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[scenegg]

Anyone has a good tutorial on them along with any tips for me?

[Niddhoger]

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Screw_pump

The wiki is your friend!

This includes all you need to know about the pump itself, and includes advice on pump stacks.  If you want a more in-depth look at reservoirs or using pumps to pierce aquifers, those are different articles (also on the wiki). 

The key things to keep in mind are that the pump pulls from the light side to the dark side (you can freely change orientation when placing the pump)

Pumps pull water from one z-level BELOW them and onto their same z-level

The dark tile is impassible and will block fluids (so the pump can be safely included as part of a wall holding fluids). 

Dorfs will thus stand on the light tile

Pumps can't pull through stairs, but will pull through grates (grate can still be broken by a building destroyer, though). 

[scenegg]

Thanks a ton! How can I build a hatch for the water without making my dwarves die though.

[PatrikLundell]

Dorfs don't die due to hatch building, so you need to clarify your question to explain what it is you try to do with the hatch that fails horribly.

[scenegg]

Lets say I see a lake underground and need to spread the water somewhere. When there is one block difference and I need to get a hatch there what am I supposed to do.

[PatrikLundell]

OK, I'll make a few suggestions.

Firstly, I wouldn't use a hatch at all in this case.

There are sort of 3 different scenarios:
1. You want the water on the same level as the source or below.
2. You want to move the water upwards.
3. You want to move a reasonably small amount of water elsewhere.

Note that I'm a coward, so I try to minimize risk to individual dorfs as well as the fortress. You may find my measures too cumbersome for your taste.

1A: You want a well or something similar where you drain water once and then top it up occasionally. In this case I'd dig a tunnel up to, but not through, the lake (leaving one tile to breach the gap). I'd install two raising drawbridges in each end of the tunnel (i.e. one by the lake wall, and one in the other end). If you envision any reason you'd want to empty the tunnel in the future, the drawbridges ought to be two tiles long so you can atom smash the water away. Also, single tile raising drawbridges look the same whether lowered or raised. At the "inside" of this tunnel I'd then dig a reservoir that's at least two tiles deep (to avoid getting muddy water). Above the water airlock tunnel I'd dig another tunnel, again, up to, but not through, the wall. You can build a door in that tunnel. When the airlock is finished and the drawbridges tested (to see they're correctly hooked up and actually are raising rather than retracting), I'd send a miner to channel away the last tile in the upper tunnel. That will remove the wall both at his level and the one below, so the water starts to rush in there. The miner should then retreat and you can then order the building of a wall in the upper tunnel to block access from the cavern (try to arrange so the builder ends up on the correct side of the wall. Dorfs are STUPID and STUBBORN. If something nasty shows up, you can lock the door to buy you time to brick the breach up on the inside (building destroyers can destroy doors, and are, indeed, attracted to them). I'd normally do all my cavern activities when the local fauna is benign. You can also use a raising drawbridge to secure the upper tunnel.
In the cistern case, I'd brick up the access from the cistern to the fortress before breaching the wall. I'd then let the water flow in and fill the cistern without any worry nasties would get in that way. When the cistern is full, I'd close the outer airlock drawbridge and remove the blocking wall.
When the cistern needs to be filled up again, close the inner drawbridge, then open the outer one, let water fill the tunnel, close the outer drawbridge, check for critters in the water (fish doesn't count), open the inner bridge to get the water through, repeat the number of times needed.

1B.You're using the water to e.g. perform obsidianization. I'd put a drawbridge by the lake wall as above, and then a wall grate inside of it (after the drawbridge has been hooked up). A grate does NOT stop building destroyers, but it can filter some stuff out. Dig the tunnel to where you need the water, and use drawbridges to control the flow. I'd design it such that I can drain and rebuild the output end if required (a drawbridge near the outlet to close off flow, and then another one at the end for fine control. The final one can also be used to atom smash water away so you can build additional tunnels from the last section if needed.

2. The standard method is a pump stack. The problem with those is that they need power, a fair bit of it. If you're only going to raise the water a few levels you can do it by hand by cranking each pump in the stack manually. To get at the water (or magma) I'd build a tunnel as per 1A with a single drawbridge, leading nowhere. Channel a hole in the roof of the tunnel and put a floor grate there, and build a screw pump to take from that tile. Expand into a pump stack. Breach the lake and plug the hole. Use the drawbridge to block water access when the pump stack is not in use. If the pump is powered, I also wall it in.

