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[Tanelorn]

Hi.

I just started a fortress game in a mostly freezing biome (freezing mountain, freezing glacier, freezing shrubland, cold grassland).
One of my starting 7 dwarves got injured and is resting. But I don't have any unfrozen water on my map to give him (the cold grassland doesn't have any ponds)

Will the ponds in the freezing schrubland thaw in summer, or is my dwarf a goner?

[kalida99]

Unless you have magma, no they'll never thaw...

(unless i'm wrong i don't play freezing biomes often)

[Stargrasper]

I believe you can mine out the ice, leaving behind ice 'rocks'.  Drag them inside to an appropriate setting (your cistern) and let them melt.  That ought to start you off well enough if you haven't found magma.  Note that if you run out of booze, your dwarves will drink that instead.  If you don't actually have liquid surface water, this is going to be a very precious commodity that you don't want anyone but the injured drinking.

[Albedo]

Will the ponds in the freezing schrubland thaw in summer, or is my dwarf a goner?

If summer is a long way off, then a goner either way.

But the question is - will your biomes warm up enough in summer? Can't answer that for you, you'll have to wait and see.

In any map without water - desert or glacier - water is a priority.  Search these threads and the wiki for suggestions on how to make it.

[Tcei]

My understanding is that ice blocks melt into puddles which are useless for gathering water. Your best bet (if you dont have an underground water sorce or magma) is to colapse part of the glacier into a rock lair This'll create a cistern of water with an ice plug above it.

[Grendus]

Depending on the temperature, it may get above freezing in summer or it may not.

Hopefully at some point Toady will change it so dwarves will use ice to get water. Chiseling out ice or sucking on icicles is a common way of getting water in frozen areas. Perhaps adding in a purifier building that purifies water from ice or salt water into buckets that can be used to fill cisterns.

[ChairmanPoo]

you can actually build ice walls?

Shit, now I feel tempted to build a giant wall sort of like in ASoI&F

[Albedo]

you can actually build ice walls?

wiki: "Ice"

[Puck]

Which also has a section about caveins and frozen ponds, which might as well be the only option to turn that ice into water.

Well, technically, both ice and water are water but you know what I mean.

[Albedo]

Here's a suggestion, and I don't know the result - a carved "stone" of ice, when melted, yields a depth of 1/7 water.  If you built a wall of these ice-stones several levels high, suspended above the ground level, and then collapsed it, it ~might~ not collapse the floor below, and might melt into water deeper than 1/7 - don't know, but might be worth a try.

If then quickly dug a drain beneath it (a pre-existing drain might also collapse in the crush?), then drained that shallow water off to a cistern, that might work well.

Or not. 

Good luck!

[Puck]

A block of natural ice however, no matter from how much water it was created, supposedly turns into 7/7 water. So I'd prefer collapsing the blocks.

Last I tried, artificial floors wont keep water from freezing again, however, so I dont see how this is supposed to work, anyway. If a ceiling would work, you could just floor over the friggin ponds, and tadaaaa, water.

[Albedo]

Communication is not happening - let me try again.  (And it may well be flawed - it's an untested suggestion.)

Natural floor, not a constructed one, and naturally inside, naturally covered.  Large chamber several levels high.  Build the walls (or, as per your suggestion, prepare a natural ice ceiling for collapse).  Collapse, see what's collected.

Since the floor is both natural and inside, no refreezing should occur (I think this requires digging down to a stone floor, right?)

[Hyndis]

Freezing biomes have ice pretty much all year round. There may be a very, very brief thaw, but probably not.

If the biome is just cold, then you will have summer weather. You'll have flowing water for at least a few months, but it will be ice most of the year.

Temperature is a few months of ice in the winter with mostly warm weather.

Warm climates means no ice at all, and water will probably dry up.

Hot climates, better hope you have a river for water, because those ponds are gonna be bone dry in seconds.

[Puck]

Communication is not happening - let me try again.  (And it may well be flawed - it's an untested suggestion.)

Natural floor, not a constructed one, and naturally inside, naturally covered.  Large chamber several levels high.  Build the walls (or, as per your suggestion, prepare a natural ice ceiling for collapse).  Collapse, see what's collected.

Since the floor is both natural and inside, no refreezing should occur (I think this requires digging down to a stone floor, right?)

yea sure, you can move the ice underground that way, but I thought I remember the wiki saying that water gained that way is not usable for anything - apart maybe from creating farmland.

and yeah, communication wasnt happening, sorry, my fault, i missed that little quirk 

[Tanelorn]

Freezing biomes have ice pretty much all year round. There may be a very, very brief thaw, but probably not.

In my case, the freezing shrubland with the frozen ponds thawed enough in mid-summer for the snow covering to partially melt.
So instead of snow covered frozen ponds, I got ... frozen ponds, with no snow in place. How very useful.

I'll have to get magma to the ponds then. Magma from the other side of the map. With a chasm in-between. Yup, that dwarf is a goner. He won't last that long. Oh well, I still have 6 ...