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[Fishbulb]

So lately I've been on a bit of a cleanliness kick in my forts, in no small part because I've heard rumors that contaminants can really drag down your frame rate.

Mostly I use the trick of a wading pool connected by lever-controlled hatch or floodgate to a windmill-powered permanently-running pump. Have the dwarves fill the pool to 3/7 or thereabouts by bucket brigade, wait until it's thick with blood and other whatevers, then drain it by pump. This leaves the floor of the pond (and the ramps, and the walls around it) covered in contaminants, so I set a meeting area at the bottom of the pond and wait for the dwarves to clean it by hand.

Surely there's a better way.

I've thought of using a drawbridge as an atom smasher, but I tend to have bad luck with those. Then I thought of coupling it with a panic-room burrow that I could force all my dwarves into with an alert … but that's just as big a pain as draining it and having the dwarves clean it, really. Plus which, it can't destroy contaminants on the ramps on either end of the pool.

Then I thought of using pumps to create permanent flow which carries the contaminants through a grate and onto an atom smasher I could safely trigger any time … but contaminants don't flow through grates. Plus, I've had a devil of a time so far figuring out how to create continuous flow while keeping the water level below the 4/7 "can't path through that" limit that shuts down traffic. Since it doesn't seem like that can solve the problem anyway, with the grate issue, I suspended that job and went searching for a better solution.

Before I dedicate a lot of time to !!SCIENCE!! trying to figure it out on my own, I thought I'd ask the hive mind. Other than manual cleaning (which is spotty) and atom-smashing (which is no more convenient than manual cleaning, it seems), what destroys contaminants? Is there a well-known clever idiom for this that's already out there?

[Phmcw]

Magma. What else?



There is also an uttilities that allow you to remove all contaminant of the map.

[Wiro]

Magma. What else?



There is also an uttilities that allow you to remove all contaminant of the map.

Actually there isn't any utility that removes all of them. Just the ones that are lying about as items, and not as splatters on one of the many pages of your dwarf's inventory.

[Sphalerite]

Atomsmashers don't destroy contaminates.  Magma and fire are the only things I've found that do.

I've tried to build a few types of dwarf-washing devices.  I've had to settle on containment rather than destruction - wash the gunk off your dwarves, then push it where they can't or won't step on it.  Pumps don't pick up contaminates, so if you have a closed loop washing system the stuff will gather on the tile under the pump inlet.  Contaminates can get stuck in/on walls, where it doesn't cause re-contamination of water or dwarves, so water flowing through diagonal passages tends to leave contamination behind on the walls.  It might be possible to use diagonal passages and a pump and place permanently burning artifacts to burn off the contaminates as they get deposited in the walls.

[Flaede]

Atomsmashers don't destroy contaminates.  Magma and fire are the only things I've found that do.

I've tried to build a few types of dwarf-washing devices.  I've had to settle on containment rather than destruction - wash the gunk off your dwarves, then push it where they can't or won't step on it.  Pumps don't pick up contaminates, so if you have a closed loop washing system the stuff will gather on the tile under the pump inlet.  Contaminates can get stuck in/on walls, where it doesn't cause re-contamination of water or dwarves, so water flowing through diagonal passages tends to leave contamination behind on the walls.  It might be possible to use diagonal passages and a pump and place permanently burning artifacts to burn off the contaminates as they get deposited in the walls.

You mean the burning-lignite-inna-bin trick has a good use now? One that doesn't involve killing framerate by evaporating water? JOY! I like this idea. Not that I ever have contaminant troubles. I'm almost tempted to incite some just for how fun the cleanup is suddenly sounding.

[LealNightrunner]

What would happen if you use a washing machine to get spatter off of dwarves and such and drain that water into an infinite trap like an aquifer?  Would the water just vanish but leave the contaminants?

[Scraggletag]

I'm pretty sure rain also destroys contaminants. Not a waterfall, actual rain. From the sky. It'll clean any tile it lands on at least.

I'm not sure if it'll clean dwarves or animals that are outside when it rains. Should be easy to test though. Try making an outdoor burrow and a military alert to confine dwarves to that burrow when it rains.

Perhaps you could try putting your wading pools outside and let them get cleaned up by rain? But that might be a problem if your maps freezes in winter.

[Sutremaine]

Atomsmashers don't destroy contaminates.  Magma and fire are the only things I've found that do.

Does that apply to contaminants on the anchored tiles of a raising bridge? I suspect that contaminants would simply perch on the raised area based on what I've seen happen to rained-on outdoor bridges, but hey, worth a shot.

[Kamamura]

Soapy water should destroy contaminants.

[Sphalerite]

Soapy water should destroy contaminants.

When I was trying out different dwarf-washing arrangements, I once built a floor from bars of soap under a waterfall, thinking perhaps this would stop blood smears from gathering.  Nice try, but Dwarf Fortress physics isn't smart enough to figure out that water+soap = soapy water.  A soap bar stockpile in a copper-floored basin didn't work either.

[Trouserman]

You can clean floors by building statues or windows, but it doesn't help on ramps and walls, and the dwarves may track some of the contaminants around while doing the work.  It's annoying to micro-manage, but more direct than waiting for them to decide to clean on their own.  Constructed floors and ramps do much the same, and are easier to designate en masse.  They can change the rock type of the underlying floor, so aren't appropriate in all areas, but that shouldn't be a problem for a dedicated wading pool.  Bridges can be built and removed to clean both floors and ramps, so maybe that's a better option.

Smoothing a rock surface also cleans it.  It only works once, but it's the only way I know to get splatter off a natural wall other than waiting and hoping someone decides to clean it eventually.  (Constructed walls, however, can be removed and rebuilt.)  Even magma seems helpless against bloody wall splatter, since it can't enter the cell.  I did read a tip somewhere that if you disable stone detailing on all dwarves, you can designate an area for smoothing and they'll still clean it without smoothing.  That might not be too painful if you use a labor management tool.

[pixl97]

Something is wrong with my current fort.... My dudes are actually cleaning the fort! I have 2 clean jobs going on at most times, kinda amazing. I have a waterfall in the middle of a large room without walls close to get splattered up. The grates have been kept clean by the workers. Pretty amazing, never had a fort that's been kept clean before.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Eskielidder]

Something is wrong with my current fort.... My dudes are actually cleaning the fort! I have 2 clean jobs going on at most times, kinda amazing. I have a waterfall in the middle of a large room without walls close to get splattered up. The grates have been kept clean by the workers. Pretty amazing, never had a fort that's been kept clean before.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

What an odd shaped room you have there 

[Sutremaine]

I think it's inside a large cluster.