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[ThiefofTime]

Is there a real-life way to do this with the available technology of DF? Like for example evaporating water in an enclosed space, leaving the salt which is somehow removed, for then to let the vapour cool and become water again?

It raises the question of what exactly the workshop we call a 'still' is.  A real-world still boils liquid and re-condenses some of it to increase the alcohol content of liquid.  The same device can be used for water desalination.  If the 'still' workshop is actually intended to represent a real distillery, rather than some magical undefined alcohol-producing device, it should be possible to use the still to produce fresh water from salt water.  You should also be able to use it to produce mercury from cinnabar - a technology that's been around since Roman days.

I believe the workshop we call a still should be more accurately called a brewery. The process of making an alcoholic drink from a plant is not distilllation, it is fermentation (and mashing up/ stewing the fruit, adding yeast, etc.) in the future I'm sure alcohol production will be a little bit more complicated, supporting more than one ingredient and requiring time for the booze to mature in barrels. And making dwarves that drink immature booze sick or at least frowned upon by the upper class dwarves.

[zilpin]

Agreed.
Brewery.
Brew mash, distill whiskey.  Distillery should burn fuel.

But before those new features are added, how about some of the more annoying interface weaknesses and design flaws are repaired?

Like, for example, unifying the material selection interfaces so that any workshop can select specific materials, or select any nearest, or whatever (like how the building interface works).
Farmers and Masons, I'm looking at you.
Gem cutter, just cut everything please.

[Safe-Keeper]

im pretty sure when water evaporates it disappears, so no.

I said:

Is there a real-life way to do this with the available technology of DF? Like for example evaporating water in an enclosed space, leaving the salt which is somehow removed, for then to let the vapour cool and become water again?

Water doesn't magically vanish into thin air when it evaporates in reality. So if it's possible to do it in reality, the real-life method should be incorporated into DF.

The still/distillery/brewery discussion is very relevant to my interests.

[Grumman]

If it helps, I have successfully desalinated water by pumping it into a chamber with constructed walls and smoothed floors.

In what version?

In 31.03. I've got a trench that collects wash from the ocean waves, with a pump at one end. From there the water is pumped into the space above the artificial freshwater pond.

[AncientEnemy]

im pretty sure when water evaporates it disappears, so no.

I said:

Is there a real-life way to do this with the available technology of DF? Like for example evaporating water in an enclosed space, leaving the salt which is somehow removed, for then to let the vapour cool and become water again?

Water doesn't magically vanish into thin air when it evaporates in reality. So if it's possible to do it in reality, the real-life method should be incorporated into DF.

The still/distillery/brewery discussion is very relevant to my interests.

using the technology the dwarfs have available, yes, they could easily distill water. it isn't implemented in the game, but you can distill water with nothing more than a pot, a fire, and a sheet of metal (or any material really) and something to collect it in. heat water in pot, place sheet above it at a slanted angle. water boils, steam goes up, condenses on the sheet, runs down the slant into the collection vessel. salt/other impurities remain in the pot. dorfs could easily produce a 'real' still that would do the same thing in a more efficient fashion.

[Shrike]

One thing I remember from some survival guide or other:
In a desert, if you have a pan/sierra cup and a few tarps/plastic liners, you can put the cup in a lined pit, urinate in the pit, and cover it with another liner, placing a rock on the upper liner to create a downward point that the evaporating water will condense on and drip into the pan.

When I think about it now, that seems really inefficient due to the moisture absorption of the sand...

[SoulSkorpion]

Hang on, you guys said you're using SMOOTHED floors. I'm using CONSTRUCTED floors. I wonder if that's the difference?... Honestly I'm grasping at straws here.

I've just tried digging a 5x5 pit next to the lake, lining the pit with constructed walls and floors and pumping the water in, on the theory that the water has to drop into the pit. It's still not showing up as drinkable from the zone menu. Water level is at 4.

I guess I'll throw in a well for good measure, but as I understand it that's not supposed to desalinate water in the new version?

[SoulSkorpion]

Waitasec!

1: The dwarves are apparently drinking from where I've pumped the water into, which I've designated as a water source but the number in parens in the zone menu is still 0.
2: I put a well in the SALTWATER lake, to contrast it with the one I've put in my freshwater lake, and it looks like they're using it too!

So I guess it does actually desalinate the water, it just doesn't tell you it has...

I'm just testing whether it can be used to fill ponds with a bucket (hopefully indicating that it can be used to give water to injured dwarves)...

..it does! Woo!

[Nathair]

heat water in pot, place sheet above it at a slanted angle. water boils, steam goes up, condenses on the sheet, runs down the slant into the collection vessel. salt/other impurities remain in the pot. dorfs could easily produce a 'real' still that would do the same thing in a more efficient fashion.

Don't even need a fire, all you need is a piece of glass and the sun.

[Grumman]

1: The dwarves are apparently drinking from where I've pumped the water into, which I've designated as a water source but the number in parens in the zone menu is still 0.

Did you designate the squares the dwarf stands on next to the pond, or only squares above the pond itself?