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[DoubleG]

Hey all,

Is there any way to prevent my Brook source from freezing up for most of the year? I'd like it to have it feeding into my obsidian industry permanently, but it stops for most of the year. I've tried flooring it over, but it still counts as outside. I've even tried DFHacking some magma underneath it, but it doesn't melt the edge tile that is the source of the water, and now it doesn't seem to melt it at all. I've bridge blocked the exit tile, so next year when it thaws it should give me enough water to fill my reservoir.

On a related note, as I was messing around with magma I decided to try and cast myself a nice dining room. I opened it up to the sky so it'd be outside and my dwarf could get their outside fun while still being indoors, spawned a bunch of magma to cover the bottom, then tried the water. I obviously forgot that water freezes outside. Now I have a massive floating glacier hanging over my head. Do you think this will cause !fun! for me? Will it thaw all at once or will I have titanic sinking blocks of ice crashing through my floor?

Thanks for any replies.

[DoubleG]

UPDATE.

Part of the floating glacier melted and the rest crashed through my fortress floor. Fortunately I built a bunch of walls on the next z level down so they only went through one floor. Still pondering how to deal with the river though...

[PatrikLundell]

Magma melting is odd, if I understand it correctly. To melt ice it has to be "moving", i.e. you need one (or more) magma ripples back and forth, so filling the magma basin to 6/7 in half of it and 7/7 in the rest ought to work, but you can't have any magma under the edge...

I'd re-engineer the solution to either use a non-freezing water source (aquifer or cavern lake) or route the river into a large basin during the non freezing part of the year for use during the remainder, and it seems you've done the latter.

DF's rules for "light" and the effects thereof are odd. Once exposed to the sky a tile remains "light" and has outdoor temperatures regardless of what you do (not including hacking, of course).

If you're spawning magma, you could just as well have spawned obsidian (for future use). Unless your ice spawns a biome boundary it should instantaneously melt all at once, although I've no idea if it triggers a Roadrunner & Coyote realization that it ought to be falling. If it doesn't, I'd try to disable cave-ins and then re-enable them. (Result posted while typing).

[DoubleG]

Ahh, the ripples would be why it stopped working. Thanks. And, yes, my embark is split biome with 4 biomes, obviously with slightly different thawing times. My future dining hall sits right over the split.

I use DFHack very sparingly, as I prefer to not use it. I know how to spawn liquids, but couldn't work out obsidian, so just thought I'd cast it with magma and water. I niw have a pit full of water which I'll have to either drain or wait till winter and mine it out.

Thanks for your reply.

[Fleeting Frames]

Regarding melting river source tiles, if you're on a mountain, can make map edge drain underneath. I've done it on a mountain/brook/volcano embark before.

You can also use water generation plant during the freezing part of year.

[TubaDragoness]

If nothing else works out, you can always turn off temperature in the init files while the brook is all liquid. This may cause other complications if you rely on magma for defense.

[gchristopher]

Magma melting is odd, if I understand it correctly. To melt ice it has to be "moving", i.e. you need one (or more) magma ripples back and forth, so filling the magma basin to 6/7 in half of it and 7/7 in the rest ought to work, but you can't have any magma under the edge...

I've done that, building a partially full magma layer directly under a river, and it does keep it melted during the winter, but the FPS hit from temperature calculations is extreme. (I think what you're doing is forcing the magma flow between 6/7 and 7/7 to force temperature to recalculate, so though the water still freezes, the magma temp calcuation very quickly unfreezes it.)

As you said, get water from an aquifer, or make an underground cistern that you can fill in the summer.

[Findulidas]

Wouldnt it be easier to just dig out a large room, flood it and then have it as a reservoir for when the brook is frozen?