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Dwarf Fortress => DF Suggestions => Topic started by: MagicJuggler on October 11, 2008, 06:44:56 pm

Title: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: MagicJuggler on October 11, 2008, 06:44:56 pm
As it currently stands, water is not conserved with a floodgate, meaning enough floodgates will destroy water. This is silly. What should be done in my humble opinion is that it should create a displacement of water into any available tiles. This only makes sense, right?

The only issue which occurs is what happens when there is no place for water to go, such as the interior of a water-tank. My proposal is that water can have depths above 7/7 to represent overpressurized water (e.g. screw-pumping water into a full tank), and that the surrounding walls have a pressure limit they can withstand before they begin to fracture. Depressurizing the water will result in a large velocity boost to the water in the directions of escape. With relatively durable materials such as steel, it would therefore be possible to use pressurized water as a launching pad for certain items such like e.g. torpedoes.

While we're at it, would pressurized air be too difficult to add in as well?
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Rakeela on October 12, 2008, 01:52:47 am
It is harder to pressurize air than it is to pressurize water.  It takes higher quality pumps and more care taken to make the storage air-tight.

That said, pressurized water with depths above 7/7 seems quite a nice idea.  It would add a lot to the fortress death traps.  It would also make managing your gears much more important.  "ARGH, no, the watertanks are overpressured!  No, no, don't party, someone go pull the 'stop pumping' lever!  Noooo!" (kaboom)

That would be 'fun'.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Qmarx on October 12, 2008, 02:17:15 am
The issue is that water is virtually incompressible.  It would take... an absurdly high amount of energy to get 9/7 of water into a 7/7 square. 

For all sane intents and purposes, we can assume that water doesn't compress.

Basically, anywhere dwarves can survive, no compressing water.

What should happen with floodgates that have water in them with nowhere for it to go?  Same thing as when they have creatures on them.  They don't move.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Cheeetar on October 12, 2008, 03:32:16 am
Quote from: Qmarx on October 12, 2008, 02:17:15 am
The issue is that water is virtually incompressible.  It would take... an absurdly high amount of energy to get 9/7 of water into a 7/7 square. 

For all sane intents and purposes, we can assume that water doesn't compress.

Basically, anywhere dwarves can survive, no compressing water.

What should happen with floodgates that have water in them with nowhere for it to go?  Same thing as when they have creatures on them.  They don't move.
But this would make nearly all (probably all) current things we do with floodgates undoable, and remove a lot of the fun. I say we have overpressuring, a fine addition to dwarf physics.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Rakeela on October 12, 2008, 04:45:40 am
Well, pressurizing air isn't going to be very possible either, as I don't think the tech is there.

I think part of the problem this is meant to address is the fact that water's ability to push and strike is currently pretty weak.

You know, it's a really bad idea to make floodgates incapable of closing on water.  The point of a floodgate is basically to be capable of closing on water.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Chrispy on October 12, 2008, 05:03:37 am
Er... correct me if I'm wrong, but would there be anything wrong with having that floodgate *keep* that 7/7 tile of water?  Whenever a tile beside it lost water, on either side, it'd balance it out, but no water could go into it.  Ta-da.  Water is conserved.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Align on October 12, 2008, 05:33:52 am
Quote from: Cheeetar on October 12, 2008, 03:32:16 am
Quote from: Qmarx on October 12, 2008, 02:17:15 am
The issue is that water is virtually incompressible.  It would take... an absurdly high amount of energy to get 9/7 of water into a 7/7 square. 

For all sane intents and purposes, we can assume that water doesn't compress.

Basically, anywhere dwarves can survive, no compressing water.

What should happen with floodgates that have water in them with nowhere for it to go?  Same thing as when they have creatures on them.  They don't move.
But this would make nearly all (probably all) current things we do with floodgates undoable
Not if it displaces the water when there's available space, which there often is when you have floodgates to stop floods.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Osmosis Jones on October 12, 2008, 05:42:24 am
Floodgates aside, how about we have permeable soil etc layers? Basically, water under sufficient pressure can leak through permeable rocks (defined with a [permeable] tag perhaps).

So,
Code: [Select]
_______
_#####_
_#XXX#_
_#X~X#_
_#XXX#_
_#####_
_______


# [permeable] wall
~ water
X wet [permeable] wall
_ floor

As it currently stands, the water stays confined to the ~ tile, and wets the X tiles. I believe this should remain the same, with one difference; if the water is 7/7 for more than 1 z-level, water should begin to fill the X tiles (like a brook or aquifer does currently), and thus wet the # tiles. Adding another z-level of water above the ~ tile, the X tiles become saturated. Another layer, and water starts leaking into the channeled _ tiles.
If you want to prevent this happening, just build a wall of an impermeable material (wood, metal, obsidian, whatever), which will never go past wet regardless of the z-level.

