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[Mount]

yeah, pretentious title aside, I saw something weird in my current fortress last night... 

Winter rolled in and all my local ponds froze, so since I have an engraver standing around doing nothin, I had him go smoth the surfaces of the ponds.  Now, if I had CONSTRUCTED a floor out of lumps of water, it would never thaw.  Apparently, smoothed floor does thaw.

The weird part was, as the smoothed floors melted, they overflowed...?  It was as if every tile of smoothed floor actually counted as a 2/7 tile located ABOVE the pond.  HUGE SWATHS of my map have been moistened!  Is this normal?

[Slappy Moose]

I'll bet that if smoothing ice makes it overflow, engraving ice with demons makes it turn into lava when it thaws.

[Mondark]

I've never actually tried this, but it is certainly strange.  You're sure it was only 2/7 for each tile?  More than that and I'd definitely say it was a bug, but mmm... ehhh.... .... I dunno.  2/7 seems rather specific, but ...

I'll have to try this for myself, and see if I can generate infinite water by repeatedly smoothing, thawing and freezing chunks of natural ice.  If so, it's probably a bug, and this thread should be moved into the bugs forum, if not, well, it's a good question for Toady.

[Mount]

I've never actually tried this, but it is certainly strange.  You're sure it was only 2/7 for each tile?  More than that and I'd definitely say it was a bug, but mmm... ehhh.... .... I dunno.  2/7 seems rather specific, but ...

I haven't been able to verify that it was exactly 2/7 per tile, because it had already thawed and flowed everywhere by the time I noticed.. I'm just estimating based on the extent of the flooding.  Next winter I can smooth a 1x1 pond and check with more precision. 

[Hectonkhyres]

I'll bet that if smoothing ice makes it overflow, engraving ice with demons makes it turn into lava when it thaws.

What do you get when you smooth an elf?

[dornbeast]

I'll bet that if smoothing ice makes it overflow, engraving ice with demons makes it turn into lava when it thaws.

What do you get when you smooth an elf?

An "R" rating?

[AncientEnemy]

i would hazard a guess that this has to do with the fact that water does not naturally have a 'floor' above it. i.e. when you 'k' over a tile of water on the surface, it's just 'open space'. but when it freezes, a tile of 'ice floor' is created there (so it can be properly walked over and not suffer the weird phenomenon of fortifications and the like that create a wall that's not walkable on top). normally when the ice melts the associated floor tile just disappears, but if you do something to it (smoothing), the game now treats it as something new/different, and when unfrozen the game now sees an ice object that needs melting into new water.

just a theory, but it would make sense.

[Bodkin]

I have also experienced this; I smoothed or engraved a lot of ice, and in spring I ended up with a lot of mud around my ponds.

My question: if you get a masterwork engraving on the ice, will there be tantrums when it melts?  Because that would be awesome.