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[Albedo]

Cool, will take a look and maybe clarify if I can find what might have been confoozling.

[orbcontrolled]

For your first farm, don't bother with any fancy irrigation, go to a map with an underground water feature (there are options in the init file to make them visible on the world map), and then just find the biggest layer of soil you can and dig the whole layer hollow. Once you discover the river, all that space will sprout tower caps. You can do this easily within a year or so fortress time.

Irrigation is a bonus and will make things grow faster, but a layer of soil provides a quick way to get things moving without much work (or risk of floods).

[smjjames]

Also, don't make it too big or it will take FOREVER to drain. I learned this when I made a massive chamber about 168 or so tiles on each side (I actually wasn't planning on making a perfect square, it just came out that way), it took over a year to completely drain out.

[Albedo]

For your first farm, don't bother with any fancy irrigation...

Irrigation is a bonus and will make things grow faster, but a layer of soil provides a quick way to get things moving without much work (or risk of floods).

In theory, yes, but in practice a non-irrigated TC farm is almost useless.  VERY slow, very sparse.  Irrigated is the way to go, and "learning by doing making mistakes" is the dwarven way.

So, here's a relatively safe and simple irrigation plan:

Dig a tunnel from next to your river (don't breach!) to roughly the middle of your future TC farm, and up to it.  2 tiles wide should be ample, ramps or stairs should work fine. 

Now, the trick is to use a pump on the surface level to provide the water and the pressure.  Build your pump next to the river - (if it's a brook you'll have to channel 1 tile of the brook for the inflow - don't breach the tunnel!).  For the outflow, build a retaining wall around the start of your irrigation tunnel.

It will look like this:
                                           
      xX(   )   __________(surface)___________
~~~   |_|=                           ____TC_   _Farm____
River         |_|===================|_|

    xX  = pump
   (   ) = small walled retaining area on surface, to contain outflow of pump.
   |__| = channels, ramps, and/or stairs up to next level

So, this is a passive system -  a connection directly to the river is never channeled out, so it won't do anything unless manned by a dwarf, and it doesn't need any levers or floodgates.  Start the pump pumping, a dwarf will respond, the retaining wall will try to fill but will drain down, the tunnel will fill, and the water will start welling up out of the far end.

When at least 1/7 depth has covered almost the entire area (yes, you have to keep half an eye on it, so you are the point of failure!), go to the pump and tell it to stop pumping - order it deconstructed and then cancel that, and/or <A>ctivating the dwarf will do fine and be immediate, no lag.

The water settles out, evaporation begins, you can then seal up the tunnel or ignore it as you choose (even if you later, accidentally, breach the river/brook, the u-bend won't cause flooding if it's on the same level.)

(A linked drawbridge in middle of the tunnel will allow you to seal it for certain maintenance changes, and is good safe practice in a non-critical situation.)

[Elvin]

Non-muddied soil is very slow to grow. I had my first every towercap grow next to my farmer's fields. I treasured that towercap, I very nearly gave it it's own private corner and sealed it away behind a smooth wall. I should have done, because some goblins pathed in the chasing my farmers, and they squashed it.

Suffice it to say that they didn't even make it out of the area before my entire dwarf population attacked them in blind fury at the loss of their very first towercap.

[GoldenH]

How about dealing with a map where your only water source is a underground pool? i don't want to evaporate the water, since i have a finite amount of it. I have a tiny bit of dirt in a corner of the map but that's all.

[Albedo]

No murky pools?  I think you know the answer to that.

When you accept a map with challenges, they're real.  If you have no continuous source of water, and no way to collect rain (murky pools are the only way), what you have is all you'll ever have.

(It's possible to manufacture water if your map freezes - diff discussion.)

[GoldenH]

I don't have a problem with not being able to get more water (unless there is an infinite water bug around? I don't mind it), I just want to know what the most efficient use of it is. I have quite a bit of it - 64x7 squares at least. Ultimately I want to make a well, but the details involved - will muddy rock stay muddy forever? How shall I minimize evaporation? It is an interesting problem. Currently I am thinking of either building a series of subterranean terraces, like <|> with the central shaft being a well.

[Albedo]

Ah - I misunderstood.

Once muddied, stone/ground/floor will stay that way unless something is built on it and removed. 


I'd say the best then is to combine two tactics - one, avoiding evaporation, and two, precisely controlled amounts of water for irrigation.

The latter is achieved using a "measuring reservoir" - you figure out exactly how much water you want to dump, (at just over 1/7), calculate that into 7/7 depth*, and build your reservoir with a door (or hatch, or multiples) at one end, and a bridge at the other.  Both will be attached to a single lever.  The idea is that when one "opens", the other "closes".  This means that you're either filling the reservoir, or pouring it out, never both.

(Don't forget that 1/7 will be left behind - that's going to drain some, but if you're fast that won't evaporate before you fill the reservoir again.  Perhaps a well-placed pressure plate (or several?) set to 1/7 for refilling?  Pumps can refill faster than flow, avoiding yet more evaporation.)

The former is harder - probably either a retracting bridge or a series of over-head hatches to spread out the water.  The idea is to drop it fast across a wide area all at once, so the lead edge doesn't evaporate while it's creeping out to fill large areas. 

You could also build temporary aquaducts to spread the delivery across the area, either at ground level, and then deconstruct them, or above ground level - which could in fact be easier if dug out as tunnels, and don't require deconstruction and don't take up an arable footprint.

Each level could have channels down to the next - better to build drains to avoid wastage, and you can cover them with floor and then muddy that.

[bluea]

If you're draining across Z-levels instead of just "letting it all spread out and evaporate" on the same Z-level, drainage can be shockingly fast. It also allows you to re-concentrate your water somewhat if you're trying to conserve water.

[GoldenH]

ok so... water with a depth of 1 doesn't flow, even to fall down Z-levels? So I can at most irrigate one tile per 'water unit' I have in the pool? and I'm betting tree growing counts as building so un-muddies the tile that it grew on. I assume tower caps won't grow on constructions, so for example trying to make a bunch of floor grates muddy would be pointless.

How about if I make a pool full of 3/7 or 4/7 water... if tower caps grow underwater, I should be able to do this, then I can have my dwarves cut in a water farm forever?

Alternatively I considered making rows of pumps and channels. That way, even if 1/7 water didn't flow it could still be 'sucked up'. I'm not sure how much water is evaporated over the course of pumping, or if water is destroyed by activating floodgates, building constructions on it, making things wet, etc.

I'm also assuming that i can irrigate rock just fine, cuz otherwise that will cause severe complications.

[GoldenH]

And while I'm at it... will draining my pond have any effect on the cave spider that is making so much webs for me to harvest?

[Albedo]

Read the wiki on "irrigation". "Tower cap" too, while you're at it.

Nothing grows underwater, not even 1/7.  TC saplings are very fragile, and will drown if "re-irrigated", causing the whole area to start over (and many tiles covered w/ dead saplings, which take a long time to go away.)

Webs are even more fragile, but will appear on mud the same as dry stone/soil.

[GoldenH]

Yeah I've read the wikis, but they don't seem to provide much useful information if you're trying to conserve water.

And if tower-caps won't grow underwater why did I read people posting complaining about tower caps growing in their plumbing?

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=23016.0

[gtmattz]

Yeah I've read the wikis, but they don't seem to provide much useful information if you're trying to conserve water.

And if tower-caps won't grow underwater why did I read people posting complaining about tower caps growing in their plumbing?

http://www.bay12games.com/forum/index.php?topic=23016.0

Sometimes plumbing is dry for long enough to allow tc's to grow.