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[Schilcote]

Hi, I'm new here. So if I did something terribly wrong just tell me.

Anyway, I recently had the idea to attempt to construct a sea-bound fortress. I selected an embark tile right off of an ocean, hacked in a couple thousand units of meat, tower-cap wood, and diorite, among other things, and set out. I then constructed a simple raft, four tiles of tower-cap wood floor. I deconstructed the bit of floor that was holding the raft to the land and... it fell into the ocean and smashed into individual bits of (oddly non-buoyant) wood, along with sweeping my woodworker into the ocean where he drowned. I tried a couple other times, but I got the same result each time. I'd at least like to have a raft that I can fool around with, if not a complete floating fortress.

Is there any way to make wood float, or can floatyness be included in some future version of DF? If so, I'd also like to be able to make fully mobile sea fortresses/vehicles...

[sunshaker]

Sorry but no.

Nothing Floats in DF (at least not yet) so you can't build a floating raft. All constructions fall through water to the bottom of body of water if they are not attached. There is no way to mod the game to make wood float. At the present time you can not make a mobile sea fortress/vehicle.

[Kidiri]

There is a way to make things 'float'. Whether it be on sea or in the air. If you turn cave-ins off, unsupported blocks of floor/wall/anything will not cave in. This is done by opening init.txt and changing [CAVEIN:YES] to [CAVEIN:NO]. This file can be found in wheredfislocatedonyourcomputer/data/init. Real buoyancy isn't implemented (yet?). That is the closest you can get.

[Schilcote]

I guess that's okay... it still won't MOVE though...

Is underwater construction a possibility?

[The Architect]

Yes.

You need to drain an area of a body of water first, then build and let the water back in to cover it.

[sunshaker]

Or let the water freeze and the mine and build quickly before the water melts again.

[The Architect]

Yes, that's somewhat viable if you get an area with a body of water that freezes for more than a season at a time. Even then you'd do better building a retaining wall during the freezing season so that you could continue building after the melt. You could then take down the wall in a subsequent freeze.

There are other scrub tactics like digging an area adjacent to a body of water and then letting the water enter the new area, or pumping water up to cover your construction. It makes things a bit less impressive when you don't actually have to overcome the challenges that come with building under the ocean/sea/lake.

[Schilcote]

Eh, I was thinking more along the lines of building a platform above water and then just building downwards...

[Radivnal]

I believe there was some talk about creating a ring of pumps to pump water out faster than it could flow back into the gap, then building this construction all the way to the seabed? I'm afraid I'm pretty rusty on atlantean architectural technique.

[Beanchubbs]

I believe there was some talk about creating a ring of pumps to pump water out faster than it could flow back into the gap, then building this construction all the way to the seabed? I'm afraid I'm pretty rusty on atlantean architectural technique.

This works to an extent. I haven't tried it too much, only to dam rivers and stop flooding, but I doubt you could reach seabed with this method. You'd have to build pumps on each level, and have them running all the time while you make your construction. I'm sure you could probably do this, but not too well.

[Shrike]

Not currently.

However, the new release WILL allow you to build stairs down from the top, so you can pump out a hole in the water, build stairs down, wall it up, and try to make a dwarven cassion to work from.

Heck, there's going to be a whole bunch of people trying out the sea fortress idea again next release. It will be interesting to see how people solve the problem of going more one z-level down without the use of magma.

I've heard rumors that people have managed to get to the bottom by the pump ring alone, but I really don't see how it's possible...
Wait, I actually do have an idea.
Not just a ring of pumps, but a ring of pump towers. At water level, you pump IN. One floor above, you pump OUT. With all the pumps working simultaneously, you should then be able to construct the next pump level (out), which will be picked up by the ring that moves the water in, which is picked up by the top level, which moves it out of the cassion.

I will have to try this. Hmm...
Actually, a pump and floor dome structure would be even better, as you could have more draining in a larger area and build the power mechanisms from the top down, and even have the waterwheels up on top. I think.

But right now, implementing it would be impossible because you can't build down from above or sink anything without using a magma cast.

And now I'm wondering if you can build a double-hulled magma cast that would allow the construction of  cassions and pylons all the way to the bottom.

[Retro]

I believe there was some talk about creating a ring of pumps to pump water out faster than it could flow back into the gap, then building this construction all the way to the seabed? I'm afraid I'm pretty rusty on atlantean architectural technique.

This works to an extent. I haven't tried it too much, only to dam rivers and stop flooding, but I doubt you could reach seabed with this method. You'd have to build pumps on each level, and have them running all the time while you make your construction. I'm sure you could probably do this, but not too well.

It actually works quite well if you have heaps of power, pumps, and space!

The idea is: Take your body of water and build a single line of floors along it (and then do the same for all other sides) and build a line of pumps along it. The pumps take the water in your square area and pump it elsewhere, being the Z level the pumps themselves are on. You're going to need to make access beforehand so you can get in through the watery torrents, unless one side of your square area comprised of land, which would make things a lot easier in terms of access.

Once your central square is drained, water will cease to come in anymore, making this area the location of your new pump square. Keep in mind this method requires tons and tons and tons of space. Your pumps on this new z-level will need to be built so that their output goes directly into the above pumps' input. Then another square becomes drained where you make a new pump square, etc. Requires obscene amounts of power, but if you've got that and enough space, you could get through effectively unlimited z-levels, I believe. Hook it all up to a single gear assembly and lever and you have your very own at-will Moses Effect to reveal the entrance to your fort (or even the entire fort itself)!

[Shrike]

Right; I was thinking in terms of keeping it as small as possible with regard to the footprint. If you do an inverted pyramid of pumps starting from a shoreline, you can cut ramps into the shore and as the water level drops, cut a ramp into each subsequent level.

[The Architect]

The problem with the pump method is that your space becomes progressively smaller as it goes deeper (with most designs). The Pump Stack method of moving liquid through many z-levels efficiently involves stacking the pumps so that each level's input coincides with the level below's output; the problem is that when building concentric rings of pumps the drained area becomes much smaller with every level. Not only does the method require a huge amount of power and effort, but it is largely ineffective.

For a quick visual, imagine an inverted pyramid with a very shallow slope. Now imagine hundreds of pumps lining the highest level, and imagine building it in DF. ergh.

More complex methods involving frequently constructing and deconstructing pumps can circumvent the problems with the pump style of draining an area. Once finally in place, the pumps have impressive results.

[BigD145]

Rise from the deep!!

Or fall from above. I would love to see the Caisson idea, but have it start out as a tower above water and then just disconnect it, making sure the tower is floored at the top and bottom and is taller than the water is deep wherever you drop it. Even if the bottom floor or two is crushed it's all good if the rest survives. You'd have your very own one way diving bell if you pack all your dwarfs in.

Could the bottom level of walls be made indestructible, through cheating, and have all walls above survive the "cave-in"?