I'm thinking about designing water powered conveyor belts for my new fort and i have questions.The idea is that the dwarves will pick up a caged animal from a remote location, like the choke point and put it on the animal stockpile. Water will then push the animal to the processing center, such as the slaughter zone or taming center inside the fotress. This'd greatly reduce the amount of time needed to haul animal around. I play on 7x7 embarks so edge traps are quite far away.
Here's the design, side view
#####X##############X#
z 0 # ÷>GX^P ^_X#
# ################# ##
z -1 ≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
_ Grate and the destination stockpile
G Floodgate
^ Pressure plates
P Starting stockpile (on the upward stair)
÷> Screw pump
X Stairs
# Wall
≈ Water
The idea is fairly simply, the endward side of the tunnel is restricted, thus to place item on the starting stockpile the hauler will have to go through the left pressure plate (twice), which activate the floodgate's repeater. Waterflow will then push the object toward the end of the tunnel. The pressure plate there will measure the water and when it reach a critical height like 6/7 or 7/7, will deactivate the repeater, closing the floodgate. After most of the excess water has drained, the object at the end of the tunnel can be picked up. Water speed and drainage can be controlled by stratergically placed pressure plates linked to hatches and extra pumps.
The questions being:
1) Does this work? It work
2) Are there any potential flaw in this design?
3) Ores are too small and fall through the grate into the reservoir. Stone are big enough so they are fine. Are there any grate type item that only allow water just in case?
4) dorfs dont like the idea of a bunches of stones stacking on each other and would try to destack them, usually involve carrying the stone back to the starting pile. Potential, untested solution: make the starting pile inaccessible if there are stuff on the end pile. Would this work?
5) dorfs cannot access the starting pile cause of 7/7 water. Potential, untested solution: ensure there's only 3/7 water with pressure plate. Would this work?
6) dorfs will pick up items on transit if they can access it ala 3/7 water. Potential, untested solution: Use a 2nd multi leveled pump, ensuring cages on transit inaccessible. This pump turn off when there's something at end point. Would this work?
None remains