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Author Topic: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.  (Read 35001 times)

Sphalerite

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Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« on: September 25, 2011, 09:33:31 pm »

In the current version of DF, dwarves will clean themselves at a well.  A dwarf with blood or pus or forgotten beast extract will stand next to a well, lower and raise the bucket, then walk away clean, leaving a puddle of whatever he washed off behind.  This will often get on whatever dwarf uses the well next, leading to an endless cycle of re-contamination.

I've been trying to figure out a way to clean up this residue between uses.  Water isn't reliable at moving contamination, more likely to spread it around than remove it.  Placing a grate doesn't work, since contamination doesn't fall through grates.  Magma would remove the contamination, but a system to flush the well with magma between uses without clogging the whole thing with obsidian would be complex.

Then I realized that I'd seen fire remove blood splatters in adjacent tiles.  And I realized that artifacts burn forever.  So I thought, make a well with a forgotten beast bone chain I have lying around (and otherwise magma-safe materials), set it on fire, and it will then clean itself between uses.

Yeah, this was a terrible idea.  I set the well up and set it on fire with a carefully managed magma wave.  When the magma was gone, I channeled out the rest of the space under the well to connect it to the cistern.  A dwarf with some mud or something on his feet came by to use the well.  He lowered the steel bucket into the cistern, at which point the burning chain began boiling the cistern water away.  Despite this, the bucket managed to fill with water.  The dwarf raised the bucket, which boiled dry the moment it left the water.  Rather than canceling the job, the dwarf lowered the bucket again ... repeating the cycle over and over again, until the cistern boiled dry and the job canceled.  He then walked away, leaving the burning chain lowered to the lowest level of the cistern, and also leaving a trail of blood as most of his fat had melted out at this point.

I couldn't refill the cistern for the burning chain lowered into it.  I managed to deconstruct the well, and luckily the rope ended up next to where the well was built rather than falling into the cistern.  Now I have a permanently burning forgotten beast bone rope in a locked-off corridor, and a steel bucket at the bottom of the cistern.

I'm still looking for a way to make a self-cleaning well.  This was not the way to do it.  Amusing, but a terrible idea in retrospect.
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Sir E Brum

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #1 on: September 25, 2011, 09:38:41 pm »

Quite hilarious. Thanks for the forever burning artifact tidbit. I'll be sure to use that, as now all my goose bone crowns and scepters from possession moods have a purpose.
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Urist Imiknorris

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #2 on: September 25, 2011, 09:43:11 pm »

Try using an artifact flammable mechanism.
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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #3 on: September 25, 2011, 09:43:20 pm »

That was not a terrible idea at all. Think of what could be done with this! I can see it now. !!nobles!!, !!goblins!!, !!elves!! and !!elven nobles!!
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Girlinhat

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #4 on: September 25, 2011, 09:46:02 pm »

*Added to Dwarven Relativity, because it appears everything Sphalerite does is amazing.*

Try this:
Code: [Select]
╔═════
║¢¢¢++
╠O○¢++
║¢¢¢++
╚═════
To clean the well, you open the hatches.  The single wall tile should allow the well to be supported while also not allowing a dwarf to stand on it.  When cleaning, you open the hatches, and any contaminants should fall through.

Failing that, you can float some floodgates using the wall deconstruction trick.  Do two levels of solid floodgates, and then closer the lower one.  Flood magma, burning contaminants and letting the magma collect atop the wall of floodgates.  Then close the top layer, which should instantly atom-smash the magma, leaving none left.  Open both layers, and the well is fresh for use again!  I can diagram this if desired.

Sphalerite

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #5 on: September 25, 2011, 09:53:17 pm »

To clean the well, you open the hatches.  The single wall tile should allow the well to be supported while also not allowing a dwarf to stand on it.  When cleaning, you open the hatches, and any contaminants should fall through.

That's the thing.  Contaminants don't fall!  When the hatch opens and closes, the blood or whatever remains in the same tile.

In fact, as far as I can tell from experimenting with arena mode, pools of blood are completely immune to gravity.  Bleeding creatures can be made to leave trails of blood that mysteriously hang in midair.  Water that falls down Z-levels mysteriously leaves blood hanging in midair behind it.  You can't even atomsmash blood splatters, you have to burn them away with magma or fire.

Quote
Failing that, you can float some floodgates using the wall deconstruction trick.  Do two levels of solid floodgates, and then closer the lower one.  Flood magma, burning contaminants and letting the magma collect atop the wall of floodgates.  Then close the top layer, which should instantly atom-smash the magma, leaving none left.  Open both layers, and the well is fresh for use again!  I can diagram this if desired.

I have a similar design worked out.  You do need to seal off the well in the process, to stop magma from falling into the cistern and clogging it with obsidian.  I'll try that next, I just thought that a perpetually burning well would be a cheap solution.

Try using an artifact flammable mechanism.