3. The standard method is the bucket brigade, i.e. designate the area above the destination as a pond (p-P-f) and make sure the tile(s) beside the destination are reachable (e.g. have the destination over a channeled trench). Dorfs should haul water and dump it (note that for obsidianization water has to drop one tile down through the air, or you'll only get steam).
The other method is to use a water (or magma) loading station to fill a mine cart with 2 units of fluid and then have a dorf carry the mine cart to a track stop that's set to dump on the destination. The advantage of this over the bucket brigade is that there is no evaporation problem if the destination is a single tile. If you're using DFHack you can also dynamically change track stop orders, so you can get several mine carts hauled to your well to be and then dump them all at the same time, again to fight evaporation. For magma hauling, this is the only option. Note that you need an iron, steel, or adamantine mine cart for magma (Nether-Cap does NOT work, unfortunately).

[scenegg]

Thanks a ton. Will try everything out. Drawbridges are supposed to be static bridges or just bridges in general?

[PatrikLundell]

A bridge is built through the 'b'uild-brid'g'e command, at which time you select which direction it should raise in, and if you're not selecting anything the default is retracting. In order to get it to morph you have to connect it to a trigger (typically a lever, but there are others) and then activate it. Thus, a drawbridge is a bridge that's connected so it can be moved.

Edit: I screwed up the command. It should be 'b'uild-brid'g'e. The one I originally wrote would place a door...

[Niddhoger]

I'm still not entirely sure what you want to do with a hatch in the first place.  Hatches are basically just doors for stairwells, but can be used as an emergency drain on the bottom of your water supply (activated via lever and set up before flooding the area).

Here are the wiki guides for reservoirs, wells, and aqueducts.  I'd say the well guide is the most informative... but the exact nature of what you are building will depend on where you are sourcing the water from (aquifers are one of the trickier ones, but oceans and murky pools require pumps and two tanks to purify them), and what you want to do with the water and where in your fort you want it...

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Reservoir

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Well_guide

http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Aqueduct


However... in DF raising bridges are virtually never used as actual bridges.  This is because, when raised, they become walls.  Unlike doors, they are also completely indestructible.  They also freely block fluids and double as floors when lowered.  People frequently use them as flood gates (normal floodgates are only one tile and susceptible to building destroyers) and as a porticullus to seal their forts/channel enemies through the right defenses.  As Patrik also mentioned, bridges will instantly destroy anything in their area as they are lowered.  This is frequently used to destroy trash items (to improve FPS), but can also be exploited in fortress defense to instantly kill enemies (except large FBs that block the bridge).  This includes fluids, so repeatedly lowering bridges over fluids will destroy them.  Once fluids get down to 1/7 depth, they will eventually evaporate on their own. 

[scenegg]

Thanks! One last question.. what are FBs?

[PatrikLundell]

FB = Forgotten Beast. Technically the same as a Titan, but a Titan appears on the surface, while an FB appears in the caverns. One of the sources of !!FUN!! in DF.

[Dunamisdeos]

FB = Forgotten Beast. Technically the same as a Titan, but a Titan appears on the surface, while an FB appears in the caverns. One of the sources of !!FUN!! in DF.

For great detail, check out http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Forgotten_beast

[Starver]

Not wishing to confuse the methods already described, re: water abstraction, my favoured method is as follows:

Spoiler: But it is a bit long to fully illustrate (click to show/hide)

Find a spot on the level of the cavern-water with a significant amount of rock (ideally with a 'corner', but that's not necessary).

Let's say it looks like the following, with a stairwell through in the top-left corner, and water surrounding a mass of rock, 'exposed' wall as indicated:

▓▓▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈
▓X▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈
▓▓▓░░░░░▓▓≈≈≈≈
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On the Z-level above, I dig slightly out from the stairwell I'll want to access the water from (maybe to build wells, later), dig a channel to the water-level (creating an up-ramp here) and then generally diagonally towards some useful bit of wall.  (Here shown in red.)

▓▓▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈
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▓▓▓▓▓░░░▓▓≈≈≈≈
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░░▓▓'▓▓░▓≈≈≈≈≈
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░░░░░▓▓,▓≈≈≈≈≈
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...note the additional orthagonal dig-out next to the end.

1) Smooth the rock at the corner-wall next to the water (I actually smooth pretty much everywhere, but this is the important bit).
2) Place a floodgate at tunnel-end
3) Link the floodgate to a lever, and then operate the lever to open it (but below shown as closed).
4) Build a pillar on the adjacent square to the floodgate
5) Remove rubble from the tunnel by dumping or just ensuring you can get it stockpiled or otherwise used (optional)
(You can do #s 2 and 3, regarding the floodgate, before #1, and indeed must do.  The pillar cannot even be designated to be built without causing floodgate-placement to fail (unless this has changed, recently), so has to happen after #2 and #3, but once the floodgate is placed/linked/opened it doesn't tend to interfere with any of the other steps.  But the above is the general order I tend to work with.  The removal of spoiler materials in #5 is actually arranged ASAP upon the appearance of dug-out-rocks, but tends to often be the very last thing that ends up complete.)

