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[Stadfradt]

I've never messed with water much because everybody who gets near it dies. But I decided to water my badlands and see if something grew. I raised a platform for a windmill, put the screw pump at ground level next to the brook, and there's no option to turn the pump on or off. It just runs. And runs. And runs.

I was able to make a channel break feeding back into the brook, so the fort won't flood, and it is neat to see; however, water and fps don't play nice, plus I want to muddy up the rocky ground. So, how do I turn it off? Is the obvious deconstruction the only option?

For future reference, are there gear linkages that allow switching on/off, or is build it and take it down the only option for pump control.

Thanks in advance.

[Bumber]

You need a gear assembly between your windmill and pump, then you can hook that to a lever.

Make sure not to have that gear assembly the only thing holding up your windmill, or it will collapse when you pull the lever.

[Starver]

My standard version (usually not for pumps, when I use them, but the actually less unforgiving millstones) is to have the 'switched' gear sit above the vertical axle leading down below the surface and supports nothing. Directly to one side is the gear above which the windmill sits and is supported - although I also put a wall around this (and a floor above all but the windmill-centre) so I forget now if this is even necessary.

Code: [Select]

Side view:
   X    - Windmill blades (not to scale)
 __A_   - Flooring and windmill base
_WgGW__ - switched gear (g) and unswitched gear (G), walled in at surface level
##|#### - ground-slice with vertical axle (if necessary, and not just omited for Z-1 millstone room)
__M____ - millstone (in my case)

Plan view of surface level.
.......
.WWWW..
.WgGW..
.WWWW..
.......
(BTW, to prevent walling in, leave a corner wall as last to be built, at that level. When all else is built, including the gears, the dwarf sent to build the corner will always (...FCVO!) stand outside the enclosure.)

For pump operation: whatever level the pump sits, I suppose you could build the switched-gear directly above the pump-power-input tile, the other gear one tile off in any suitable direction (you'd be also (re)building walls around the pump-zone for various other reasons) then perch the windmill atop that one (and any Z+1 walls you also make). But the possibilities are endless, especially if you're feeding in multiple windmill-power via horizontal axles and junction gears as well.

TIMTOWTDI, and additionally any fluid-movements that you're not insanely confident about should probably include emergency shut-off floodgates/hatches that you can close (at source and/or destination ends, according to taste) plus emergency draining hatches/floodgates that you can open (wherever liquids may stay pooled even after removing power and isolating the end(s)). Exact configurations to depend on what basic layout you have to work with...

[Stadfradt]

Thanks!

TIMTOWTDI, and additionally any fluid-movements...probably include emergency shut-off...

It's never been a problem because the pump operator always drowns before I get any overflow.

Thanks again ^_^

[Thisfox]

I've never messed with water much because everybody who gets near it dies.

It's odd to think you're having this problem. I work with heavy aquifers all the time, pumping water around and messing with well-filling with pumped clean water, in saltwater aquifer situations, and have never had a related death. I often try forts with waterfalls. Other than an idiot or two who had an argument with an alligator and subsequently needed to use a crutch, or couldn't hold a cup, no worries there either. I will admit I've had the occasional dorf frozen in a block of ice, but that's not a drowning death either. How come your dorfs die when they go near water?

[Starver]

I think the problem is not "dwarves who get too near water" but "water that gets too near dwarves".

That said, go back to the Days Of Dreaded Carp (and before streamside ramps) I did have problems, there was a famous instance with hippos, and later on I quickly learnt not to allow paddling across the tops of waterfalls. For self-created problems, if you understand what you unleash you can generally deal with it.

My worst problem (years ago now) was tunnelling directly under a river, merely as a fort extension, casually redesignating damp-cancelled digging - but it turned out at least one of those tiles was also an aquifer, which set up a slow spread of blue across Z-2 that needed hurried walling off to not pour down too many nearby staircases.


It's a matter of experience, which can't be easily taught. Though tips and tricks can be, and inspiration for one's own flashes of inspiration might also be conveyed, hopefully to pass back to the rest of us.

[Stadfradt]

It's odd to think you're having this problem.

Dwarf, legendary+5 in mining, fighting, observation; middling in dodging; agility >50 on Dwarf Therapist scale; had been crossing a 7/7 water-filled "brook" four-tiles wide without any problem for the last thirteen years; and she runs headlong off a bridge and into a channel with 7/7 water -- ramps not removed, so she was on a ramp -- and drowns faster than you can say "Jack Robinson." Probably more than 50% of my pump operators have been washed away and drown. All but one of the survivors were washed off and canceled due to dangerous grounds.

I don't have the processing power for big forts, so all dwarves are military dwarves, and I assume their gear adds to their clumsiness, but even dwarves in civilian clothes will trip and fall off anything into anything at any opportunity. 