I'd like to, but I didn't have any in this fortress.  Flammable artifact mechanisms are harder to come by, you need a flammable stone like lignite or graphite or something, and I didn't have any in this fortress.  I suspect it would still melt the dwarf and boil the water once the bucket returned to the well, through it shouldn't boil away all the water in the cistern.
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Girlinhat

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #6 on: September 25, 2011, 10:01:08 pm »

The idea behind the floating floodgates is to cover the entire shaft.  If your well is in a 3x3 pit with a constant 3x3 tunnel down, then you build a magma safe well, and then 3x3x2 floodgate block under it.  When you close the gates, the well becomes non-functional, but it's also covered in magma so that doesn't matter.  When you re-open the gates, the well works again.

Do also note that if you do a ring of grates around the well, then magma will pass through.  If you do this on multiple levels, then each well will pass through the one under it via some sort of dwarven magic, allowing you to set up multiple wells in the same shaft that can all be cleaned with a single flow of magma.  Magma will pass through a well and grates, so if you do a 3x3 bridge at the top supporting 7/7 magma, then it should give it a nice flush of fire and quickly extinguish at the floodgates!

NightlinerSGS

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #7 on: September 25, 2011, 10:20:59 pm »

maybe something like this:

Code: [Select]
WWWWWWW
WBBBBBW
WbbbbbW
WBbObBW
WbbbbbD
WBBBBBW
WWWWWWW
where W= Wall, b = lowered drawbridges, B = Drawbridge Base, D = Door and O is the well.

Once this is finished, raise all bridges so they form walls along the B tiles and open the door.
Dwarves will come to wash themselves.
Once there is something on the floor wait until all dwarves are out (or not, depending who they are), lock the door and lower all bridges.
This should atom-smash everything around the well.

Could be automated eventually with some creative use of pressure plates and some layout changes... I'll have a look at that when I'm actually awake :p

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Girlinhat

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #8 on: September 25, 2011, 10:22:19 pm »

As stated, contaminants seem to follow their own set of rules, and atom smashing isn't reliable.  Purge it with fire.

Oliolli

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #9 on: September 25, 2011, 11:46:09 pm »

Girlinhat is right. Sphalerite is incapable of doing anything non-amazing.

Surprising Necro910 isn't here yet...
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Necro910

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #10 on: September 25, 2011, 11:49:19 pm »

Girlinhat is right. Sphalerite is incapable of doing anything non-amazing.

Surprising Necro910 isn't here yet...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4

As stated, contaminants seem to follow their own set of rules, and atom smashing isn't reliable.  Purge it with fire.
The Necro910 Method is quite effective.

Mitchewawa

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #11 on: September 26, 2011, 12:10:03 am »

I have not yet tried it, but I had an idea a while back. In an aquifer map, water flowing into the aquifer seems to vanish. While it would be tricky, have a dwarf stand in an empty pool area, have flowing water from a river open up from a floodgate for a short time, then close. The water cleans the dwarf, runs down into the aquifer and gets absorbed. Sure, contaminants would run through the sewage line from the cleaning area to the aquifer drain but you could always... just not have dwarves go through there.

I'm not sure if this will work, but it does sound like an interesting thing to test.
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loser

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #12 on: September 26, 2011, 01:00:46 am »

Is it not the case that the bucket and chain of a well will not penetrate an opened door, floodgate, or hatch?
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Girlinhat

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #13 on: September 26, 2011, 01:09:18 am »

They will go through an existing well underneath them, so I assumed so.

Funburns

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Re: Building a !!well!! was a terrible idea.
« Reply #14 on: September 26, 2011, 04:11:22 am »

While reading this, I had an idea for an automatically incineration-cleaned well. It's a tad complicated and I haven't seen if it actually works yet, so... try it at your peril. :P

The well would sit at the end of a short corridor. The corridor would be lined with pressure plates all the way to the side of the well. These pressure plates would stop just one pump in an otherwise continual magma mister built in the four-pumps-in-a-squarcle design with one corner over the ground next to the well (right where a dwarf would leave a pile of grime).

The purpose of the magma mister is to cause the well's surroundings to be automatically purged in a way that doesn't restrict dwarven pathing access to it. Whenever a dwarf decides to clean itself at the well, it would be able to queue a job for it and start walking that way, since the magma wouldn't be present 100% of the time (thanks to the misting design). Upon stepping on one of the citizen-triggered pressure plates in the hallway, the pump that would be pushing magma into the corridor is shut off; this allows the mister to conserve its fiery dispensation behind a wall and ensures the visiting dwarf doesn't trip into a puddle and lose face.

In order to turn off the master pump, it would need to be connected to its own power supply and an additional gear assembly hooked up to a resistor box full of enough mechanisms to ensure the master pump turns off when the connection gear is engaged. The resistor-connection gear assembly would be hooked up to the row of pressure plates leading to the well. Again, it's critical that the master pump be on a separate power train from the other three pumps so that they continue to move the magma away from the well when a dwarf is walking up to it.

This image is from the wiki, showing the (water) mister blueprint.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This image, based on the previous one yet altered in MSPaint, shows the automatically cleaning well.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Getting just enough magma into the mister might require a space-wasting aqueduct and a floodgate, since there's no such thing as a "fill magma pond" order.

Now, if only it would work. I'm not presently in a position to test it, or I'd do so.
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