Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Stoup]

So I want to build a trench in front of the entrance to my meeting area and have it filled consistently with 3/7 water or less. I have the trench built, but I run into the issue of how to keep the water level stable. I considered placing a pressure plate after the trench to activate at 4/7 to close a floodgate, but then I remembered you can only use mechanisms to open floodgates.

In the past, I've manually monitored water levels to allow for dwarves to take a bath, but I don't feel that's dwarfy enough any more. Any suggestions?

[Brandedahall]

mechs only open floodgates? are you talking about levers and such or just for plates?

why dont you link a lever, and if anything deadly gets in you can flood it

[Shurikane]

A bit of math shall do! 

First, figure out how many squares of trench you have.  Multiply by 3.  Let's call this number neededWater.

Next, build vertical reservoirs that are only 1 tile wide.  Why?  Because you want all the water to go down into the trench.  Not one more and not one less.  To do this, divide neededWater by seven.  If you can divide without any remainder, you're golden!  Otherwise, see if you can dig a bit more trench to make your own life easier.

Build the required reservoirs for the job, make sure the bottom's over the trenches and it's covered on all sides to prevent spillage.  Place a hatch linked to a lever too.

Okay!  Pumpstack this thing and fill your reservoirs to capacity!

Next, unleash the torrents, and if your calculations were right, you'll have a uniform trench layer of 3/7 water!

[Stoup]

By not being able to open floodgates, I meant with pressure plates... hence my dislike of having to manually assign a dwarf to pull a lever and get the water to flow through the trench.

Thanks for the advice, by the way! I suppose I have enough idle dwarves that they'll go about cleaning quite often, so in that regard I should be fine.

But is there any way to, say, have the water in the trench flowing consistently at 3/7?

[slothen]

pressure plates linked to gear assembly that supplies a pump with power will do an excellent job of keeping the water level where you want it.

[Psychobones]

I must be reading this wrong or something, it's a trench to clean blood and what not off of your dwarves right? So dig the trench and then use fill pond until it's where you want it. Correct me if I'm just retarded and missing something.

[Frosty_Dorf]

but I don't feel that's dwarfy enough any more.

anyway to set up a waterfall and make it a 2 layer walkway that uses an upper level grate as a floor, and a lower holding area with floorhatches that can be sealed to flood the hallway when intruders enter? and a way to swap from water to lava without making obsidian... or hell, a way to make obsidian that you can mine out later after the seige...

[MrNuke]

Really, when I make pools like that, I just use a bucket brigade...

I find it the easiest way to create a pool of water, without having to mine out new spaces.