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[Tsugumi Henduluin]

*edit*

Durr, I'm terribly sorry. I could swear I was in the questions section of the forum... Could a mod please move it? Thanks

*/edit*



Hail!

I recently finally managed to set up my first truly successful fort. I'm in my 5th year now and have managed to have 135+ dwarfs contently and drunkenly slave away at carving a Dwarven paradise in the mountains.

Now the basics of life are firmly and reliably in place, I set out to build a massive shaft of screw pumps to pump up magma some 50 z-levels so I can build a bunch of magma forges and furnaces (why do it the easy way when you can do it the dwarven way?)
The shaft itself is more or less done and the pumps are almost in place. That's not really the problem. The problem is supplying power, something I'm not entirely sure how it works.

If I read the wiki right, this pump system will require roughly 500 power. My test windmill told me they produce 40 power on my map, so I'll need at least 13 of them.

My question is then: How in the world do I link those things up to one another, and how do I then transfer the power to my pump system?
Do windmills automatically link power if you put them next to each other? Or do you need to link them with gear assemblies and if so, how?
And once they're all linked, how do I transfer the power down? Can I simply build an axle downwards from one of the mills, or do I need to build something special?
Also, can I link up the axle and the pumps vertically, or do I need to transfer the power horizontally with a gear assembly first?

So yes, plenty of questions, sorry about that. But thanks in advance~

[NecroRebel]

You'll actually need at least 16 windmills to power a 50-tall pump stack, though fortunately you'll have 30 power left over to do additional power transfer with, since you need to transfer power between the mills themselves, too. Windmills provide power only to machines in the tile directly beneath their center tile. As such, you'll need to have a structure like the one set up here:



The gear assemblies should go directly beneath the center tile of each of your windmills. Note that you need to channel out the tiles beneath those center tiles before constructing the structure. Once you've got that, the rest of your power system connecting the mills to the stack can just go straight down from one of the gear assemblies.



Oh, actual questions...

Things link up to one another, for the most part, just by being next to one another. The exceptions are windmills, which as mentioned transfer power only straight down, water wheels, which transfer power only through their center tile and only horizontally, and axles, which transfer power only at their ends.

Windmills don't connect to each other naturally, with the gear and axle array above as the most efficient possible connection array.

Once they're connected, you can just transfer power straight down; there can be a vertical axle going downwards from one of the gear assemblies, or the top of the pump stack can be powered straight off the assembly array.

As long as power is transferred to the pumps, it doesn't matter where it's coming from. An axle that leads right into the top of the stack will work just as well as anything else. Pumps accept power from any of the 6 directions, and to either of their tiles.

[Starver]

Ninjaed, but posting anyway

First of all, build from bottom up.  You need to have a support below everything you build.  Putting a windmill over a centrally-channelled tile really needs something else beneath it.  That's an easy mistake to make.  So start from the top of your pump-stack.  Assuming you built that correctly, from bottom up, with a "power transfer" channel between levels (if you put in your first 'transfer component' and it doesn't indicate you need anything more than a single pump-power worth of power, now is the time to go back and try again!) you should be Ok.

Depending on where your pump-stack 'tops out', you may need to use vertical axles to bring it up to a practical windmill level.  Again, bottom-up.  Vertical ale over empty space won't work, wait until the axle on Z-1 has been built.

Plus, I always make the top axle two levels below that of the windmills.  Typically, this is the level immediately below ground level, because I mount windmills on top of walled-off-areas (first for aesthetic reasons, but it also protects them against regular Building Destroyer damage).  On top of this last axle (in my case, at ground level), build a gear.  This gear can be linked to a lever (which you need to build, if you haven't already) so you can turn the pumpstack on and off at will.  It may be intended to be a permanent pumpstack, but accidents can happen and turning off the supply of water or (in your case) magma is always useful.

Note that a gear that is 'levered off' cannot support anything on the level above.  Do not try.  Instead, another gear just to one side is the one that will support your first windmill.  Do not lever-attach this, for the reason just given.  It will be permanently turning, just not transmitting through the one you first built when that is levered-off.  By building walls above and around, and at least a temporary access to the top you can place a windmill over that.  However, one windmill won't be enough, so you would leave gaps and poke length-two (minimum) axles out from this windmill's base gear in whatever direction(s) you fancy, with another gear below that.  Extend out in any direction, although there's no benefit making a full 'grid', if you're sending them out in all directions, just branch out.  A grid has many useless connections needing time and effort to build and extra effort to be powered by.

An example follows (less windmills than you'll need, but illustrative) where axles have been sent out east and west from the gear which adjoins the lever-connected one.  You can send branches north and south from all 'exposed' gears.

