happens to be raining in that biome.
2. Making the tile "Inside" has no effect (tested by building a bridge above it; constructing a roof would likely be the same).
3. If the tile is Dark or Subterranean (not sure which), rain has no effect - it will always dry up.
4. Rain does not appear to have any effect on 1/7 lava - it seems to dry up just as quickly whether it's raining or not.

[youen]

Thanks a lot for your tests. I can confirm that the roof doesn't work. I'll try to suppress light, I just have to enclose with walls to do that? This is just for testing though, given the size of the area, I'll fallback on something else. If mining fails (ice timing is quite short on this map), that'll probably be magma.

[youen]

Mining did not work, I still have water everywhere after winter. Maybe I should have removed the ice floors or something? I have dumped the mined ice stones.

Adding walls to the roof did not make the interior dark, even if it's completely closed now. Still not evaporating.

Looks like it's an old issue: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=3658
I confirm that rain prevents evaporation, and that 1/7 water freezes into a full ice wall that will then melt into 7/7 water that spreads around, leading to exponential spread. Mining ice walls prevents the 7/7 water generation, but for some reason I still get 1/7 water at some places, I don't understand what is happening exactly. Covering water with a constructed floor and then deconstructing seems to work, but either it doesn't work with ice floor, or ice floors are spawning during winter, because it keeps coming back where I already cleaned it up.

An easy fix would be that 1/7 water freezes into an ice floor, not an ice wall? Or that would make the game loose track of what natural floor was underneath?

[Sutremaine]

Go into the init file (date/init/d_init.txt) and turn off weather and temperature by altering the yes/no options as appropriate. Do this when it's not raining and not freezing. Eventually the water will evaporate naturally.

You may not need to turn temperature off if the map stays above freezing long enough for the water to evaporate.

[knutor]

Dwarfs will drink or track it somewhere else, try painting it into a meeting area or high traffic spot.  Not sure of a permanent fix.  This only works when there is extra footfalls readily available.  Its how I slurp up spills near the wells that lack adequate grating.

That sounds like a good biome for a stone sword making pond.  Take care, Knutor

[youen]

Yes, the map is otherwise interesting: volcano (now with a goblin pit built on top), river, aquifer layer but that does not cover the whole map, trees, flux stone, flat land around the river and mountains a little farther. Maybe too easy, everything is readily available (excepted iron that is deep underground). BUT it's raining all year long.

I already tried disabling weather, but it didn't stop raining, so I enabled it back. As you say, this is probably because I have to wait for rain to stop before disabling it. I'll try that next time it stops (that's not every year!)

And I swear I'll never spill water outdoor again without checking the weather first ;-)

[knutor]

SSShhhh...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Do you know you can fortify rock layers along the edge, by smoothing and carving a fortification.  Your not gonna use it to shoot bolts thru.  But instead pump liquid right out off the edge of your flat 4x4 world into another galaxy far far away.  This works great for controlling mistakes with running water.  Nice to have a spot for it to run to, after your done with it.  Just tunnel to the last block, but don't dig it, instead smooth and fortify it.  Then pump it right out!  HEHE

Take care, Knutor

[youen]

OK, it finally stopped raining. I saved, exited, edited data/init/d_init.txt, changed [WEATHER:YES] to [WEATHER:NO], restarted the game, reloaded my save... And a few seconds later, I got a message "it has started raining". What's going wrong?

About pumping water, I thought about that already, I have other means to dispose of it (I could simply pump it to an underground area and let it evaporate, or, even better, pump it over an aquifer). The problem is I can't pump all these 1/7 water that cover a large area, I'll need one pump per tile :-(

Also it's weird, now I have ice floors that do not melt after winter. Or maybe I built them myself by mistake, I don't know (instead of using another rock).

The positive thing is that as long as I correctly dig ice pillars every winter it doesn't spread anymore.

[Sutremaine]

OK, it finally stopped raining. I saved, exited, edited data/init/d_init.txt, changed [WEATHER:YES] to [WEATHER:NO], restarted the game, reloaded my save... And a few seconds later, I got a message "it has started raining". What's going wrong?

I have no idea.