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[Foxite]

I'm building a pump stack. For some reason, some pump get destroyed after they are designed, dropping their items around them.

Why does that happen?

[4maskwolf]

Hey!

You accidentally posted this in the wrong section, this should be moved over into Dwarf Mode Discussion!

And to answer your question, I have no idea without further information.

[Foxite]

...what?

I could have sworn I posted this in gameplay questions. How did it end up here?

Well, thanks for the tip anyway.

[Kneenibble]

This board is fine for this question.

So, just to clarify, the pumps get designed by the architect, and before they are built by the other guy, they deconstruct?

I know that pumps will deconstruct if they are not either hanging contiguously from machinery like an axle or a gear assembly, or not stacked contiguously from a pump on solid ground.  If the pumps in the middle of your stack get built first, because of the channels that allow power transfer, they will fall apart after a little while because they are not properly supported.

I've never seen them deconstruct in that way until they are fully built, however, as opposed to just designed and "waiting for mason," or whatever labour.  Maybe it's the same thing.

[Foxite]

This board is fine for this question.

It was accidentally posted under the community stories board.

So, just to clarify, the pumps get designed by the architect, and before they are built by the other guy, they deconstruct?

Yes. The materials are scattered around where the pump used to be designated.

I know that pumps will deconstruct if they are not either hanging contiguously from machinery like an axle or a gear assembly, or not stacked contiguously from a pump on solid ground.  If the pumps in the middle of your stack get built first, because of the channels that allow power transfer, they will fall apart after a little while because they are not properly supported.

I've never seen them deconstruct in that way until they are fully built, however, as opposed to just designed and "waiting for mason," or whatever labour.  Maybe it's the same thing.

Maybe it's what you are describing, only I didn't see them being constructed. I actually assumed that they were destroyed between design and construction, because I didn't see them being built. Thanks.

[PatrikLundell]

As Kneenibble explained, screw pumps must be supported either by standing on something supported or hanging from something supported. The work on their construction can continue all the way to the finish line without support, but if there is no support when that line is passed, the pump collapses. The logic is the same as when you build a floor out from the wall along a bridge, expecting the floor to be built one tile at a time, only to get collapses as dorfs build in parallel standing on the bridge.
In principle you could designate the building of the whole pump stack at once and then suspend the working on the intermediate ones just before they're finished while the top- and bottom-most ones are finished, but that's rather messy to do in practice, so the most common technique is to grow the pump stack like a stalactite/stalagmite pair (i.e. from the top and from the bottom). Building from the top only has some initial efficiency gains while pumping, but unless that affects other things (such as temperature calculations for magma) that's usually unimportant.