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[Saiko Kila]

I'm trying to decide on a drainage system as well for this entire system. My current project that requires water from this cistern is my sewer system that will allow for a well in every dwarf's room. With that said, if I needed to drain said sewers, my original intention was to simply pump water from the sewers back into the top of the cistern and thus completely fill the cistern back to its original levels. I realize though that there is no way for me to be able to pump every single unit of water back into the cistern and that instead there would be quite a bit of shallow water that would just evaporate.

I build only close-circuit systems, with water circulating and being reused, though it needs to be partially refilled sometimes (depending on system, like once or twice per year). I also make wells within these systems. Both wells and splashes of water (1/7) make some water disappear after time. Shallow tiles will evaporate randomly, but if they are low in water only for a limited time they usually won't evaporate before being wetted more, to 2/7 or higher level. I'm not sure what algorithm is used for evaporation, but it seems it's similar to radioactive decay (exponential with a set probability) so the last wet tiles can last for quite a time.

I'm not sure what is your intention - to clean dwarves (which will remove traces of forgotten beast extracts or blood) or to make them happy, but wetting dwarves is not enough to make them happy. They need mist, which assumes there will be some losses in water. And mist can be created on different surfaces, but grates seems best for it. Grates also decrease (or nullify) pressure, like diagonals.

[Girlinhat]

Water seems to evaporate similar to rain - and in fact similar to grass since grass grows using the rain method.  During a rainstorm, random tiles get a water effect, removing filth and such.  Similarly, grass grows by randomly "raining" on a tile and adding some grass growth.  It appears that 1/7 water evaporates in the same way, by randomly checking tiles and evaporating them.

[SmokedRWA]

Alright, new question: Can I pit caged creatures like cyclops or do I need to set up a lever to release them from their cage?

I would also like to mention that my first arena just had its inaugural death match between Woge Uthralaschir, the Rains of Confidence, the Cyclops, and Smunstu Arstrukuku, the Goblin Bowman. Woge 1:Smunstu 0

[Darkmere]

Alright, new question: Can I pit caged creatures like cyclops ...

Yes, if you feel lucky. Those types of things are big enough to get away and start bashing heads, but the mass pitting article may have the info you need.

[SmokedRWA]

Alright back to the cistern/sewers again:

So in order for my dwarves to get a happy thought from the individual wells in each of their rooms, the sewer system underneath has to be at least two z-levels deep, correct? Would having a flow make any difference in this?

[Girlinhat]

Do dwarves really care about having a well that much?  They drink booze, and they'll use the communal well to bathe.  They care a lot about mist generators, if you can cause a waterfall in their room then that would be astounding.

[SmokedRWA]

Well it's not a matter of whether or not they care about it, but whether or not I care. I figured I would give plumbing a go in this fort and what better way than to have a bath in every room!

Also I'm wondering if I want to fill my cistern from the stream topside or from the caverns below (which I have yet to breach in the 6 years of my fort). I remember reading somewhere that caverns can cause a drop FPS, but I don't recall how much or if it was even verified.

[Darkmere]

Open pathways to the caverns could in theory cause  FPS drop from pathfinding recalculations, but I've never noticed that much of a problem.

Caveat on a plumbing system though, gravity feeds and drains take FOREVER to fill and sloshy water can be detrimental. Fill it with a pressurized intake from an infinite source (cavern lake or river, though I find caverns easier to work with) and a submerged pump feeding off map will shave months off the drainage time. Don't skimp on ramp access either, as draining it will spring up mushroom trees all over the place.

[SmokedRWA]

Open pathways to the caverns could in theory cause  FPS drop from pathfinding recalculations, but I've never noticed that much of a problem.

Caveat on a plumbing system though, gravity feeds and drains take FOREVER to fill and sloshy water can be detrimental. Fill it with a pressurized intake from an infinite source (cavern lake or river, though I find caverns easier to work with) and a submerged pump feeding off map will shave months off the drainage time. Don't skimp on ramp access either, as draining it will spring up mushroom trees all over the place.

Yea my plan was to have everything pump operated. Do cavern lakes have flow?

What do you mean by submerged pump feeding off map? Feeding from the water coming in from the map edges for intake into the system or pumping the water off the edge of the map for drainage?

[Darkmere]

Sadly, cavern lakes don't have flow unless you're pumping out of them.

Ah yeah that was worded badly. And now that I think about it, I was wrong anyway. So don't do that. I just meant for drainage, you'll want something like:

pPXF

Pump from the canal through carved fortifications off-map to drain. Just block the output tile with a floodgate or lever-operated door. It will still take ages to drain and dry out, but my first plumbing experiment was a gravity drain because I didn't know better. When I said submerged I just meant power it by an axle because if you're draining the bottom Z of a 2-Z canal the walkable tile will be submerged.