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[Moleculor]

I have a lovely river running through my dwarven valley. Sadly, it apparently touches a murky pool somewhere in the area, because the entire thing is marked as 'Stagnant' despite being very much a flowing body of water.

I'm trying to reroute the water from the river to an underground cistern I've built. Unfortunately, I noticed the river was stagnant AFTER I'd spent all the time planning, carving out the cistern, and clearing it, so I don't have a lot of room to build in (though I do have multiple Z-levels, so I think that qualifies as "has enough room to do whatever is needed").

I hear that using a pump will de-stagnate water. How do I build one that requires little to no (preferably no) interaction from dwarves to start up, will run on its own, and be secure (i.e. no mice, goblins, eagles, etc crawling into my pump-works or cistern)?

EDIT: Ok, apparently I wasn't very clear.

My cistern is *empty*, and has never contained water.

I want to put a pump (or some other de-stagnantization system) between the river and my cistern, which is several z-levels below and several squares east of the river.

[robertheinrich]

As for the stagnant river: I´ve made the mistake before by channeling my river to refill a murky pool which I had been using as a water source to irrigate my farms. Contact to areas of stagnant water will "infect" your river and make it become stagnant, too. You better avoid this, but in your case shit already happened.

Now you can either use wells or pumps to clear your water. If you want to minimize interaction you could use the river to power a pump (via water wheel) which fills your cistern. But if you combine that with wells below the z level of the river you might get a flood.

I think you are best off with a combination of wells which draw water from your cistern and a manually operated pump to refill the cistern every now and then.

[Loud Whispers]

In the same way that salty tiles become forever salty, stagnant tiles become forever stagnant.

[Moleculor]

In the same way that salty tiles become forever salty, stagnant tiles become forever stagnant.

.... which is why I'm asking the question. I'd like to know how to build a de-stagnation system between the river and my cistern so that the cistern (when it fills up) doesn't contain stagnant water.

I only have one shot to get this right, and it took me six world-generations to find this site.

[Loud Whispers]

Pump one z lvl up and into your cistern. Easiest way to

[Moleculor]

Pump one z lvl up and into your cistern. Easiest way to

And the pump operates... how? This is my question.

Do I put water wheels both before and after it? Will that work? Will it break? Is there a chance that once everything fills up, everything stops and won't start up again, ever?

[Loud Whispers]

Pump one z lvl up and into your cistern. Easiest way to

And the pump operates... how? This is my question.

If you're unsure about how that works, just set it to be Dwarf operated

[Moleculor]

Pump one z lvl up and into your cistern. Easiest way to

And the pump operates... how? This is my question.

If you're unsure about how that works, just set it to be Dwarf operated

My original post very clearly stated that I don't want a pump that requires constant attention from a dwarf. Not even frequent attention. I want something that will have little to no maintenance.

It's very frustrating re-re-restating things from my original question.

[Loud Whispers]

It's the easiest way and it doesn't require much Dwarf attention at all unless you have to constantly refill it, which won't be a problem if you make it sufficiently large.

[Moleculor]

It's the easiest way and it doesn't require much Dwarf attention at all unless you have to constantly refill it, which won't be a problem if you make it sufficiently large.

So in other words you're saying "I don't want to answer your question, here's an entirely different answer to a different question you didn't ask".

Gee. Thanks.

[Loud Whispers]

It's the easiest way and it doesn't require much Dwarf attention at all unless you have to constantly refill it, which won't be a problem if you make it sufficiently large.

So in other words you're saying "I don't want to answer your question, here's an entirely different answer to a different question you didn't ask".

Gee. Thanks.

;_;

Well that was a bit rude.

More along the lines of
"It isn't really as attentative as you think. It's not a bad idea at all. "

[Sphalerite]

Wind power works well.  You can build a windmill directly on top of the pump, and provided your embark site has wind it will power the pump forever.  You will want to build a constructed cistern at the outlet side of the pump before hooking up the windmill, of course.

The problem with wind is that at the very least the center tile has to be open to the sky, so you still risk flying invaders being able to get to the pump.  You can still make the water itself completely safe, since the outlet side of the pump blocks passage.

[Nan]

There are also a few ways by which a pump can be powered by a water wheel. The most convenient of these is to exploit "flowing" water, that is, water which has been marked by the game as flowing. The river and all tiles connected to it will already be marked as flowing. So when you bring the river water to the pump inlet, divert some into a side channel to run a waterwheel which powers the pump.


