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[KiTA]

Ok, from what I understand, channels are out with the new version.  In addition, we're not guaranteed an internal or external river.

So, how do we farm?

Will lakes and the like refill with rain water?  Will rivers coming from "off screen" assume to be refilling?

Will lava and water flood traps still work?  If so, how?  Will floodgates still be in?  Will they just open up water for the pressure system to flood outward with?    What happens if enough water gets into a room so it's past the "1 pressure" level of evaporation?

Will lakes and the like naturally evaporate?

Will I be able to dig a moat, and have rainwater (or, more ideally, lava) naturally fill it?

Will I be able to cave in a room from below, sending marauding goblins to an early grave?  If so, will I be able to repair the floor to do it again?

[Name Lips]

It looks like you'll need actual soil to farm. This is mostly just guesswork, but I think you'll somehow have to get a room with a soil floor and flood it briefly to get the soil wet. Then you can build farm plots and grow food.

There are still floodgates and levers, but channels are actual trenches dug out of the rock through which water actually flows at whatever speed and volume it's supposed to. So it's quite possible to allow more water into a channel than it can hold, in which case it will overflow and start flooding the rest of the fortress.

[Solara]

Personally I'm going to settle on a barren wasteland with no animals and see if it's possible to rely entirely on trading caravans for food and booze.

[THLawrence]

quote:Originally posted by KiTA:
<STRONG>Ok, from what I understand, channels are out with the new version.  In addition, we're not guaranteed an internal or external river.

So, how do we farm?</STRONG>

The exact design is still up to you but I think a design would be something like this.

code:

 
######~~~
#GFFF#~~~
#GFFFX~~~
#GFFF#~~~
######~~~
# = Wall
G = Grate
F = Farm
~ = Water
X = Flood Gate
 

The water and floodgate are on the same level as the farm.
The grates are opened when the room is flooded.

quote:<STRONG>
Will lakes and the like refill with rain water?  Will rivers coming from "off screen" assume to be refilling?</STRONG>

I believe the Rivers are refilled from off screen at the point that they originally come in at. For lakes I believe that they are refilled with "rainwater" and refill automatically.

quote:<STRONG>
Will lava and water flood traps still work?  If so, how?  Will floodgates still be in?  Will they just open up water for the pressure system to flood outward with?    What happens if enough water gets into a room so it's past the "1 pressure" level of evaporation?

</STRONG>

You don't want to use lava much because if it cools it becomes obsidian and will have to be mined out. I think water will still evaporate but much slower. If you want to build a water trap then also have a grate or pump to empty the room afterwards

quote:<STRONG>
Will lakes and the like naturally evaporate?

</STRONG>

If they do then they should also refill quickly. So no.

quote:<STRONG>
Will I be able to dig a moat, and have rainwater (or, more ideally, lava) naturally fill it?

</STRONG>

Once again watch out when using magma. It is not the same as it currently is. I don't think rain water will fill a moat right now so you need channels.

quote:<STRONG>
Will I be able to cave in a room from below, sending marauding goblins to an early grave?  If so, will I be able to repair the floor to do it again?

</STRONG>

Yes. Although repairs to the floor will count as a building and have an the tags associated with it. When natural walls cave in they fall and retain their form. Buildings are returned to their component materials. However the current cave in system is simply if it is disconnected it will cave-in, otherwise it will stay there. So you can in theory have your entire fortress held up by a single support and have no cave-in.

[Turgid Bolk]

From what I've heard, all water leaves mud. Also, if you don't want to mess with pumps and whatnot, you can have dwarves dump water on any piece of floor, with buckets. Rivers are still constant. Moats will work as usual, but I don't know if rain will actually fill stuff. We'll have to wait a day or two to find out!

Edit: Wow, beaten. Thoroughly.

[ October 29, 2007: Message edited by: Turgid Bolk ]

[Jaqie Fox]

Redirecting magma flow sounds more and more fun lately.

[BurnedToast]

I, personally, am going to try shaft fishing as mentioned near the end of the future of the fortress thread.

It might not work, but if it does - woohoo!

I can finally mine for fish!

[THLawrence]

quote:Originally posted by BurnedToast:
<STRONG>I, personally, am going to try shaft fishing as mentioned near the end of the future of the fortress thread.

It might not work, but if it does - woohoo!

I can finally mine for fish!</STRONG>

Now that has to work. For the good of the game.

Dwarf Fortress: The only game where you can mine for fish.

That would have to go on the t-shirts. And on the back a picture of a dwarf holding a pick and fish.

[Mzbundifund]

How about this simple idea for farming?  So easy an elf could do it!

code:

~~~~█
~~~~█████████
~~~~X.....X#█  Upper level, with full river adjacent to walls.
~~~~█████████
~~~~█
........
.I....I.
........
........  Lower level.  Just a really big room with a support or two.
........
.I....I.
........
~ = river
█ = wall
# = floor grate
. = floor
I = support

Step 1: You open the left floodgate, and the little hallway between the two floodgates fills up.  
Step 2: Close the left floodgate.  
Step 3: Open the right floodgate, and the water pours through the grate into the room below.  The water spreads out and muddies a big blot in the center of the room.  

Since the hallway only holds a certain amount of water, and the room below it is large, the water spreads thin and evaporates, leaving a nice muddy patch in the middle of the room.

I call it "drop farming".

[Markavian]

I'm tempted to create a large 'head' of water in a 'water tank' above the fortress into which I pump water. Dwarves would then flood water into a room designated as a farm from the side or above. I'm also tempted to pump said water back out of the farm and back into the 'header tank'.

I think water management is going to be much more important if there are no rivers about, or say if water stops flowing due to winter.

[Core Xii]

Only water that's 1 deep will evaporate. Rivers and such are very rarely that shallow, so logically they don't evaporate.

[Karlito]

I think more likely that when you pull a lever to flood a room you will have to pull another lever to open a hatch to drain the room (or use a pressure plate)

[JT]

Most likely, the typical flood farm will work with a screw pump and a reservoir beneath the farm.  Pump water up into the room from the reservoir, wait for it to spread around, then let it drain back out into the reservoir.

I'm hoping that at least one or two versions after the next release we get capillary irrigation working so we can build crops next to filled channels in the floor.  (Regarding the OP: channels do exist, but they're simply "sunken floors" instead of dedicated buildings.  If the level below is solid rock, the water will flow into the missing floor, just like a regular channel.  No idea what the depth of a channel is, however.  You'd probably go ahead and dig out the level below the channel if you were making an actual moat.)

[I27]

How do you connect a flood gate to a river now? Since I assume they both have to be on the same Z plane, whats to keep the dwarf building it from being washed away?

[BurnedToast]

creative river redirection?

I don't know. one of the reasons I plan on bringing ALOT of food for my first fort, so I can get it figured out. Just in case shaft fishing does not work out.

water seemed to move pretty slow in all the movies (cpu saving feature). possibly you would have enough time to dig, then drop a floodgate if the floodgate was close, because dwarves can walk in water till it hits.. 3? i think, deep. Still, I suspect it might be easiest to get your water from a bucket brigade, and just recycle it via pumps, and not use floodgates at all.