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[Darthlawsuit]

I am wanting to create a large farming infrastructure using irrigation, my current method was rushed last minute.

I want to create a large pond above ground to collect water when it rains. Then I want to then channel the pond a few floors down. Then setup some type of method with channels and floodgates. The only problem is I am new and have some questions:

#1: How do you dig up the floor under you so that water can drop down a level or five
#2. Can I move the Loam from my upper floors to my new underground farming facility?
#3. Can I grow grass underground for my animals?
#4. How do you build the water canals? Channels or just by cutting out the rock and covering the whole thing in walls?
#5. How do you fill in a hole you made in the floor?

[Marshall Burns]

Only "murky pool" tiles fill when it rains. Connect a murky pool to a cistern at least one z-level below the pool and the rain water will drain into the cistern, although you'll lose some to evaporation. Keep in mind that this water will be stagnant. Also this cistern will be pressurized up to the z-level of the murky pool, which can cause flooding if you use this cistern to supply water to any wells or other open-topped structure on a lower z-level.

Use the channel designation to dig through the floor to the z-level below.

There's no way to move soil, other than by controlled cave-ins.

Grass (well, moss, but it works the same) will gradually grow underground on any soil or muddy tiles once you breach a cavern layer with vegetation in it.

Water canals and aqueducts can be channels, or mined corridors, or constructed corridors. Just use whatever seems to be most appropriate to your situation.

[greycat]

Only "murky pool" tiles fill when it rains. Connect a murky pool to a cistern at least one z-level below the pool and the rain water will drain into the cistern, although you'll lose some to evaporation. Keep in mind that this water will be stagnant. Also this cistern will be pressurized up to the z-level of the murky pool, which can cause flooding if you use this cistern to supply water to any wells or other open-topped structure on a lower z-level.

You can eliminate the pressure by making the water go through a diagonal tunnel on the bottom-most level.

[Starver]

I can see most of this answered, already, but putting my oar in anyway.

I've seen people being misled by the "No suitable soil, create mud with water"-like message, which appears.  That message might well appear because your above-ground biome (e.g. one where it's glacial) doesn't allow any plants.  If you have soil, you don't need irrigation at all, and can build a farm there.  If you then can't grow anything, you either don't have any suitable seeds at the moment (aboveground for lit, even recovered, tiles, subterranean for any never-exposed-to-sky) or, aboveground only, the biome doesn't want you to plant at all and it'll never work

However, if you're wanting to plant on bare rock, as opposed to dug-out soil, you would need to irrigate.  As has been said, only existing pools can refill with water when it rains.  You need to tap into one of those.  When I've done this (on particularly dry biomes, and back when even soil needed irrigating, underground) I've tended to set up a floodgate to allow a pool to fill an underground cistern twice its size (could be bigger, but hedging against evaporation of the leading edge of the waters) on the level below.  That cistern has a floodgate leading to one twice its size, to be emptied into once two or more surface fillings have filled the first cistern, and I might chain a few more double-the-size cisterns, emptying each into the next when full, in something like a binary-carry cascade.

These days, however, I'd tap into cavern water.  You'll almost certainly find some that connects to the edge and is infinite, and even if it isn't you should be able to tap into it for a significant amount of water, if you design the collection system correctly.

The slower way to tap into it is to make a well-head, and use that water-source to manually ('bucket-brigade') fill a pool of your designation.  I'd make it a 1x1 pool connected by a floodgate to a second 1x1.  Very quickly there'd be greater than 1/7ths filled, and when it's 7/7ths, opening the floodgate would make it 2+2+3/7ths (perhaps 2+2+2 if there's a small evaporation) filled between the three rooms.  Which can then be filled back to 7/7ths via the original opening, and then you can open up a further floodgate to let the 21/7ths spread into half a dozen other tiles (including/plus second floodgate space) without overly evaporating, and so on.  This way you can accumulate a separate cistern supply.  Designing the well/well-head so that it can be shut off and prevent flying cavern beasties wandering in might be important.

The quicker way (has some danger, but less labour intensive, once dug out/constructed, and easy to replenish) is to dig into the side of the body of water.  Set a tunnel almost to the end, set so that a final (undug) tile would give a diagonal connection between tunnel and/or flooded area.  Smooth that tile.  Construct (and level link) a floodgate in the penultimate (current end-of-tunnel) tile.  Set it to be opened and the final tile designated to become fortification-carved.  When the engraver completes the job. the water will rush in but you will have ensured that he's got a quick exit (not via an entrance on the same level, but up and out of the water-duct, but up a level), as well as get the floodgate closed again, quickly.  When all is well, engraver is out (or, if you still messed up, body and possessions recovered and dealt with) you can seal/unseal this water-pipe as it enters various other places, equip more floodgates, grates, grills, whatever, and when you're happy open the floodgate back up again to gain the water supply you need.

For safety, unless you're absolutely needing a continuous water-supply, I'd close the floodgate again once it's purpose is complete (trapping mostly 7/7ths water in the tunnel, which you can still use for safer well-abstraction, etc, at least until it's plundered a while) preventing anything squeezing into the tunnel (or bodily-fluid pollutions of any kind) that might cause you grief.


But back to your numbered questions:

• I would designate to dig a channel on one tile (1x1) across a vertical column (i.e. 1x1 on a given Z-level, the same point 1x1 on the Z-level below, etc).  Make sure you don't drop into any voids, and that you have (or can dig) an exit tunnel off to the side at the final layer.  The miner will channel at the top level, go into the channel to channel in the layer below, and from then until he hits bottom (or is otherwise rescued/recovered, if you encounter a problem you didn't foresee) he's trapped and will dedicate himself to digging out into the next layer down.  Then either dig or walk his way away from the bottom end, according to whether you got him, or another guy, to pre-dig the exit route.
• You can apparently cave-in layers (undug ones), to this effect, but it's a messy, dusty business.  Might not be for beginners.
• Already answered, grass(/moss) and other subterranean plants will grow once you hit caverns.  It's not quick, but it's certain.
• I just (d)esignate a normally (d)ug sideways mining tunnel, and rarely cut'n'cover, and only ever need walls/floor built if I've hit a void that I don't want or I've removed valuable ores from the tunnel walls.
• (b)uild and (c)onstruct a (f)loor on that spot.

[greycat]

Dwarves fill a pond to 6/7 and then they stop.  Spreading a 6/7 pond across 2 more tiles should create 2/7 uniformly.  I've never seen evaporation occur during that process, although I suppose it's theoretically possible.

[Starver]

It's been a while since I've done it, so you're probably right.  But I'm used to combating (or taking advantage of!) evaporation from longer tunnels/areas being filled and using up more 'sevenths' than were supposed to be available, so I was probably over-cautious.  (And misremembering how full ponds got.)

These days, well-heads and side-tapping the cavern waters are my usual water-supplies, with side-tapping rivers a distant third.  Easy when you know how.  You just need to know how and know the pitfalls.

[Darthlawsuit]

Thanks everyone! I finally got my first canal working and a working well. