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[Lord Shiteblast]

Just had an interesting experience - FB spawned in the caverns. There's only one route down covered by a bridge so I ordered it raised. The FB proceeded to mull around and I assumed it couldn't find a way up.

Thinking I had the situation well in hand, I decided to dig out a cave-in trap rather than ask my ill-trained militia to take the beast on. Just as the bridges and support were completed, the FB shows up right inside my hospital.

My hospital has a well inside it. The reservoir is fed by a moat which drains all the way down into the caverns. It drains into 7/7 water (cavern river) and the drain canals and moat are near constantly at 7/7 water.

What must have happened is the FB pathed its way through the cavern river then climbed all the way up the flooded canals, into the moat then into the reservoir and up the well. I didn't even realise what was happening until I noticed bits of dead dog in my moat and sighed at the prospect of having to shut down the waterfall and clean it out.

It took a while to dig out the cave-in trap, yet in the end the FB was slain by a single halberdier. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As hilarious as all this was it's got me rattled since my once impenetrable fortress is now vulnerable. The obvious solution is to simply channel out the ramps from the bottom of the drain, hopefully this will stop something similar happening again unless a flying FB shows up and swims up. D:

Are most FBs able to routinely path/swim through 7/7 water? Can other megabeasts do the same?

[PatrikLundell]

Titans/FBs can swim (including in magma, even the snow based ones...) without problems. Since they also come in flying varieties that's a potential threat as well (and a swarm of hungry heads can cause trouble as well).

I don't know about the swimming ability of megabeasts, nor semi megabeasts, but since bronze colossi are essentially golems they presumably do not risk drowning.´

[Lord Shiteblast]

Can they swim up waterfalls?

[PatrikLundell]

Not waterfalls, but certainly up through solid water columns.

[Dunamisdeos]

*rolls 20d*
*saves against urge to diagram*

I don't think anyone has done any science on FB's climbing, either. If the path involves rough walls or shafts but no solid water columns, could be that.

[bloop_bleep]

*rolls 20d*
*saves against urge to diagram*

I don't think anyone has done any science on FB's climbing, either. If the path involves rough walls or shafts but no solid water columns, could be that.

Didn't you do another diagram spree before on this exact subject? I remember you linked to it a couple times.

You should use a two-grate system on your water intake. Basically, FBs can't break through grates from below, unless they have a path to the other (top) side of the grate. By  putting a second grate above the first, it stops the FB from pathing to the top side of the first grate, thus preventing it from destroying it. Bit exploity, but it works.

Another, more complicated but also more realistic system would be two bridges instead of two grates, arranged in an airlock system. Suppose the water intake is behind the first bridge, and the well reservoir is directly below the second. The first bridge should be raising, the second should be retracting. Link both the bridges to a single lever. Originally, the retracting bridge would be closed, but the raising bridge would be lowered, allowing water into the "airlock chamber" (area between the two bridges.) Then, when you pull the lever, the raising bridge goes up, and the retracting bridge retracts, closing the intake, but allowing the water which already accumulated inside the chamber to fall down into the reservoir. You could do this whenever the water in the reservoir starts to get low, or you could just put the "pull lever" job on repeat so you don't have to do it manually every time.

Notice how there was never a valid path from the water intake to the reservoir at any time; the only way a nasty could get in this way is if for some reason they decided to wander into the airlock chamber while it was accumulating water.

[Lord Shiteblast]

That's a brilliant idea, I would try it but I lost the entire fortress to a corrupted save and forgot to have backups on.

What's the distinction between a waterfall and a column of water? If by "solid" I take it to mean constant 7/7 water between z-levels?

[Dunamisdeos]

Didn't you do another diagram spree before on this exact subject? I remember you linked to it a couple times.

*rolls a 1*

"A Grand Piano falls from the sky. You are crushed, taking 106d6 of crushing damage. From your splattered remains, diagrams flow."

Spoiler: On creating a safely sealed, accessible waterway (click to show/hide)

The main thing is to create a renewable (or at least vast in volume) course of water for sick or injured dwarves, and for non-dwarf residents. However, you don't want dangerous baddies to sneak in to the system from outside, and you don't want to flood your fort.

Below is a 100% SUPER GREAT SERIES of diagrams showing how to do all this safely. So long as the water source is large enough, you can pump water to anywhere in your fort. Use grates as shown to prevent anything from entering your fort through the water system. You can even link the grates to levers if you want to access those sections of pipe later (for cleaning, perhaps). This is also the purpose of the drains in each section of pipe.

Grates are invulnerable from below, BUT it's important to note that there must be no accessible path to the rear (right hand) grate (see third diagram). This is the reason for the front (left most) grate.

Spoiler: On piercing water sources (click to show/hide)

You can almost always use this method to safely pierce a source of water from the side or above. Be sure to only pierce it after your safe pipeline is completed.

You can also pierce an aquifer from below to achieve this effect. It is more dangerous in terms of initial drowning, but hey, no baddies will ever come through your pipe if it's sourced from solid rock.

Spoiler: A GREAT diagram for GRATES ah-hah-hah (click to show/hide)

It is also easy to add wells to your underground pipe system. Just make sure that the water flows diagonally from the pressurized pipe to the well area. Your dwarves should have no problem escaping the rapidly filling well area, and the water will not rise above the well level.

Spoiler: Visual on diagonal water movement (click to show/hide)

"The rest of you, roll for initiative vs. MIMIC GRAND PIANO."

[PatrikLundell]

A column of water ought to have 7/7 water, yes.