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[randyshipp]

OK, I'm following this discussion and my newbie attempts to get an underground cistern built (so that my whole effing fort doesn't die when the river/pools freeze next winter...grrr) have hit a snag.  I dug out a 10x10 cistern under several surface pools, then drained those pools into the cistern.  Sadly, only one z-level of 7/7 water is in the cistern.  I created five one-square ponds and five dorfs dutifully grabbed buckets to start filling...and went straight to the surface to fill their buckets from the wells that are drawn from the cistern.  So, circular drawing/carrying/dumping of water from the cistern isn't going to fill it.

How can I force the water carriers to draw the water from elsewhere?  Please tell me I don't have to deconstruct wells each time I want to fill the cistern, because that's silly.

[EveryZig]

You could seal the well off with locked doors for when you are refilling the cistern.

[Quietust]

Have you designated water collection zones elsewhere and set water collection to zone-only in the (o)rders menu?

[randyshipp]

Yeah, and I thought this would work.  Is there some trick or specific configuration needed for dwarves to be able to access the edge of a pool or river in order to get water in a bucket?

But yeah, I have zone-only water collection and several water collection zones.

[NecroRebel]

Have you designated water collection zones elsewhere and set water collection to zone-only in the (o)rders menu?

I thought that didn't work because dwarves preferred wells to water collection zones, even if they're set to zone-only?

Regardless, you don't have to deconstruct the wells. Just forbid one of their components by entering their screen in the t-cursor. Just remember to unforbid them once the cistern is filled!

[randyshipp]

OK, I'll try the forbid thing.  I wish the interface were a bit more flexible (separate restrictions on "water collection" and "drinking"), but I'll figure it out.

Thanks very much.

[randyshipp]

Well, I was able to get the dwarves to start filling the cistern from another water source.  Just forbidding one part of the well didn't seem to work (I forbade the chains), so I just forbade every component, then they started work.

Sadly, my whole design is a mess, as it turns out.  Who knew that a well on the surface would shoot a magical beam of ice magic down several z-levels into my cistern and freeze a magical stationary block of ice on the surface of my underground ppol?  So, I guess above ground wells don't work?  Am I not being dwarfy enough?  Do I need to pump a pipe of fucking magma through the pool to keep it from freezing?  I'm all in favor of fun, but I'd love for some of it to wait until I feel like I have a half-way functioning fort.  Sigh.

[Girlinhat]

Magma.  Always magma.

Also yes, any above-ground water will freeze, even inside, and digging a well requires it to be exposed to the outside, thus making it freeze in winter.  There is an alternative though...

Code: [Select]

  _____
  | V |
____ ____
   | |   if you follow this poorly drawn side-view, you can cover your well with a roof, THEN dig the well, and it will remain Dark Underground.  If you roof it over now, it will be Dark Outside or something weird and won't work right, so you need to roof it over, then dig the well hole.  Luckily, this should be easy for you now.  Simply dismantle the well, pave that over, build a roof, then dig a new well right beside it.  It'll look kinda lame, but you live and learn, right?

[randyshipp]

Magma.  Always magma.

Also yes, any above-ground water will freeze, even inside, and digging a well requires it to be exposed to the outside, thus making it freeze in winter.  There is an alternative though...

Code: [Select]

  _____
  | V |
____ ____
   | |   if you follow this poorly drawn side-view, you can cover your well with a roof, THEN dig the well, and it will remain Dark Underground.  If you roof it over now, it will be Dark Outside or something weird and won't work right, so you need to roof it over, then dig the well hole.  Luckily, this should be easy for you now.  Simply dismantle the well, pave that over, build a roof, then dig a new well right beside it.  It'll look kinda lame, but you live and learn, right?

I'm assuming it's not just enough to have a roof directly over the square, eh?  I built four squares of wall at the corners of my well area.  I built floor covering the entire 5x5 square, the central 3x3 of which is where my wells go.  After the roof was finished construction, I {d}{h} channeled a new well shaft after verifying that there was now roof over it.  Sadly, when I went to build a well there, I saw that the square several z-levels beneath in the cistern is frozen solid.

