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[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

What's the simplest fool-proof screw pump tower design, dig plan, and setup? Does someone have a "fire and forget" dig plan for Quickfort that I can just run and it'll work? What screw pump tower setups do people use? There are just so many little mini-issues to keep straight -- dig order, building roads on the empty squares, power routing etc. -- that it's giving me a headache trying to figure out the best simplest way to do it.

[FleshForge]

There's basically only one way to put a pump stack together, outside of cosmetic stuff.  If you dig it correctly, then the pumps can only be placed one way (the way that will work).  Each pump except the bottom takes two holes in the floor, one for liquid to be drawn from and one for power transmission to its neighbor pump below.  Dig those holes "1 0 1 0" alternating with "0 1 0 1" and the pumps can only be placed the correct way, if you're able to place the pump in more than one way then the holes are wrong.

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Pump_stack#Pump_Stack

Check out the pics, they make it pretty clear.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Ok, so you basically have to

1) dig the tunnels
2) dig the channelled out squares
3) place the pumps
4) place roads over the non-pump, non-channeled squares
5) connect power to the top pump

like that? Am I missing any steps?

[FleshForge]

I don't get where roads come in, I've never done that nor heard of such.  What's that about?

As for power, I'm pretty sure you can hook it up at top OR bottom, I know I've powered pump stacks from the bottom and they worked.  It may be you can plug power in anywhere in the structure.

[Dr. Hieronymous Alloy]

Roads to prevent trees from growing in empty squares and stopping water flow.

[FleshForge]

That makes sense, although should only be necessary in one place per level, the outfall of the pump.  Constructed floor works the same, for preventing trees, but doesn't take architecture to build, so you may want to do that instead.

[Hans Lemurson]

If you build a useless little axle next to each pump, then that will provide additional support in case the pumps underneath somehow suffer a catastrophic failure, or your dwarves fail to plan ahead in the order of construction.

I dig in the following pattern:

Code: [Select]

###### odd-numbered Z-level
#XDD##
##D###
#HDH##
######

###### even-numbered Z-level
#XDD##
###D##
##HDH#
######

# = ground
D = Dig
H = cHannel
X = Up/down stair
The channeling sets up all the proper holes for the power connections, and the digging next to the staircase ensures that you have maintenance access to the pumps (without danger of leakage, since the passageway only leads to the "walkable" side).  You don't need to bother with bunches of doors like in that design on the wiki, and since the water will be flowing through ramps, vegetation growth isn't a problem.

[FleshForge]

Something to keep in mind about the useless little axles - every chunk of axle consumes power.  It's not terribly hard to make up for that, but in a very tall pump stack it may add up to a lot.  They also require construction time.

[Hans Lemurson]

Something to keep in mind about the useless little axles - every chunk of axle consumes power.  It's not terribly hard to make up for that, but in a very tall pump stack it may add up to a lot.  They also require construction time.

I've done it before, and they only consume 1 power each.  In my opinion a 10% increase in power requirements is a small price to pay for a tower that won't completely collapse at the slightest mishap.  Constuction time is also no issue; axles require only a single material and no architecture and so build MUCH faster than a pump does.  Wood consumption is really the only thing you have to worry about, since you're looking at 1 wood per stack level.  If you just 'axle-fasten' every-other pump, then you'll cut your wood consumption in half but retain much of the benefits.

The biggest benefit to using axles is that it actually SAVES TIME, since the order you construct the pumps in no longer matters.  Once the axles are in place you can build all your pumps in parallel.