Code: (Ground Level example) [Select]

#####################
#*==*==*==*==*==*==*#
##########*##########
         ###


Code: (Z+1 example) [Select]

+++++++++++++++++++++
+ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ ++ +  Pre windmills
+++++++++++++++++++++
         +++

+|++|++|++|++|++|++|+
+o++o++o++o++o++o++o+  With windmills
+|++|++|++|++|++|++|+
         +++

One small note: it might be worth building one (free-standing) windmill right at the beginning, just to check that your map has wind.  And how much of it.  I once built a not-so-elaborate pump-and-windmill combo, to find I had no power at all.  I hastily revamped the design to feed off of a waterwheel dipped in the nearby river.  If you haven't got a handy source of flowing water, I'm sure you've seen the perpetual motion machine designs, in your travels across the wiki pages on powering pumps.

[Kidiri]

If you want to know exactly how much power a system needs, you can [q]uery  it and check. Personally, I prefer water wheels over windmills any day. They /will/ provide a net amount of power of 90, which is over twice the amount a windmill produces. They also take up 3 squares, next to the 9 of a windmill. So if you need 500 power, you'll only need 6 of those. Linking water wheels to whatever you need powered is also a lot easier. For windmills, you have to put a mechanical component immediately underneath the middle square. Whereas with a water wheel, you need to put a mechanical component next to the middle tile. This means you can stack water wheels next to each other. Once you've got one active (this is important, only active gears will support water wheels and windmills) gear next to some flowing water, you can add as many as you like.

For power transfer, there's a simple rule: gears transmit in all 6 cardinal directions -up, down, north, south, east, west, all at the same time- and axles only in one direction -horizontal axles go north-south or east-west and vertical axles go up-down. So once you've got the water wheel system set up, you need to find the optimal route to your system and put in the gears and axles. Note that a gear consumes 5 power and an axle consumes one power per tile, for a maximum of ten tiles, so you'll need to take that into consideration when building your power source. When transferring power to another z-level, you need to channel out the floor above or below, depending on where you want to go, obviously. If this wasn't clear, I suggest you read up on this.

[Tsugumi Henduluin]

First of all, I love you guys. That was a lot more detailed information than I was expecting. Thanks for that.

Right:

@NecroRebel
Thanks a load. That was very easy to understand and very helpful.

One small note: it might be worth building one (free-standing) windmill right at the beginning, just to check that your map has wind.

Thanks for suggesting, but I already had done so. Hence the reference to a test windmill in my OP~

First of all, build from bottom up.

That would explain why some of my pumps were not being built. The ones below them weren't done yet. Thanks.
The gaps for the power transfer was already in place though, the wiki was very helpful in that regard.

It may be intended to be a permanent pumpstack, but accidents can happen and turning off the supply of water or (in your case) magma is always useful.

It is indeed meant to be permanent, but I'll take your advice. Virtually no extra work and there's nothing wrong with having some extra security, although I doubt I'll need it. I dug a separate shaft for the pumps specifically so I wouldn't accidentally flood my entire workshop/stockpile room if something were to go wrong.

Personally, I prefer water wheels over windmills any day. They /will/ provide a net amount of power of 90, which is over twice the amount a windmill produces.

Efficiency is for elves. Not to mention I'm dealing with Dutch dwarves here. Building windmills whenever possible is mandatory.
Nevertheless, I'll keep that in mind for when I end up in a low-wind map.

[Triaxx2]

Building Destroyer Defense made easy.

Build an outside wall. Now, separated by a few tiles build a wall, and an up ramp. Build a retracting bridge across. Link that to a lever in your fortress. Now when you close that bridge, nothing can get there and since it's retracted, it can't be building destroyed.

Now, build your windmills ON the wall, constructing floors with holes left open for power. Now they're totally inaccessible from the ground. Now you can build your gears and axles under the floor and have them protected. I tend to prefer a radial transfer design, dropping from a single central gear, which seems to cost less power than a multi axle transfer system.

Code: [Select]

Nine-Windmill sample:

FFFFFFFFF
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
WWWWWWWWW
FFFFFFFFF

wwwwwwwwwww
wfgffgaagfw
wfsffsffffw
wfgaagaagfw
wffXfsffsfw
wfgaagffgfw
wwwwwwwwwww
F=Constructed floor
W=Constructed wall
f=natural floor
g=gear assembly
s=North-South Horizontal Axle
a=East-West Horizontal Axle
X=up/down stair

Power is then transferred down from the central gear assembly. Thus you can lever control the gear just below that to shut the entire power structure off.

Of course, this can naturally be expanded to give more power.