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[treehugger]

Hello all! I Have been quite busy these last days trying to build a pumpstack to fill a pool which were to be the epitome of pride and joy in my fortress. Building it has taken quite a few hours irl and I never thought it would take me this long. The stack is 124 z levels high but as I understand it that should not have anything to do with how inefficient the stack is. I have some rocks clogging the very first intake but I dont think that should affect it either? I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Also.. The power system seem to be kinda buggy. I have built it similar to how Dastactic on youtube built them in his old tutorial series. But maybe things have changed because after a while some of the wheels run out of water and the system stops. Any help on this one too would be fantastic. The pump has been running for over a year and as far as I can tell I will never be able to fill up that pool..

[Schmaven]

Where you get the liquid from may need consideration.  I once made a pump stack adjacent a rock formation, and it would mostly sputter as it pumped liquid faster than the intake could replenish. 

I'm not sure what sort of power system you have there.  If you just want real easy power for things, look up the dwarven micro reactor on the wiki.  It's essentially a water wheel over a 2 tile hole.  1 tile is a ramp up, the other is a track stop set to dump on the ramp.  Fill it with the bucket brigade and you have a mini power generator.  Otherwise streams and rivers are good and reliable power sources.

Dug stone will not block the pumps, but tree growth will.

[Bumber]

The primary bottleneck I see is where the water has to travel through that thin tunnel containing 2's and 3's to get to the intake pump. The water's clearly not pressurized there. Maybe dropping that down a z-level would allow the tunnel to be filled with 7/7 water consistently.

[Salmeuk]

What others said - not enough water to draw from. Otherwise construction looks sound. I would build at least a 3-wide intake, or maybe an easier fix would be to fill a secondary reservoir below the existing pump stack, and extend the stack one level below to draw from that. Of course, that reservoir would then need to have a consistent water flow, so I suppose this solution would only further complicate things.

And a secondary note, you are correct that stones and items do not restrict water flow, though they can be pushed around quite a bit.

I think your power system is lovely and complicated and was certainly built for some dwarvenly purpose, but as Schmaven pointed out, you might find the exploitative 'Dwarven Power Generator' to be of some interest. You might not be so patient in future fortresses, spending hours building pumpstacks, finagling, etc etc

[treehugger]

You were spot on Schmaven! I dug down 2 z levels and started the pump from there and although it takes a while to fill the pool it can not be compared to before! It might have never even happened. Thanks for answer from all! Now ..I got to fill that lava moat! Only miss 2 levels of that pump stack and I will call this fort a success! Or maybe I will build a tower for a wizard overlooking the volcano.. hm So many options. I love this game so much!

[gchristopher]

FWIW, this is why experienced players love Heavy Aquifers. They're not that hard to pierce once you've done it once, and give you fast, infinite source (and disposal) of water without having to dig down and gamble on a cavern water supply.

[treehugger]

Aha.. But what is the advantage of an aquifer over a river? If there is any that is. I have been wondering about that.

[Schmaven]

Rivers are great sources of water, but can freeze.  Aquifers will only freeze if you mine out the earth above them.  Also, in terms of excessive water sources, I've found digging out under a single river source tile is more than enough for anything I have ever dreampt up.

[PatrikLundell]

Apart from not freezing, an aquifer won't let hostile critters in through the inlet, so you don't have to deal with the complications of creating a safe inlet.

A river is also a worse water sink than an aquifer, both because of the sloshing about of the water on a river and because you generally have to pump the water upwards to get it into the river. If you're not above using exploits deployable drains are even easier to use than aquifers, though.

A third advantage of aquifers over rivers is that you can induce flow in aquifers and use water wheels in them without having to protect the power train against intruders and protect the wheels themselves against building destroyers.

[treehugger]

Time for me to finally deal with aquifiers then! Not been something I have bothered with until now.

[A_Curious_Cat]

I tried using the double slit method, once.  The dwarves kept cancelling the building jobs due to the water level being too high because everyone seemed to want to drink from the river outside instead of manning the pumps.

[PatrikLundell]

The double slit method results in a silly number of water cancellations when done properly because water often doesn't flow away from the build tile to the pump tile quickly enough. I use only the two miners for pumping, construction, and mining during that phase to ensure the workers only has that project on their mind and don't walk halfway across the map to do unrelated things.
If dorfs are drinking from the river you've run out of booze, and that's bad. Get a still up running ASAP!

[orius]

I love and hate aquifers.

Aquifers are great because you've got a safe, convenient water supply that's usually at the surface, and it can usually provide you with all your needs.

OTOH, I tend to hate them because they're often huge and take up too much map space.  Working around them drives me nuts.  Pumping around an aquifer is no fun in the early days of a fort where you need to set up basic defenses and you have a low amount of labor.  And all too often, they tend to flood up useful veins of iron ores and coal which makes me hate them more.