Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Cobbler89]

So, I want to build an underwater fort without pumping the ocean out of the way or anything else that would be a megaproject just to be able to do anything in the first place. The obvious solution: build while the ocean is frozen during Winter. Right?

Except I keep trying to find an ocean that freezes in the first place, thaws before the end of Spring, is not shallow (only four or five levels below the surface to work with, thereby limiting designs to bubbles on the floor), and isn't bisected or significantly intruded upon by another ocean biome that never thaws... and so far I can't find one. I've found a couple that are pretty close (even one that I could actually build in, but it doesn't thaw until early Summer, so unless it didn't freeze again until early Winter it'd be frozen more than not; I'm hanging onto this in case I give up looking for something better), but I'm surprised how hard it is just to find an ocean that thaws in Spring.

It seems, so far, as though oceans in Temperate biomes never freeze, oceans in Freezing biomes never thaw, and oceans in Cold biomes may be either way or may be frozen some of the time and thawed others; after a few tries of Freezing and Temperate I restricted myself to Cold and even in that narrow band I'm still only rarely finding oceans that both freeze and thaw, let alone ones that aren't frozen longer than they're thawed, shallow, and/or intruded upon by another ocean biome without the desired characteristics.

Does anyone have any tips for generating a world that will have more oceans likely to be as described above? Or any knowledge as to why they're rare in terms of the game mechanics? Or know of any tools that can be used to estimate when an ocean biome freezes and thaws without embarking?

[Uggh]

I can't really help you but I can confirm freezing/thawing oceans exists having settled there several times now. However,  I never did it on purpose and was under the impression that this is the usual behaviour for temperate oceans.

[BoredVirulence]

Personally, I would rather go through the painstakingly difficult task of draining a section of the ocean than dealing with the lag of a freezing and thawing twice a year.
Not to mention my impenetrable fortress in the ocean feels less impenetrable in the winter months...

Could you imagine what would happen with burrowing invaders. I can only guess they would burrow through the ice into your main dining hall just before the ocean thaws again.

[Uggh]

You could try to install a magma heating to prevent freezing after You finished building.

[Cobbler89]

Oddly enough, I haven't had a lot of lag from the thawing on the ones that would only thaw for a couple months in Summer.

With no burrowing invaders in vanilla, an ice fortress is as impenetrable as anything else. Actually, if I use actual windows instead of glass walls swimming building destroyers could conceivably get in when the ocean is not frozen...

Unless magma can thaw the bulk of the ocean, it's not much of an improvement.

All in all, it's worth noting that I want to do this more for... aesthetic reasons and amusement, than anything else.

...*shrug* Are there any ways to drain the ocean that can apply to an arbitrarily deep, arbitrarily large volume?

[Linkxsc]

If you dont mind a bit of work. You could do magma casting of most of the fort and drop those to the ocean bottom. Then just do a system to pump out a few tiles for a while till you can get your dorfs into the fort and collapse the pumping system.

[blue sam3]

Oddly enough, I haven't had a lot of lag from the thawing on the ones that would only thaw for a couple months in Summer.

With no burrowing invaders in vanilla, an ice fortress is as impenetrable as anything else. Actually, if I use actual windows instead of glass walls swimming building destroyers could conceivably get in when the ocean is not frozen...

Unless magma can thaw the bulk of the ocean, it's not much of an improvement.

All in all, it's worth noting that I want to do this more for... aesthetic reasons and amusement, than anything else.

...*shrug* Are there any ways to drain the ocean that can apply to an arbitrarily deep, arbitrarily large volume?

Big hole at the bottom going to some kind of infinite water absorber (map edge in cavern, magma sea, hell, or aquifer). Build walls around the area you want to use whilst it's draining. Be prepared for lag, job cancellation spam and absurd amounts of sea creatures. For more details, see Sphalerite's Chasing the Elusive Mermaid, On the Farming of Sea Serpents, and Brightwater.

[GavJ]

Except I keep trying to find an ocean that freezes in the first place, thaws before the end of Spring

As you've discovered, cold biomes. Using advanced world gen temperature option will certainly help. Set the temp range to be, instead of 25-75, something like 25-35. It will still give you a wider range than you want, because temperature is dumb, but the cold band should be wider.

, is not shallow (only four or five levels below the surface to work with, thereby limiting designs to bubbles on the floor)

You're kinda screwed here, I dare say, since really deep oceans will not freeze all the way down. Usually they'll only freeze 5-8 ish layers on the top, then water below.  That said, you can easily get deeper oceans right off the coast by using either perfectworld (a 3rd party utility), or advanced worldgen in game, "e" then "p" and then paint in "0 height" right off the coast. 100 = sea level, so 0 = really damn deep. Won't actually be 50-100 levels deep right at the coast, since it changes gradually, but it will be very deep. This water will not all freeze.

, and isn't bisected or significantly intruded upon by another ocean biome that never thaws...

Again, using perfectworld or the in game painter to make large, but irregularly shaped oceans. Like squiggly spilt milk oceans that will still be contiguous large oceans but also have a lot of coastline to choose from.

[Cobbler89]

Does the size of the hole in the edge of the map that the ocean will drain out of limit the rate at which the ocean drains, or will a single tile drain just as quickly as ten?

I've found oceans that were frozen for about twenty-five levels. Do oceans that thaw sooner also not freeze as deep?

[GavJ]

Does the size of the hole in the edge of the map that the ocean will drain out of limit the rate at which the ocean drains, or will a single tile drain just as quickly as ten?

I've found oceans that were frozen for about twenty-five levels. Do oceans that thaw sooner also not freeze as deep?

You got a 25 z level frozen ocean that also thawed?

[blue sam3]

Does the size of the hole in the edge of the map that the ocean will drain out of limit the rate at which the ocean drains, or will a single tile drain just as quickly as ten?

No idea, I've never tried with anything other than an enormous hole.

[Cobbler89]

Does the size of the hole in the edge of the map that the ocean will drain out of limit the rate at which the ocean drains, or will a single tile drain just as quickly as ten?

I've found oceans that were frozen for about twenty-five levels. Do oceans that thaw sooner also not freeze as deep?

You got a 25 z level frozen ocean that also thawed?

Pretty sure it thawed in the Summer and froze again ere Summer's end. I could see if any of the test forts I still have were like that...

[Di]

Well, you can always turn the temperature off to keep water in its current state.
If you don't plan on building underwater magmacanon you won't miss out much fun.