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[PwndJa]

All was well in Silvergate. A surplus of food and not a single goblin(Or any invader at all) to speak of in the 2 years since it's beginning made sure the Dwarves were happy. It even had a fancy "starter" high pressure flood room Elven trader guest room while the miners deep within the fort toiled day and night to carve a Trade quarter into the rock. Everything was nofunperfect until a screw pump decided to take a break.

The specific pump was one level higher then the flood room, responsible for pumping water into a short "pipe" that lead to the river and keeping said water out. The system worked flawlessly when I tested it on pesky elven traders that refused to accept my offers unless they were walking away with >2000* in profit. A year later hell broke loose. I was overseeing my miners poking a rather large vein of Magnetite when I spotted some water in my dining hall. The source was the river and a screw pump that apparently dismantled itself. Fun ensued, but that's not what I'm here for.

Has anyone ever had a screw pump "malfunction"? Could it have been high pressure water? I really don't see any other way this could have happened. All of my Dwarves were hauling silly amounts of iron ores to a quantum stockpile near the smelters or doing real jobs that filthy immigrant peasants aren't suited for.

[Flare]

I've found out that pumps without a solid base will dismantle themselves in time.  I think someone should update the pump wiki on that. You technically can build them on on square with one tile of the pump hanging in mid air, but it will dismantle itself after a period of time as I found out while designating multiple pumps to be built atop each other.

[Nekudotayim]

I've found out that pumps without a solid base will dismantle themselves in time.  I think someone should update the pump wiki on that. You technically can build them on on square with one tile of the pump hanging in mid air, but it will dismantle itself after a period of time as I found out while designating multiple pumps to be built atop each other.

Are you implying that a pump stack like shown below will dismantle itself?

[Lord Vetinari]

I can't talk for versions past .12, but that never happened to me.

[Flare]

I've found out that pumps without a solid base will dismantle themselves in time.  I think someone should update the pump wiki on that. You technically can build them on on square with one tile of the pump hanging in mid air, but it will dismantle itself after a period of time as I found out while designating multiple pumps to be built atop each other.

Are you implying that a pump stack like shown below will dismantle itself?

No, pumps above with another pump below still waiting to be built, will dismantle itself if the bottom pump isn't built in time and the top pump is built first. This is a common occurrence due to the fact that the dwarves always give building priority to the highest build designation.

The pump stack will remain intact if the bottom pump is sitting on solid ground. If you remove the bottom pump, the whole thing will come tumbling down at some point though.

[anon_outlaw]

so a hanging pump will fall apart after a while? how long?

[Flare]

I don't know. My FPS has been fluctuating wildy in my new fort. But it's a pain in the ass to come back to what should be a set of built pump, only to find their components strewn all over the place.

[Sphalerite]

I have built many, many pump stacks and elaborate water-powered machines with screw pumps in various configurations.  I have never seen a pump spontaneously deconstruct itself.  Pumps that aren't supported will deconstruct instantly, pumps that are supported never deconstruct.  If you remove the bottom pump in a pump stack, they all come apart at once.

Is your fortress in an area where water freezes?  It might have been due to water in or on the pump freezing and destroying it.

[MarcAFK]

can pumps be destroyer by tantrum?

[Flare]

I have built many, many pump stacks and elaborate water-powered machines with screw pumps in various configurations.  I have never seen a pump spontaneously deconstruct itself.  Pumps that aren't supported will deconstruct instantly, pumps that are supported never deconstruct.  If you remove the bottom pump in a pump stack, they all come apart at once.

Is your fortress in an area where water freezes?  It might have been due to water in or on the pump freezing and destroying it.

I think it has something to do with how the game lets you build on bridges even when there's no clear support for them. I also think it might have something to do with the 500 steps the dwarves need to take as well as constructing the pumps that contributes to the dismantling of the pumps. The dwarves in my game tend to build the top ones first regardless if anything is actually under them. As you know, the game won't allow you to build a pump when it's sitting only on one tile. But it will permit it to be built if you designate a pump to be built right under it.
From my experience, if the pump isn't built in time (or perhaps the dwarf gets interrupted by drink) all the pumps that have been sitting on half the required support will dismantle themselves.

I'm pretty sure it's not due to tantrums either. One it's quite unlikely to have a series of 10+ pumps instantaneously be dismantled by one dwarf, and if they did I don't see why they would need to go so deep to take out one at the bottom. Second, all 127 dwarves in the fort is more or less happy and upwards.

As for water freezing, no such luck I'm afraid. The climate in the region I'm in is more or less the one that melts the fat off dwarves when they have a water covering. A significant number of dwarves in the military have at least some parts of their fat entirely melted off. I think a few of them are actually fully magma resistant because of this actually.

[Girlinhat]

Pumps are mechanisms, and as such follow a different set of rules than normal constructions, namely that they don't need a solid support in all cases.  If you try to build a pump in the air, it'll say "Need ground or nearby machine".  This means that pumps can be built atop machines, like gear assemblies and other pumps.  This is how you can manage to build a pump on one tile with the other tile overhanging another pump.  It seems to act a little quirkier than other machines though, in that the build parameters are slightly wonky.

Also, it never touched fire, I assume?  If it's made with a steel pipe, steel screw, and wooden block, it'll deconstruct with fire/lava.

[ral]

Even with no pump and just a floodgate, I think I've seen a tile of solid sand somehow get eroded away, flooding an area.

In order to prevent flooding, always build lots of doors everywhere! You especially want to build doors around your main stairwell on every floor so that even if a whole floor gets flooded the water won't be able to flood any more levels. Your dining hall should never flood because it should always have doors at every opening, and preferably around any wells you might have.

Also, any tunnels that lead to areas where you have pump rooms or other areas prone to flooding accidents should have doors on them on both sides. Make sure to use magma safe stone if you're dealing with magma.

Basically the doors act like bulkheads and are a great thing from the safety perspective. You can crank out stone doors like crazy so they're extremely cheap to build. I put them everywhere (within reason). This has saved me many headaches.

[Girlinhat]

Drainage tunnels aren't a bad idea either.  Dig a tunnel down to the cavern layer(s), and then put a grate at the top.  In the chance that you ever do flood, the water will drain through the grates and safely off into the caverns.  When doing big projects with water, it can be very worthwhile to make a 3x3 "tower" from the surface, dug down to the cavern.  Put walls on the corner tiles and bars on the flat edges, with a grate at the top.  This will let fluids from any location drain down, just in case you misjudged that in-dining room waterfall and risk flooding, here's your insurance!

[ral]

That's not a bad idea though I usually dig out drainage tunnels reactively instead of proactively. Also make sure to put floodgates on everything so you can always shut off all water sources even if you don't think you'll need to. Place levers in dead end rooms with a door to make sure those don't become inaccessible due to flooding. For any floodgates that are normally closed and exposed to dry areas, especially on the outside of the fort, put a fortification or a dry moat in front of them to keep trolls and other building destroyers from getting to them.

Seems like anything can happen in this game even if you don't think it can so I've learned to assume the worst.

[Maklak]

I haven't build pumpstacks yet, just a 40 pump mist generator, but I can't see the problem with dismantling pumpstacks. You can bould twin pumpstacks, with 2 pumps on every level, one transmitting power, and the other on solid ground. That way you can have something with similar functionality for twice the cost! Or if that's too much, then a spare gear assembley connected to a pump every few levels should do the trick.