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[Codyrex123]

So, lets just get a few baselines down. First off, I'm using ZM5's 64 modpack with all addons, have DFhack helping me out with some managing, and I haven't played Fortress mode for a few years, on top of that never getting too far into it, hardly ever really smelting my first metals and failing catastrophically at the military system.

I've chosen a gnome civilization (accidentally haha) and embarked in a place with two rivers, one up high heading off map almost immediately and one down low several z-levels, now, instead of doing the 'obvious' thing to connect the two more directly with channels, I've decided I'd reroute the upper river into my gnomish fort. Now, let me explain more in detail, I've gotten plans to make a large 'pit' as a water storage area, which the water will flow into (With a waterfall, so once I get the well up I'll get that nice mood bonus) after I finish digging the new underground river. I have to ask, has anyone ever done this? I know I'm doing this practically purposelessly now, after discovering the first cavern beneath my fort is filled with water. I'm entertaining that maybe forgotten beasts will make me wanna close that path off and therefore the only water able to get from inside the fort will be this massive tank. Something that I'm wondering about is the difference between floodgates and drawbridges for this purpose, as floodgates require a lot more orders to setup by appearance. Before its asked, I've also already setup a failsafe so that my entire fort won't flood. To paint the picture a bit better, so far the tank only has 3 z-levels, the middle z-level will have a flow-pipe out into the bottom river, while where the actual fort's well to access the water supply (on level with the waterfall's edge) is two z levels above that, so only if I really fuck up will my fort flood.

So I guess what I'm asking is are floodgates better then drawbridges, how the heck do pumps work, and what can I do with a waterwheel taking advantage of this waterflow? As well as if anyone ever bothered with this? The initial idea for the project came up with my realization that water underground doesn't freeze, while surface water did, back before I dug into the water cavern.

[Fleeting Frames]

Floodgates and raised drawbridges work mostly the same here, but there's few minor differences between the two:

1 Drawbridges block path on OPEN signal, floodgates unseal, and vice-versa on CLOSE (with building order, you can have the path open for just 1 tick).
2 When the building attempts to block path and an item/creature is in the way, drawbridge hinge tile destroys it, floodgate waits to close until the item is removed (and doors just plain fail to close).
3 You can build bridges out of ash. Though they'll still deconstruct if an attached mechanism melts.
4 Drawbridge repeaters hurt fps more than floodgate ones, though both are bad.
5 A raised drawbridge, even momentarily marked for deconstruction, changes from wall-type to statue-type impassibility, thus allowing water/minecart/projectile through.
6 Bridges won't be targeted by building destroyers, floodgates will.
7 You can build the floodgate anywhere and have it immediately block the tile; bridge needs raising (and door needs a wall).
8 Obsidian-cast lowered raised bridges can be walked through by enemies/wild animals/visitors (but not your fortress denizens), opened and cast floodgates cannot.
E: 9 When you pull lever to make them passable, bridges will already act like flat track for minecarts, floodgates will use the floor underneath.

Pumps are better read on wiki.

As for your waterwheel, unless your flow manages to get an unbroken water flow from river top to map edge/aquifer, it won't be marked permaflow, so it'll be likely only turned on when you're flowing water under it as part of refilling whatever is on the other side. You could attach a power-to-signal mechanism to it, but building a pressure plate under where waterwheel is might accomplish that detection better.

If you have permanent power, there are same options as years ago, provided the modpack doesn't add any powered buildings. Sounds like you have fairly tall map, so minecart magma generator to FTW might be fun to watch once.

[Codyrex123]

So if I was using a floodgate I wouldn't be able to shut down the flow of water unless there was no water flowing through the floodgate? That makes drawbridges better, as they can be sealed with objects on them, thereby stopping any access to the outside in case of siege. (A major concern for me is enemies swimming through the water supply tube into the fortress, as once in the 'water tank' they can just climb up, and I don't have a good military despite being close to the 80 population i believe in order for sieges to spawn, Ambushes on their own are screwing my military over often enough.
The wiki page for screw pumps isn't very clear, but its probably more attached to the fact that I've never built them, I thought they were for moving liquids vertically directly, as thats the only reason I could think of needing a 'pump' of any sort. And yes I see there the 'pumpstack' type device for that, but I wasn't planning on the pumping idea being so complicated if I wanted to ship water to different Z-levels inside the fortress, such as artificial waterfalls.
For the constant flow, the system should theoretically constantly flow until my fortress's upper level fills up with water, with a bypass to stop that from happening below the input point, so its down to how quickly the water flows, and considering that the outflow to the inflow is probably roughly five or so tiles apart, as well as obviously being on a different z-level to each other, I think physically it checks out for being able to use a waterwheel. Another note on floodgates, seeing as this will be exposed to intruders, the fact that they'd destroy them alone is enough for me to have to use drawbridges.
The last point on powered buildings I don't quite understand due to not getting much into mechanics and power generation, the most complicated I ever got was wiring multiple retracting drawbridges to a lever above a massive pit to drop my enemies into.

[Fleeting Frames]

Irrelevant, but no, water flow isn't an item or creature. Floodgate will close on a tile containing water, erasing all the water. Though it can fail to close if you left stones into the tunnels and they got in the way.


For "close on filled", I'd install a water-triggered pressure plate into the last filling point of whatever is being filled that will trigger to raise the bridge when there is enough water. If doing this vertically, it might be useful to know that you can have pressure plates on downstairs if you dig downstairs into natural floor, floor them over, build the plate, then deconstruct the floor.


Well, then pumps, briefly: pumping west to east, 1234: 1 is must be empty space/grate/etc (downstair doesn't work), with fluid 1z below pump zlevel. 2 is walkable pump tile, that must be accessible to build it or manually pump. 3 is impassable pump tile. 4 is where the fluid will be placed, on same z-level as the pump.


If you want to move small amount of water/magma (such as for irrigating/workshops), bucket brigade/minecarts are better.

[Codyrex123]

Thanks for the pump info, I think I get it now, so basically from operator's side, it will pump 'up' one tile then across two/three, essentially.

I don't think a bucket brigade or minecarts are particularly logical for in-highend bedroom or taverns, though honestly, I've never used either so I really don't know what I'm doing. Though knowing how to do a 'bucket brigade' could be helpful if I ever need to drain the water out of there, or I could just make an ulitmate dump into the water caverns beneath, though I'm hesitant to do that due to flying forgotten beasts, they can destroy constructions, can't they?

[Fleeting Frames]

Honestly, a good approach for figuring many things in DF that aren't on the wiki is just do it and see what happens. Occasionally, you'll have hard-to-test questions like, say, "if I have dwarf mercenary of my civ read a book on the secrets of life and death, die and come back as non-violent ghost before I accept their petition, do I have controllable reanimating ghost lich?", but generally it is faster and more self-fulfilling than asking a question and waiting.

For your specific case, bucket brigades don't work well for periodically filling wells anyway; they'll just draw from the well then dump back into it. A water-filling minecart system could work with proper customized design, I suppose, but making a safe, secure, prompt and compact one would be a substantial novel grounds for you, I take.

FBs cannot wreck constructions (only caveins can) - or any other buildings that BUILDINGDESTROYER:2 can't destroy, as listed on the wiki. Though, while slapping a floor grate on your drainage is an option to prevent access from there, I'd tbh use map edge or portable minecart drain.

[Dunamisdeos]

THIS LOOKS LIKE A JOB FOR

THE WATER SUPPLY LLAMA (Pictured Left)

Ok so I used to have a flurry of diagrams but those got lost. I love making running water available to my fort, including hospital and dining areas as well as areas like lye-making.

Anyway here are some tips to consider when making a fort-wide water system.

1) You want a reservoir that sits above your water system. Water pressure from a reservoir only 4-5 high will night-instantaneously push water over absurd distances.

2) Drains to the caverns are efficient and good. Monsters can only destroy a grate from ABOVE. If coming from below they cannot destroy it UNDER MOST CIRCUMSTANCES. If they can path to a tile next to the grate, they can destroy it from below. This means if you have surface access to the caverns, and you can path from that cavern entrance to the top of the grate, they can smash it. To avoid this, use two grates so that the bottom grate (ergo, the one that the FB can touch cannot be pathed to.

3) I prefer drawbridges. They block access to things and cannot be damaged when raised. Helps with the above issue. The reservoir-drawbridge issue also precludes the need for complicated pumps if you can feed it from above.

4) Water pressure does not flow diagonally. If you have a main pipeline that you want to branch a well off of, just make a diagonal flow and it'll flow into the well area nice and slow no matter how much pressure is in there.

[bucketsofbuckets]

2) What is an efficient way to manufacture that dual grate arrangement? Do you make a pathable system, then add one or more walls to remove the path, then a grate above? Or, is there a clever way to dig to make it quick and easy?

[Dunamisdeos]

Here's a side-view diagram! One side leads to the caverns or what have you, the other leads to your fort or water system.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If the reservoir is even 1 z-level above the whole setup, it'll have no problem pushing water through the vertical U-bend seen here. I still recommend tall reservoirs, as it pushes water farther and faster. You can make stairs or whatnot that allow access to the upper portion while building it, then wall it off.

Once drained, it can also allow easy access for cleaning or even access to the caverns if you attach the grates to levers so they can be retracted.

[bucketsofbuckets]

Ah, *facepalm*. I was thinking I would need to remove ramps to prevent pathing. But I guess with each grate right on top of the ramp, there is no way to path to it to destroy it.

[Dunamisdeos]

Precisely! Though the last dwarf to place a ramp will likely trap himself, you just need some sort of access to be walled off later.

I make those U-bends anywhere that a monster can path. Drains, especially. Mind you I have never once had to actually USE a drain for something like cleaning or access, but I like building cool complicated stuff and it's nice to know that if a vampire or something falls into the well and dies I can get in there to clean it.