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[greycat]

I thought I understood how water works in this game, but... maybe not.

I have a brook on Z=147.  I dug a tunnel to it, with a diagonal jaunt (which is supposed to remove pressure) into a 90 degree turn, then a three-level drop (through a staircase) down to the center of a reservoir on Z=144.  I put a floodgate at the end of the tunnel (right by the last square of soil that I'd have to remove to breach the brook), linked it to a lever, then opened it.  Then I channeled through that last square.  When the reservoir was full, I pulled the lever again, closing the floodgate.  So, there should be TWO things stopping the water from having pressure: the floodgate and the diagonal path in the tunnel.  Right?

On Z=145, right above the edge of the reservoir, I channeled three holes for wells.  This is my first year in the fortress, so I didn't have the supplies to build all three yet; so I built one well in the center hole and left the other two open.

Then I dug out a space for underground farms, and a matching space above that, with channel in the upper space for bucket irrigation.  The upper level is very near the well(s).

Once that was dug, I designated 4 pond zones for the first farm plot.  Dwarves grabbed buckets and headed to the wells.  Next thing I know, two of them are in the reservoir (with their buckets) directly underneath the open holes (not the well in the middle), and there's a flood of water all over the well "room" on Z=145 above the reservoir.  The tunnel on Z=147 (brook level) is missing some of its water.  As near as I can tell, some of the water was sucked upward from the reservoir into the well room, and is now being replaced by water from the upper tunnel.  And two dwarves are in the reservoir.

Did the dwarves jump into the reservoir because the single well was in use, and their bodies displace a whole bunch of water upward into the well room?  Or did the use of the center well somehow cause the reservoir to gush upward into the room and knock the other two dwarves in the open holes?

Will I ever understand how to avoid premature aquatic fun?

[Daetrin]

You have to depressurize at the level you want the water to be. When it goes down levels, it repressurizes.

[Smew]

You have to depressurize at the level you want the water to be. When it goes down levels, it repressurizes.

This, essentially, diagonals only RESET the pressure, not remove it.

Also, the title of this thread would make for a great dwarven folk song.

[Quietust]

There is no such thing as "resetting pressure" - pressure is a procedure that is applied to moving liquids, not a property inherent to a body of liquid.

Water pressure can only force water to move north, south, east, west, up, or down. It cannot force water to move diagonally - for that, it just needs to spread out naturally. Once you have more than 1 Z-level of water in a chamber, it will exert pressure.

[Scaraban]

There is no such thing as "resetting pressure" - pressure is a procedure that is applied to moving liquids, not a property inherent to a body of liquid.

Water pressure can only force water to move north, south, east, west, up, or down. It cannot force water to move diagonally - for that, it just needs to spread out naturally. Once you have more than 1 Z-level of water in a chamber, it will exert pressure.

yes your diagonals should be post drop or the entire gesture is futile, also floodgates do nothing to water when open, when closed they function as a barrier

[greycat]

Good to know... any clue why the two dwarves fell in the holes?  I could almost understand them falling in the well, if they were queueing up there to get water, but they shouldn't have been near the other two holes -- they might as well have just gone to the brook or a murky pond (although I didn't declare any water gathering zones).

[MaDeR Levap]

I dug a tunnel to it, with a diagonal jaunt (which is supposed to remove pressure) into a 90 degree turn, then a three-level drop

Diagonal jaunt should be AFTER three level drop, not before. Jaunt sets pressure, alright - maximally up to z-level where jaunt is placed.

[gtmattz]

Good to know... any clue why the two dwarves fell in the holes?  I could almost understand them falling in the well, if they were queueing up there to get water, but they shouldn't have been near the other two holes -- they might as well have just gone to the brook or a murky pond (although I didn't declare any water gathering zones).

They probably got washed down into the hole when the room flooded.