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[Qwicol]

Hear my call!
One of my finest axedwarfs has died by drowning in river when fighting 1 vs 1 with Ettin. Since Ettin bleed to death from wounds inflicted by my unlucky hero I've prepared proper burial grounds for him, but his body is in river.

Help me to:

"Unite the forces, take a giant leap
Bend the stream, dive into the deep"*

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

and to recover steel masterwork full plate armor and battle axe

* Quotation taken from:
Ayreon: River of time.

[Saint]

Collapse some walls into it from above or drag magma into it.

[Reelyanoob]

Try some manually driven pumps upstream a square or two from the spot, you can floor over the river and pump it back upstream, e.g.

Code: [Select]

....WWW
RRRRW<PP<RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRW<PP<RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRW<PP<RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRW<PP<RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
....WWW
R = The river

< is the direction of pumping. P = Pump squares. You'll need to build a little floor over that section of river.

W = Walls just in case, to stop any outflow that might get back into the river part you want to drain.

I'm not 100% sure if you can pack pumps in like that, but I think it should work. If I'm wrong someone will come along any second to correct it.

Remember to pump in an upstream location, and pump AWAY from where you want to get the stuff.

[Dynastia]

Dig out a drainage sink going straight to the caverns (or aquifer level if you have one) and then open it to the river at the point closest to the corpse. Be sure to build grates to catch the items as they're sucked into the sink by the flowing water, and set up a floodgate to shut it off for collection (and to preserve FPS, and also because items getting dragged by water flow can be a bit iffy, and you might need to shut it off and turn it back on again once or twice to get them into the sink)

If you have an aquifer level this is almost certainly the easiest way of doing it. If you don't, you'll have to compare the effort of digging a drain to the caverns against the effort of building a manual pump-battery.

Diagram for clarity with U being the up stairs, C being the corpse, R the river, F the lever-activated floodgate, - are regular passages and ### a drop-shaft floored with grates extending to aquifer/caverns.

   U     RRR
###    RRR
###-F-CRR
###    RRR
          RRR

[Quietust]

Try some manually driven pumps upstream a square or two from the spot, you can floor over the river and pump it back upstream.

I've used that technique in several fortresses, both in 40d and 0.31, and I can attest that it is quite effective. Ideally, the pumps should be powered either by water wheels (upstream, of course) or windmills. The retaining walls will need to extend at least 3 tiles beyond the pump output tile or it'll overflow to the sides and make a mess.

[geoduck]

Heh. While the water's diverted, you should slap together a tomb and bury him right there..

[Anathema]

Dig out a drainage sink going straight to the caverns (or aquifer level if you have one) and then open it to the river at the point closest to the corpse. Be sure to build grates to catch the items as they're sucked into the sink by the flowing water, and set up a floodgate to shut it off for collection (and to preserve FPS, and also because items getting dragged by water flow can be a bit iffy, and you might need to shut it off and turn it back on again once or twice to get them into the sink)

If you have an aquifer level this is almost certainly the easiest way of doing it. If you don't, you'll have to compare the effort of digging a drain to the caverns against the effort of building a manual pump-battery.

Diagram for clarity with U being the up stairs, C being the corpse, R the river, F the lever-activated floodgate, - are regular passages and ### a drop-shaft floored with grates extending to aquifer/caverns.

   U     RRR
###    RRR
###-F-CRR
###    RRR
          RRR

I'd recommend this as the easiest solution; although you don't actually need to drain to the caverns, you just need enough space for the corpse to get pushed into your reservoir before it fills up. I actually recovered a corpse with something like this:

Code: [Select]

           RRR
 ........  RRR
U........X^CRR
 ........   RRR
            RRR
R for river which flows top-to-bottom, C is corpse, U up-ramp, . is mined out space, X is a lever-controlled floodgate, ^ is the last spot you channel from above after the rest is complete. Open floodgate, corpse should quickly get pushed into your reservoir, close floodgate. If the reservoir fills completely by the time you close the gate, just channel out more space on the sides to let the water spread out to a safe depth.

It worked for me on the first try (however my river did curve slightly as you can see in the diagram, that might have been lucky), even if it doesn't for whatever reason, you're no worse off than before - can always retry or move to a more complicated recovery method.

[Di]

I presume his corpse is next to one of the banks isn't it? Build some floors to hold pump over the river, build a pump so it would draw water from corpse tile and send it down the stream, dig a ramp in a bank, and get a bunch of haulers.

[Dynastia]

you don't actually need to drain to the caverns, you just need enough space for the corpse to get pushed into your reservoir before it fills up.

This is entirely correct. You could look over your map and decide which is easiest for you, draining to the caverns, draining to an existing reservoir or building a small reservoir for the task, although after looking at anathema's diagram I'm convinced it's totally workable and easily the most elegant solution (just build a pump to empty it if it fails)... unless of course, if you've got an aquifer.

[Frogwarrior]

The solution is always magma. Dump a small amount of magma upstream a ways, and it will seal off the river. After the river drains enough, come down and pick up his stuff. Then channel away the obsidian to release the stream. If you like, install a drawbridge just downstream of the obsidian so you can cut off the river flow whenever you feel like it.

[Girlinhat]

I'm in favor of a simple map's edge drain style.  Go far upstream, and begin digging under the river.  You'll want a segment as wide as the river and 2 layers deep, creating a nice spacious passage, and you lead it directly to the map's edge.  At the edge, you smooth the stone wall, and then carve fortifications.  This will allow you to drain water off the map's edge extremely easily, just be sure you carve both layers.  One layer will work, but has the chance to clog up.  A double-layer drain, due to the way pressure works, will almost never clog.  Either way, once you've dug the drainage, you dig some stairs heading upwards, and end up with a downstairs or several that pierce the river, causing it to drain through the escape.  If you do this at map's edge, you only need like a 5 tile long corridor, which will drain the entire river.  Recover the corpse, and then place cage traps so you can harvest fresh fish for a nice aquarium, and then instal hatches and levers so you can control the river's flow.  Just be sure to instal one hatch and lever and open it, then the second hatch and lever and open it, etc, because if you instal a row of hatches they'll quickly prevent water flow and you won't be able to instal the mechanisms on the flooded hatches.

[eccentricheathen]

I had this problem about a week ago.  Here's the relevant thread:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=92304.0

There's some good advice.  What worked for me was building ramps along the edges of the water.

[gtmattz]

Download DFHack, mark the stuff for dumping, put your cursor somewhere that your dwarves can access, run dfautodump, reclaim your now accessible whateveritsisyouweretryingtogetback.

[Mitchewawa]

Use two or three waterwheel powered pumps to draw water from the corpse. Be sure that the pumps dump the water upstream via walls. Dig to him via stairs, and collect his stuff.

High-tech looting!

[ThatAussieGuy]

dig a 2z-Level trench beside the river and divert the river into it with a suicide dwarf (put an exit tunnel near the wall-o-death to give him a fair chance to run for the safety of a door).  The water will favour the deeper path and leave the relatively higher dwarf corpse's area dry.