Any other ideas?  Do there have to be four walls (and door) in order for it to count as "inside enough"?  How on earth are wells intended to be used?  How is this normally handled in temperate biomes that freeze for part of the year?

[randyshipp]

Hrm...never mind me asking about walls and a door.  I built walls all the way around, fully roofed, with a granite door.  As soon as I channeled a spot for the well to go, the square in the cistern beneath it froze solid.

And I'm starting to see blue down arrows.  Sigh.

[NecroRebel]

In order for a square to not freeze, it has to specifically be underground. You'll notice, if you read her comment again, that Girlinhat said so (or at least the converse). There's not way to turn a tile that has been above ground into an underground tile. You're going to have to dig 1 tile downwards and make a well beneath at least one natural floor tile in order for its source to not freeze.

Also, why are your people thirsty? They should be drinking booze, not water! Get a still up and start brewing some!

[randyshipp]

In order for a square to not freeze, it has to specifically be underground. You'll notice, if you read her comment again, that Girlinhat said so (or at least the converse).

No, I'm pretty sure she was talking about building a roof over the existing spot where I already have wells.  I think it was mistaken, but I don't think I misread it.  In any case, it's clear that you're right about how it must work.  But I have to wonder then how human and elven settlements, which presumably don't have extensive underground excavation, manage to keep a water supply above ground in winter.  The current well behavior is unnecessarily difficult and, when other civs are taken into account, doesn't make common sense.  The real silliness isn't that water on the surface freezes, even indoors (castles and forts being drafty places and all).  It's that the air inside an excavated room a dozen z-levels down is 47 degrees F but a magic ice ray from a hole a hundred feet up makes huge ice cubes appear in the middle of a fifteen foot deep, 10,000sf pool.  The test for whether the water freezes should be done where the WATER is, not some tile a hundred feet distant.

Also, why are your people thirsty? They should be drinking booze, not water! Get a still up and start brewing some!

I brew.  But until I figure out a way to have dedicated barrels for each dwarf, there are sometimes lines.  And I'm tired of dwarfs wandering off into the wilderness in the vain search for a drink RIGHT NOW that ends with "Ambush!"

[GreatWyrmGold]

Dwarves are dumb.

Urist: Hey, we should fill this cistern!
Cog: Okay! Let's use this well instead of that murky pool.
:both fail to notice that the cistern feeds the well:
Much later...
Randyshipp: What is wrong with these little guys?
Urist: Nothing! We did what you told us to do!

[Psieye]

In order for a square to not freeze, it has to specifically be underground. You'll notice, if you read her comment again, that Girlinhat said so (or at least the converse).

No, I'm pretty sure she was talking about building a roof over the existing spot where I already have wells.  I think it was mistaken, but I don't think I misread it.  In any case, it's clear that you're right about how it must work.  But I have to wonder then how human and elven settlements, which presumably don't have extensive underground excavation, manage to keep a water supply above ground in winter.  The current well behavior is unnecessarily difficult and, when other civs are taken into account, doesn't make common sense.  The real silliness isn't that water on the surface freezes, even indoors (castles and forts being drafty places and all).  It's that the air inside an excavated room a dozen z-levels down is 47 degrees F but a magic ice ray from a hole a hundred feet up makes huge ice cubes appear in the middle of a fifteen foot deep, 10,000sf pool.  The test for whether the water freezes should be done where the WATER is, not some tile a hundred feet distant.

What her post said was that you need a roof over the well. What was perhaps not clear is that it must be a NATURAL roof, not a constructed roof. DF physics: if a tile ever touches sunlight, it's always above-ground no matter how much constructions you put above it.

As for other civilisations, the laws of DF physics just don't apply to them. They don't apply anywhere except where you are looking.

[randyshipp]

DF physics: if a tile ever touches sunlight, it's always above-ground no matter how much constructions you put above it.

I still don't quite get it.  I understand that the tile on the surface, having touched sunlight, is "above ground."  What isn't clear is whether this means every tile at every z-level is.  Again, I completely enclosed an above ground area in...built a little house around it, roof, door, and all.  THEN I dug the hole.  So, no magic sunlight shot down the well shaft into the pool which I'd previous excavated out of native rock.  So the question is, why did the subterranean tile become "above ground"?