There's something seriously wrong with the armor- and shield-skill leveling, by the way. Not sure why I'm bitching at you about it, but I regularly have seven-dwarf squads train 2-minimum for a decade and their armor skill is only half-way to legendary. My civilization is getting displaced by goblins faster than the Vandals were displaced by the Huns, and I haven't seen a single invader in ten years.
     "A'right, goblins, it's time we trounce those rubes at Wavelashed. There's only twenty-four of them, and one of those is an infant. Who's with me?!"
     "Uh, sorry, boss, but they don't call themselves The Veiled Tools for nuthin'. Them's some bad mutha--"
     "Shut your mouth!"
I'm trying to get a good foundation before I re-try my candy-cane-finding scheme. (I got two good hits last time, and while I was vaguely aware that fire imps were a thing, I had never imagined what they and crundles could to fps.) I've no clue how to train up armor & shield without actual combat. I guess I have to give the new buffoons a few years to train up and then go kick a hornets' nest.

sigh  The fellas at the Mountainhome were like, "Yeah, take charge of the expedition, it's easy. Everybody else does the work, you just tell them where to dig." And here I am, contemplating attacking a human necromancer tower just to prep the team to dig deep and kick up a dang Forgotten Beast. I could be a legendary engraver by now, but I had to listen to those jerks...

[anewaname]

A pump brings water up one z-level and if the water is allowed to flow back to where the pump operator is, they *will* be washed into the deep water.

Build walls to either side of the pump's second tile (the tile near where the water comes out). This will block the water that is washing your dwarf over the edge.

w        where the water comes from                                      w
d        where the dwarf stands while working the pump           d
X        the solid tile of the pump, build walls here, so it is-> XXXXXXX
w        where the water comes out                                        w
-------

The slower armor leveling happens because the dodges, shield blocks, and weapon blocks happen first. Train them without shields or weapons for a while.

[Fleeting Frames]

I've also had the problem in the OP; 1 windmill powering 3 pumps. But don't like deconstructing and platforms. Luckily, there are other ways:

Overloading the power, which I used. 2 Mechanisms and 1 axle made the whole system take 41 power, which stops it dead. Then just disable a mechanism to turn it back on.

Stopping the input: Build a hatch where pump draws from. Now, as long as it is closed, the pump is not pumping.

PS: To raise armor level fast, have your dwarves in armor attack some awake unshelled wildlife with training weapons/wooden crossbows. For some reason, attacking an enemy like this boosts armor user.

[Stadfradt]

A pump brings water up one z-level and if the water is allowed to flow back to where the pump operator is, they *will* be washed into the deep water.

I've always been bringing it over a barrier and down a hole, usually trying to fill a well. I will definitely be using the wall method. Thanks!!

To raise armor level fast, have your dwarves in armor attack some awake unshelled wildlife with training weapons/wooden crossbows. For some reason, attacking an enemy like this boosts armor user.

Makes sense: According to the wiki, armor skill raises every time they block something with the armor, like an attack from an angry animal. I recently had a fort with leading up to the center of the barracks, because of space constraints and I thought it would improve muster time. I kept getting combat reports of lone dwarves blocking a blow with their armor, and I finally figured out that they were falling down the ramp. Nobody got hurt.

I've been thinking of starting a new fort and trying and doing an experiment. Does a barracks with fall hazards improve armor skill?

[A_Curious_Cat]

Does anyone know if the “Shaft of Enlightenment” is still a thing in the latest version?

[Bumber]

Does anyone know if the “Shaft of Enlightenment” is still a thing in the latest version?

It was fixed in 0.40.24.

[Fleeting Frames]

Oh no. You shouldn't be attacking angry animals. Only pick the most benign, harmless ones who wont attack back.

[Stadfradt]

Oh no. You shouldn't be attacking angry animals. Only pick the most benign, harmless ones who wont attack back.

Apparently wombats can be bad news.

[Thisfox]

Oh no. You shouldn't be attacking angry animals. Only pick the most benign, harmless ones who wont attack back.

Apparently wombats can be bad news.

...To people who don't understand wombats, or how they could be all that strong, I tell the story of my fathers fence post.

See, we put in a new fence somewhere near where the old fence had been. But technology had changed in the 30-odd years since there was last a fence put on the property, and long story short, our fence posts were a different distance apart, and thus not all in the same place as before. Fence posts are thick, easily 30cm thick, sort of chunky rectangular prisms of Aussie eucalyptus hardwood, and they're strong. Half of the post is put in the ground, so a three metre post is about one and a half metres out of the ground, and they're really dug in well, and tamped down with machinery. Then you come back later and put in the wires. The trouble started when a wombat decided that we had dropped our nice big post directly in the middle of his usual path in and out of that scrubby part of the bush. Instead of going around like a roo or a human would do, he headbutted our fence post until it fell over. It took him three days. My father and I, not being complete dimwits, put in two more posts, one to either side of the place where the wombat didn't want a post to be. We had no further problems. Wombats are determined, strong, indestructible, and made of depleted plutonium. They don't call them diff-crackers for nothing. I can tell you multiple wombat-vs-car stories. The car does not come out on top in these stories.

So yes, wombats can be bad news. Especially if you put your house on stumps that the wombat doesn't want to have them there.

Incidentally, one of the funniest jokes for an Aussie playing Dwarf Fortress is kangaroo cheese... But that's an unrelated story. Sorry, somehow you seem to have spawned "story time with an Aussie Fox". This is what happens when I read the Forums before breakfast...