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[Jong]

Hello everyone!

I am working on my no-immigrants mega construction challenge and I have just completed the first major milestone: the completion of my over-sized multi z-level tower cap chamber.

The tower cap chamber is supposed to be irrigated via an overly elaborate sprinkler system I installed in the roof, however it is not performing as expected. Since it was a number of z-levels below the level of the cave river, I was hoping for a massive wall of water rushing down the pipes when I opened the doors. Instead I got a pathetic dribble of water that even an untrained dwarf can outrun. 

I thought this might be because the pipes were empty and the pressure was not transmitting properly through the non full tiles. But when I waited for my system to be full and open a hatch, lines of non-7 tiles started to appear. Obviously the water is merely draining from the surrounding tiles. It takes a long period of time before I get the desired wall of 7s creeping towards the hatch and get a moderate flow of water through.

What gives? I have seen a number of movies where the dwarves get swamped by an impossibly fast wall of water. Do I really have to go so far as to install a series of pumps? I was expecting the pressure to be sufficient.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/map-6112-razorlength

[Efun]

I think the distance that some of the water has to travel may be the problem... other than that i dont know

[AtomicPaperclip]

It's hard to tell just how slow it's going from my perspective, but if you dug out another hole it should go twice as fast, in theory.

[Soralin]

The distance shouldn't make a difference if it's all filled.  I think the The main limitation on how fast the water flows seems to be your intake from the river.

Right now as it is, it should go fast for a very brief while, but your 4 tall column of water will be depleted almost immediately.  And once that happens, your water flow is now limited to how fast water can move from the river into your channel (or how fast it can flow to the sides within the sprinkler system, which is probably even slower).  You could dig out a channel the entire width of the river down to the sprinkler system, and then remove that wall there, that might speed things up a bit, not sure.  If you build a big reservoir of water then that will make the fast flow last for longer when the sprinkler gates are opened.  But once your reservoir runs out, the rate as which your water flows will be dependent on how fast it comes in from the river.  Even if you use a pump tower, the limiting factor in the end will be how fast it can pull water from the river, which is dependent on how fast the river can refill.  Build a giant tank or carve out a big section of rock to fill with water and have that open down into your sprinkler system if you want to have a big pulse of water.

[Efun]

when in doubt.... MORE PUMPS!!!!

[ephrion]

I second the giant tank idea.  Water at 7/7 transmits pressure instantly, so if you have a big tank, 20x20, 5 z levels full, it'll transmit 2,000 squares of water down a 1 wide tunnel in one frame, and then start working with flow. 

[Shoku]

Water resting on top of other water tries to teleport to the first available tile next to connected water at a lower level. Because of this it's largely a matter of how you set your system up.

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Does end up send water out faster the taller you make it but

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Should easily outperform it in terms of wall o water.

One time in doing an artsy towercap cavern with rerouted river flowing through it I think I let loose so much water that the drop into the bottomless pit at the end built a pyramid of water so high for a moment that the water started teleporting into the waterfall hallway instead and gave all of my hungry dwarves a short bath instead. Whether the water pyramid explains it or not I got water to go sideways when it had an unavoidable five z level pit I thought it would fall into.

[Hyndis]

Use water pressure. Granted you will still have to have the raw water input to fill up that much area, but with water pressure you can pour water into a very small space, like a 2x2 shaft fueled by 8 pumps, and this will force water out the bottom at a very high speed.

[Bloogonis]

My tower cap flooder, was made by digging ramps to build a massive inverted pyramid. the Presure works pretty darn well with all that pressure, the hard part is getting drainage to work properly to deal with that much water.

[jaked122]

My tower cap flooder, was made by digging ramps to build a massive inverted pyramid. the Presure works pretty darn well with all that pressure, the hard part is getting drainage to work properly to deal with that much water.

smooth out the rock borders, instant chasm

[ein]

Smooth then carve fortifications.

[Chutney]

Okay. People keep mentioning building fortifications to drain water. The wiki didn't seem to have anything about fortifications and their uses as drains so I'm going to have to ask.
What are you guys talking about? How do I harness this powerful technology? Do I just build a fortification in a wall touching water and it all gets suck in or what?

[Gergination]

Dig to the edge of the map, smooth it and then carve a fortification.  They allow fluid to flow and the edge will then function as a chasm.

[Jong]

Great advice. I'll be sure to add a large cistern once I've completed the pump towers.

[Vengeful Donut]

With that much area to fill, it will need to be a very large cistern. The problem you've run into is that more water just isn't being created fast enough to fill all of the available area. The water can flow as fast as it likes through the column, but that doesn't do us any good once it runs out.