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[Sheo]

Hey guys.

Recently I've had success with a fortress that pretty much relies only on river fishing for its steady meat supply. Given the success of that, I was wondering: how would a sea fortress fare?

I was thinking of trying out a fortress dug on the shore facing the sea and with stairs to sea level, however, I found a few problems and doubts perhaps more experienced folk can help me with:

1. Usually, dwarves fish on shore. How would they fish in the sea, if the fish are much more far away?

2. Water. Even aquifers would be salty, and rivers are rarely found near the sea; so how would I fix that problem? Pumps, maybe?

3. Seas usually mean aquifers. So I'd have to perfurate said thing to dig deep, yet wouldn't the aquifer being connected to the sea mean the pressure would go nuts and drown everyone?

[StagnantSoul]

Wells desalt any water.

[Astrid]

Wells desalt any water.

Wells make Dwarfes use salt water. But it doesnt desalt it.
Screw pumps desalt saltwater.

[Broseph Stalin]

1. I don't think fish have actual locations in terms of fishing, it's never been a problem in any for I've heard of.

2. River water would be salty too, what you need to do is create a cistern with magical desalinating screw pumps or hit the caverns.

3. No.

[CatButcher]

I actually tried the 'fishing village' once.  It turns out that you can actually drive the local fish population to extinction. 
I tried to make an entire bustling industry out of shell carving and fish selling.  When the fish went extinct, it became a sad fortress. 
Unless The Toady One has changed the ecology a bit, I don't think large scale fishing is very viable in the long term.

In regards to (1), dwarves are able to fish on the beach just fine, standing on shore.  Rarely, they will be knocked unconscious by a large wave, but that's rare.

[m-logik]

Seaside forts can be a lot of fun. For fishing, dwarves will fish off the beach just fine, but you may have issues with waves washing your catch away while your fisher fetches a barrel. You can build a pier extending over the water to avoid that.
As for water, aquifers by the sea don't make salt water, so that won't be an issue. If you'd prefer, though, you can find a place where a river/brook/stream flows into the ocean and use the freshwater portion as your water source.
Also, aquifers mechanics are the same whatever biome you find them in, so no need to worry about extra water pressure from the ocean.

I'll note as well that you can find sheer cliffs pretty frequently at points where other biomes meet ocean biomes. Also, a good probability of finding sedimentary flux stone. They're one of my favorite kinds of embarks.

[smeeprocket]

I have a fort right now that is seaside with a freshwater river, as well. I also found a route around the aquifer, which was nice.

Honestly, I am hoping a giant sperm whale beaches itself and I can set up a butchershop right there and get lots of delicious meat.

I have had nice things, including weapons traded from caravans, stolen by keas though, which is infuriating.

[Aslandus]

I've embarked on a beach before, fishing should be a reliable industry as long as you don't have about 80 dwarves catching every fish in the sea. Salt water can be used with a well as an early water source, but prioritize building a cistern or reservoir (same thing, different names) and make sure you have it ready before anything injures your dwarves.

If you're concerned about waves you could build a platform out over the sea with grates to the sea so your clumsy dwarves don't fall in (yes, they can still fish through grates) and a wall on whatever side the waves come from... you may have to place the grates down again each year when the ocean unfreezes too (or take them off when the water freezes and put them back when the water thaws), I don't think the building popping thing was fixed...

Sorry, can't help you with the aquifers, but I do know they aren't affected by pressure from the wiki

[GavJ]

Seas usually mean aquifers. So I'd have to perfurate said thing to dig deep, yet wouldn't the aquifer being connected to the sea mean the pressure would go nuts and drown everyone?

A single aquifer tile is independent of others. And they each both create AND drain infinite amounts of water. Thus, ALL that matters is how many aquifer tiles are exposed at once to opening.

One alone will flood the world just as quickly as one with 400,000 others connected to it behind it. An ocean further away or not is irrelevant.

In fact, getting past the aquifer in an ocean fort is potentially even easier, because oceans only make more water at map edges and theyre easier to drain. If you have a deep enough one that goes below the aquifer, you can get below it potentially be going down through an actively drained ocean?  Probably not at all the easiest method, but it is an extra method, and all the noemral oens are not any harder than normal, so technically, you have more flexibility if anything.

[wierd]

Yes.

One can drain an ocean many different ways, including pumping into an aquifer, draining into a map edge fortification, super-draining with water teleportation, etc.

The double-slit method is still very much a viable means of getting through a naked aquifer, and a pump system is still an effective means of getting water away from a construction site to get down below the current top-level of water by removing it faster than it can flow in.

The easiest method to get through an ocean involves getting magma up to the surface some other way (if there is any shoreline on the map, one can use the double-slit method to get below the aquifer, then carefully widen the double-slit breach at each level to allow construction of a minecart dipper track to get magma up to the surface.  Once at the surface, magma can be trucked out to the middle of the ocean and dumped at the end of the constructed floor tiles with minecart tracks on top, then disconnected to allow to fall to the bottom as a cave in.  Do this repeatedly, and the bits will stack up. The problem is that mined obsidian now does not drop obsidian floors, meaning it may be difficult to use obsidian to get below the ocean and enable the invocation of the double slit method a second time.

[Rum]

I actually tried the 'fishing village' once.  It turns out that you can actually drive the local fish population to extinction. 
I tried to make an entire bustling industry out of shell carving and fish selling.  When the fish went extinct, it became a sad fortress. 
Unless The Toady One has changed the ecology a bit, I don't think large scale fishing is very viable in the long term.

Toady upped fish populations by several tens of thousands if I remember correctly.  (They may even repopulate now though not sure if that made it into this release)

[Uggh]

If you're concerned about waves you could build a platform out over the sea with grates to the sea so your clumsy dwarves don't fall in (yes, they can still fish through grates) and a wall on whatever side the waves come from... you may have to place the grates down again each year when the ocean unfreezes too (or take them off when the water freezes and put them back when the water thaws), I don't think the building popping thing was fixed...

In my experience, walls did not stop waves at all, they went right through and into a completely sealed building  So I built a platform behind the surf zone connected via underground tunnels.

Waves also seem to teach swimming a bit.

[CatButcher]

I actually tried the 'fishing village' once.  It turns out that you can actually drive the local fish population to extinction. 
I tried to make an entire bustling industry out of shell carving and fish selling.  When the fish went extinct, it became a sad fortress. 
Unless The Toady One has changed the ecology a bit, I don't think large scale fishing is very viable in the long term.

Toady upped fish populations by several tens of thousands if I remember correctly.  (They may even repopulate now though not sure if that made it into this release)

I would be very pleased if this were the case.

[omega_dwarf]

Bug tracker for the vermin fish: http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=2780

However, it seems to have been reopened. So...Toady thought he fixed it?

[MDFification]

I actually tried the 'fishing village' once.  It turns out that you can actually drive the local fish population to extinction. 
I tried to make an entire bustling industry out of shell carving and fish selling.  When the fish went extinct, it became a sad fortress. 
Unless The Toady One has changed the ecology a bit, I don't think large scale fishing is very viable in the long term.

In regards to (1), dwarves are able to fish on the beach just fine, standing on shore.  Rarely, they will be knocked unconscious by a large wave, but that's rare.

Toady has made it so that enviromental populations actually do replenish over time, but fishing remains an extremely fast source of ecosystem depletion and I don't think that when you hit 0 of a specific species they come back.