It's not much of a mechanic, as ideally you'd want something that can actually simulate aquifers (during worldgen of course), but it would definately add an interesting slant to what we have currently.

Imagine, you want to build a 5 z-level dam in a loamy valley. Do you go to the trouble of lining the soil with stone to prevent leaks? Or do you just through caution to the winds and build it, hoping the pressure will not be enough to force water around it?



Also, relating to the floodgates, just make overpressurised water go into any permeable soil...
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: MagicJuggler on October 12, 2008, 01:00:41 pm
Quote from: Rakeela on October 12, 2008, 04:45:40 am
Well, pressurizing air isn't going to be very possible either, as I don't think the tech is there.

I think part of the problem this is meant to address is the fact that water's ability to push and strike is currently pretty weak.

You know, it's a really bad idea to make floodgates incapable of closing on water.  The point of a floodgate is basically to be capable of closing on water.

You pretty much found out my motive. I find it frustrating water can't be effectively used as a means to convey objects around, or to serve as a force of propulsion/repulsion, same with air. And blackpowder would naturally be dependent on limited resources, making it more of a luxury propulsion item.

Air pressurization existed around the same time as the development of handguns, as for the longest time air weaponry was considered a serious alternative to blackpowder. One didn't give off a distinct smoke discharge or muzzle flash, one could effectively store multiple rounds into a single magazine; the main issue was having a sealed tank that would not explode or lose power with successive shots.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Footkerchief on October 12, 2008, 01:18:57 pm
Improving the water push system is a noble goal, it's pretty broken right now.

Here's an idea for making objects move in 7/7 flows: every time water teleports through the flow, the game finds the direction from its source to its destination, and every item in the 7/7 has a small chance of getting pushed in that approximate direction.  It's a hack, and it would suck in situations like a 120-degree bend in a river, but it should be better than nothing.

Also, if you have moving 3/7 water on top of 7/7, items directly below should get pushed to a lesser degree by the 3/7.

Air pressure doesn't seem feasible.  I mean, can you imagine the processor hit from tracking air as a fluid?
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: MagicJuggler on October 12, 2008, 04:35:55 pm
The simplest solution would be to not track air in areas designated outdoors except in exceptional cases such as the cells being close to an area hit by flame. On another note, this would mean that in theory a flame creature like a dragon over time would be capable of removing the oxygen from a cave that only has one way in, similar to how the US used flamethrowers to suffocate the Japanese out of caves during the Pacific campaign.
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Qmarx on October 12, 2008, 10:39:27 pm
Quote from: Cheeetar on October 12, 2008, 03:32:16 am
Quote from: Qmarx on October 12, 2008, 02:17:15 am
The issue is that water is virtually incompressible.  It would take... an absurdly high amount of energy to get 9/7 of water into a 7/7 square. 

For all sane intents and purposes, we can assume that water doesn't compress.

Basically, anywhere dwarves can survive, no compressing water.

What should happen with floodgates that have water in them with nowhere for it to go?  Same thing as when they have creatures on them.  They don't move.
But this would make nearly all (probably all) current things we do with floodgates undoable, and remove a lot of the fun. I say we have overpressuring, a fine addition to dwarf physics.
The only cases where it would prevent the floodgates from working is where there is no space whatsoever to put seven squares of water - you've got a completely full, completely sealed tunnel.

The water *should* move out of the way.  The method I'm proposing would allow you to make water pumps with floodgates.  Put floodgates throughout a tunnel, leave a vertical shaft at the left edge, trigger floodgates starting from the rightmost.  The rightmost one closes, the 7/7 water has to go somewhere, so it moves to the next square up in the shaft - the second to rightmost one triggers, so the water moves to the next square up, and so on, until you've converted 10 horizontal tiles of 7/7 water into a 10 vertical tile column.  Then you open all the floodgates except the leftmost, flood the tunnel again, seal off however you flooded it with drop the leftmost floodgate, and repeat. 

Basically, make floodgates displace water, and fail only if there's nowhere at all for the water to go.  (So you could force water into an aquifer if you were clever.)
Title: Re: More Hydrostatic water pressurization: EDIT: And other pressure kinds.
Post by: Mel_Vixen on October 12, 2008, 11:43:02 pm
That would be an very interesting design but with the disadvantage of working cyclical.

For an more steady stream you would need at least two pump-tunnels.

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