%%=pump, ~=water, |||=waterwheel, * = gear assembly, X = floodgate or raising bridge in the water channel below
%%~~~~~ To River
 *   ~
|||~X~


Dig out a channel for a waterwheel and build a raising bridge or floodgate to seal off the tiles under the waterwheel. Link it to a lever. Now fill the channel with water. Because the water is connected to a river, the waterwheel should start spinning in callous disregard for the laws of fluid dynamics. Now pull the lever to keep the channel under the waterwheel full of water even when the pump operates. The waterwheel should continue spinning despite being disconnected from the river.

Finally link the waterwheel up to the pump.

As for pump installation, to maximize security you should build the waterwheel on top of the water channel (obviously you'll need to build two wall in the channel). Have it suck water through a grate on the inlet side, and let the water fall back into the channel. As well as purifying the water this setup will prevent anything from infiltrating via the water intake. If you use a raising bridge to seal the waterwheel chamber, then nothing will be able to get in that way either.

[Moleculor]

It's the easiest way and it doesn't require much Dwarf attention at all unless you have to constantly refill it, which won't be a problem if you make it sufficiently large.

So in other words you're saying "I don't want to answer your question, here's an entirely different answer to a different question you didn't ask".

Gee. Thanks.

;_;

Well that was a bit rude.

So is ignoring what I'm asking, forcing me to re-explain multiple things covered in the first post, and then just flat out telling me I'm wrong for wanting to do things a certain way.

Wind power works well.  You can build a windmill directly on top of the pump, and provided your embark site has wind it will power the pump forever. ... The problem with wind is that at the very least the center tile has to be open to the sky, so you still risk flying invaders being able to get to the pump.  You can still make the water itself completely safe, since the outlet side of the pump blocks passage.

Thank you. Does flying-access endanger the setup to where I might lose the whole shebang (pump, axle, windmill) to a forgotten beast or whatever it is that might fly and also destroy buildings? (I don't have a lot of experience with building destroyers.)

So when you bring the river water to the pump inlet, divert some into a side channel to run a waterwheel which powers the pump.

This sounds like using a water wheel in the river on the surface as opposed to using a wind-mill on the surface. I certainly don't object to that concept, though the methods to disconnect the artificial water section from the river and still keep it flowing confuse me, and seem overly complicated. Though I'm not sure why I'd attempt it if I can just stick a waterwheel directly in the river and voila, problem solved.

Same question for you, though a bit broader: Is this in any way protected from things that would normally destroy buildings?

(obviously you'll need to build two wall in the channel)

Wat?

[Loud Whispers]

So is ignoring what I'm asking, forcing me to re-explain multiple things covered in the first post, and then just flat out telling me I'm wrong for wanting to do things a certain way.

This is really heavy derail material.

I was trying to help. You were being rude. I never said you were wrong. Avoid the kind of thought that everyone on the internet is screaming at you. It is not healthy, and will generate rage.

Did you consider that I may have missed what you said?

Or that I was trying to tell you an easier alternative to something you had little information on?

And then you make nasty assumptions. I'm just going to leave it there.

Thank you. Does flying-access endanger the setup to where I might lose the whole shebang (pump, axle, windmill) to a forgotten beast or whatever it is that might fly and also destroy buildings? (I don't have a lot of experience with building destroyers.)

Any flying building destroyer like a roc, cave dragon or some other flying megabeast that gains access to your pump will be able to cause the machine to collapse. Which doesn't really matter much, because at that point the megabeast would be able to destroy everything individually anyways.

So when you bring the river water to the pump inlet, divert some into a side channel to run a waterwheel which powers the pump.

This sounds like using a water wheel in the river on the surface as opposed to using a wind-mill on the surface. I certainly don't object to that concept, though the methods to disconnect the artificial water section from the river and still keep it flowing confuse me, and seem overly complicated. Though I'm not sure why I'd attempt it if I can just stick a waterwheel directly in the river and voila, problem solved.

You could keep flowing water by having two water channels, one leading off screen and another to your resevoir. Once a Dwarf starts the system, it becomes powered and autonomous.

Same question for you, though a bit broader: Is this in any way protected from things that would normally destroy buildings?

You can make the above system completely underground if that's what you mean.

(obviously you'll need to build two wall in the channel)

Wat?

~o.o~