Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[personofshadow]

I had an idea, and I thought it was interesting so I'm posting it here.

It involves channeling in from a water source to power a couple waterwheels that sill power some pumps that will pump the water back into the water source giving me a continuous flow. Then you just make a hole above it for dwarves to dump trash in.

I'm just wondering if the flowing water will actually carry away the trash or will it just sink to the bottom and sit there? Also does it still create miasma if its in water?

[Lamp]

I think that would only work as long as the water is below 7/7, as when water reaches 7/7 it stops pushing you. Although I could be wrong.

[Elvin]

Once water reaches 7/7 it will no longer push. I found this out, and at the same time had an unexpected number of Orcs left standing in my entryway who were standing underneath 7/7 water.

And stuff will still create miasma if its underwater.

[personofshadow]

Well then lever operated would work, drop the trash down, turn on the water. Just like flushing the toilet

[zchris13]

Set a repeater while your at it. Create pulsating waves of water.

[nymersic]

This is a fantastic idea.
I'd think all you would need is one wind or watermill attached to a pump, assuming the water has a channel to flow down into a chasm with.  Only the first square after the pump should reach water level 7/7 [I think, from my observations], and the rest will be lower than 7/7, because water actually flows really freakin slow in this game.

Really, if you think of how long a day lasts in the game, water flows something slower than molasses.  Magma flows at about the speed of solid glass.

But I'm off topic.  Now, if only dwarves would learn to use the closest designated point for dumping garbage (rather than always going to the highest, most north-westish point, or however it is calculated), then this could be amazingly efficient.

All you would need is one channel running across a fortress into a chasm, and you would be able to make a ton of chutes that you could drop garbage down into the water all over the place, and you could always have a garbage disposal relatively close by.

But Urist McGarbageHauler is always set in his ways, no?

[Teldin]

What you need is water pressure, which is what blows back dwarves/items. If your water is 7/7 that means the water is generally static and not moving (ie. it's full and it has nowhere to go), then it's not generating any pressure. Streams/rivers you'll notice don't push submerged items on their own, nor does it shove dwarves around (they tend to swim and flail and then drown instead).

Just make your aqueduct feed back out into the river and it should work just fine.

[Skorpion]

I think it's more dwarven to have the trash sorted and hauled into huge stockpiles for recycling.

But I think you could use a very simple system for this. Dump things into a pit, fill it with 7/7 water, then open one end so it all flows out with the water.

[nymersic]

I think the pump/stream system would be better, you'd never have to worry about pulling levers, it would all be automatic.
The only downside is the constant flowing water is tiresome on the CPU.

[Blank]

This is close to an idea/question I had come up today. I somehow underestimated the water pressure on this well I was building and discovered, to my delight, the pond I drained into the depths of my fortress is now pushing its way back up the shaft, flooding my lower levels. For whatever reason, this made me wonder if I could create a sort of fire hose that would jet high pressure water to blast invaders off a ledge. The design in my head involved a roughly J shaped curve that used gravity and screw pumps (?) to increase the pressure enough.

So I learned water can push things, but can it knock creatures around?

[nymersic]

This is close to an idea/question I had come up today. I somehow underestimated the water pressure on this well I was building and discovered, to my delight, the pond I drained into the depths of my fortress is now pushing its way back up the shaft, flooding my lower levels. For whatever reason, this made me wonder if I could create a sort of fire hose that would jet high pressure water to blast invaders off a ledge. The design in my head involved a roughly J shaped curve that used gravity and screw pumps (?) to increase the pressure enough.

So I learned water can push things, but can it knock creatures around?

It most definitely knocks creatures around; you'll find that as soon as you accidentally dig into an aquifer.  Also good for raising a dwarf's swimming skill, give him a task he can never reach at the end of a tunnel of water rushing towards him.

As far as actually "launching" things... if you want to launch stuff, dwarven catapults [drawbridges] may be your best option. 

If all you want to do is push some goblins around... say, off a cliff or something, that should be easy - just make sure you have a way to turn it off.  And don't leave the lever in a place where you might not be able to access it.


EDIT:  To clarify, water, in my experience, pushes rather than propels.  Water needs to flow for this though.  If a tile of water is [7/7] and the tiles around it are the same water level, then no flowing occurs.  A pump definitely does the job to push creatures.

[Blank]

Ah, that does answer my question, thanks. Just launch in the sense of, "Displace from this tile to  another tile against its wishes." The ol' noble flinger is lame, in my opinion. How can you brag to your friends that you killed off an invading force of goblins by flinging them into rocks courtesy of your lame-o drawbridge?

Does the high-pressure water move in a straight line, or fan out as it leaves its chute? Guess that's irrelevant as two doors would be needed to keep the unwanted guests milling around in front of the chute while the trap was being activated. Would this work on creatures of any size, or are titans and the like immune to water's force?

Also, the Wiki has an article on water pressure. Go figure! That page has some good stuff on it.

[kotekzot]

Ah, that does answer my question, thanks. Just launch in the sense of, "Displace from this tile to  another tile against its wishes." The ol' noble flinger is lame, in my opinion. How can you brag to your friends that you killed off an invading force of goblins by flinging them into rocks courtesy of your lame-o drawbridge?

Does the high-pressure water move in a straight line, or fan out as it leaves its chute? Guess that's irrelevant as two doors would be needed to keep the unwanted guests milling around in front of the chute while the trap was being activated. Would this work on creatures of any size, or are titans and the like immune to water's force?

Also, the Wiki has an article on water pressure. Go figure! That page has some good stuff on it.

i believe weight plays a role in water moving things.

[Teldin]

Ah, that does answer my question, thanks. Just launch in the sense of, "Displace from this tile to  another tile against its wishes." The ol' noble flinger is lame, in my opinion. How can you brag to your friends that you killed off an invading force of goblins by flinging them into rocks courtesy of your lame-o drawbridge?

Does the high-pressure water move in a straight line, or fan out as it leaves its chute? Guess that's irrelevant as two doors would be needed to keep the unwanted guests milling around in front of the chute while the trap was being activated. Would this work on creatures of any size, or are titans and the like immune to water's force?

Also, the Wiki has an article on water pressure. Go figure! That page has some good stuff on it.

Water will fan out if the space is available, lowering the overall pressure of the end result. If you make a narrow tunnel leading into your fortress with a cliff at the end, and then flood it, everything in that tunnel should be shoved right off the edge, assuming they have no ramps to climb up onto. The narrower you make it the more force the water will have, but the most force comes from the source of it - if you make the source a reservoir a few z-levels up and then, say, a single hatch that opens when you hit a lever, the water will have a great amount of force and will smash everything pretty far.

[Sabre_Justice]

I just use the good old Dwarven Trash Compactor (a bridge). But hey, it wouldn't be Dwarven if it weren't ridiculously overcomplicated!