Bay 12 Games Forum

There's actually 3 different environments as regards cave adaptation.

1. Indoors subterranean - Cave adaptation increases. Dwarves become more sensitive to light and the outdoors.
2. Indoors, above ground - Neutral. Cave adaptation neither increases or decreases.
3. Outdoors, above ground - Cave adaptation decreases. If the dwarf is cave adapted, he or she will feel nauseated.  Severe cases will cause vomiting.

With what you did, you had your militia exercising in a type 2 environment.

That's what has been generally understood.  The interesting thing about pump stack construction is that order of construction is important; do it right, and a block of liquid can teleport up the whole stack in a single tick; do it wrong, and the block will move up only one per tick.  (The game evaluates pumps in reverse construction order IIRC.)

The issue with build order doesn't affect how much fluid over time that can be pumped. It affects the latency and storage capacity of a pump stack.

For instance, assume you have two pump stacks of 100 levels. One stack is built from the top down, the other is built from the bottom up. Also assume that the bottom pump of each stack has a somewhat plentiful supply of fluid. Say 3/7 every tick.

Finally, assume you have a floodgate at the output of the pump at the very top of the stack, and that you also can turn on or off power to the stack via a gear.

So you open the floodgate and turn on power to both stacks.
The top down stack immediately starts to supply 3/7 fluid every tick.
The bottom up stack will take 100 ticks before is starts to supply fluid. However, once it does start supplying fluid, it continues at the rate of 3/7 per tick (same rate as the top down stack).
Now close the floodgate at the top of each stack while leaving the power on. Both stacks will eventually fill up with 7/7 fluid at the output of each pump.

Now open the floodgates and see what happens.
The top down stack will supply 7/7 fluid every tick for 100 ticks, then slow down to 3/7 fluid per tick. Additionally, there will be no fluid in the stack itself since the stack was unable to pull fluid from the source until the stack itself was empty.

The bottom up stack will also supply 7/7 fluid every tick for 100 ticks and slow down to 3/7 fluid per tick. However, each level of the stack will have 3/7 fluid so when the output floodgate is turned off, the bottom up stack will fill up to 7/7 fluid on each level sooner than the top down stack with was effectively empty while supplying 3/7 fluid.

Frankly, both stacks have the same long term capacity for moving fluid and deciding on top down or bottom up is merely an exercise in perversity. What I do when building a pump stack is to build a scaffold gear or axial every 3 levels, then build a pump attached to those gears or axials. That lets be build quite a few pumps simultaneously. After those pumps are constructed, I'll then build all the other pumps for the stack in an other mass designate (macros are your friend). Finally, I'll remove the scaffolding. Total construction effort on my part is simply 4 designation sessions for the entire stack instead of build a pump, wait for the pump to be constructed, build next pump, rinse, lather, repeat.
 

The minecart isn't a bad idea. However, the cart WILL be stopped and thereafter do nothing. But you can make a loop consisting of nothing but impulse ramps (this will keep the clowns from being able to permanently stop the minecart). And given the artifact doors, you should be able to keep the clowns interested and present on the loop. Each pass won't do a lot of damage, but if you can keep it going, eventually it will grind the clowns into chunks.

All you need is a sand floor optionally covered with a grate to prevent plant growth.
What I'd suggest is to dig out what you need and build walls to block off the aquifer so the area doesn't get flooded. After that, you'll have a damp sand floor so you can gather as much sand as you want, and won't need to have any pumps running.

Try making the destination multi-level.


Level Z+1 = Hatch cover triggered by pressure plate. The hatch cover is at the end of a passageway
                  with a door next to it, pressure plate is on other side of door
Level Z     = final destination of drop

Theory of operation. The dwarves prefer to grab the items on Level Z (assuming you've made it so that workshops, etc are closer to the stockpile on level Z) and when there is no more stuff there because it's empty, they then start traveling to get the stuff on level Z+1. But while they're walking there, they trigger the pressure plate that causes the stuff to drop down to level Z. I assume there's no dwarves standing on the level Z spot since it's empty.

Oh... Now I feel so dumb, but I thought I had one steped it..

Limestone... = no aquifer huh?

Yup. Limestone doesn't support aquifers.....

You have to remember that there are basically two types of aquifer layers.
1. An aquifer layer that has another aquifer layer beneath it.
2. An aquifer layer that doesn't have another aquifer layer beneath it.

Determining which of the above 2 types you have is the reason you single step while digging the downward stairs.
In case 1 (another aquifer layer below), once you've done the required digging, the layer that you're busy walling up is self draining. No constant pumping required.
In case 2, you need to be careful in your dig order and you need to constantly pump while walling in the area.

Quote from: kingubu on July 11, 2014, 02:12:39 pm

In my day, we didn't use these pansy keyboards. 
We used toggle switches to set the bits each word, like real men.
And didn't put up with no girly punch cards either.

I view people who use toggle switches the same way I view fat people whining about not being able to reach the remote control. I only play in the purest, most principled way by manually toggling bits on my processor with a needle.

Wimp.

http://xkcd.com/378/