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Now from the opened floodgate square (dwarf in green), you can set to carve Fortifications in that smoothed corner square.

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...while the dwarf is there, you can pull the lever again.  The dwarf itself stops the floodgate from closing until he/she is finished anyway.

Depending on how prompt the lever-pulling is (it can be slow) you can end up with one of two situations.  On the left, the ideal situation, on the right the less ideal but still pretty safe (unless it was magma that you was being tapped, not water...  Because I also use a variant of this system for tapping magma.)

▓▓▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈   ▓▓▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈
▓X▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈   ▓X▓░░░░░░▓≈≈≈≈
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░░▓▲▓▓░░▓≈≈≈≈≈   ░░▓▲▓▓░░▓≈≈≈≈≈
░░▓▓'▓▓░▓≈≈≈≈≈   ░░▓▓1▓▓░▓≈≈≈≈≈
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░░░░░▓▓X▓≈≈≈≈≈   ░░░░░▓▓X▓≈≈≈≈≈
░░░▓▓▓▓▓╬≈≈≈≈≈   ░░░▓▓▓▓▓╬≈≈≈≈≈
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...either way, (most of, if not all) the water is held back behind the (red) floodgate, and the dwarf is capable of leaving either dry (green) or slightly wet (blue), as a small drizzle of water leaks through the diagonals.

I then let things settle down a bit (water evaporates or is low enough level to not bother anyway) and then dig away more of the rock, and remove the temporary pillar I put there, to provide more space for the water I will later let back in.

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...note the new ramps (designated here or dug as channels from the level above).  Those are just quite useful for dwarfy ingress/egress.  And you can put wells above most of these (not the concave corner, probably, but an 'escape ramp' is always useful in case of accidents, anyway).

(I often also like to dig channels beneath at least one well.  One of those up-ramps to Z+1 becomes a downramp leading to Z-1, and should the cistern ever be nominally drained¹ that well, at least, still has some water beneath it to make it active.  Oh, and there's more rock-spoil to remove, most likely.  Always best to keep these things tidy!)

Then, when all is well (no pun intended!), and there's no work (or workers) in the cistern area, open the floodgate, let it flood to a reasonable level and then close the floodgate again!

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You now have a decent water-supply (actual quantity dependant on the space you dug out and how long you kept the floodgate open for), which is isolated again from the original water supply (e.g. traversing-fortifications-in-moving-liquid dangers are mitigated against, and I'm always wary about syndrome-producing material contaminating, although I think well-extraction of water handles that aspect, anyway).

But there are other refinements (e.g. in the footnote, below), and you might want to redesign it with two chambers (a floodgate between each), the innermost one being the well supply (not so demanding, behind its own floodgate to the next chamber), the outermost one being where you drain larger quantities of water away for obsidian making (whilst, perhaps, keeping the floodgate to the watersource open, as well, for maximum supply).  And, then, when you want to top up the inner chamber close off the outer-chamber drain to let the outer chamber fill a bit, open the gate to the inner (with or without closing the gate from the source, as well) and rectify any falling levels in the inner.


¹ I don't atom-smash, but usually also set a drainage chute away from somewhere else, but following the atom-smashing plan above by building a bridge in some part of this chamber might be your easiest bet...

..got that?

[Niddhoger]

Swimmers can pass through submerged fortifications.... so my question is that can amphibious/aquatic building destroyers swim through the fortification to smash the floodgate?

[Starver]

Swimmers can pass through submerged fortifications.... so my question is that can amphibious/aquatic building destroyers swim through the fortification to smash the floodgate?

It's an issue, I know, but not one I've personally suffered from.  Possibly because of the rarity of water-friendly building destroyers.

Also, possibly, because I tend to top-out the 'well exit' ramps with wells and (for basic safety) a locked hatch and I think these are both proof from BDing on Z-1.  (And thus perhaps prevents any BD I've never concerned myself with pathing through the 7/7 flooded fortification to the floodgate.  Although that doesn't sound like it would stop creature logic, so I'm probably wrong about this.)

Ultimately, the design I presented has its faults, but it was already becoming quite a lengthy explanation, so I cut it down to only slightly more than the basics.  And I'm sure the rest can be left as an exercise for the reader, if they care to, who might be able to make it even better with their own flourishes.  Or learn by their own respective failures!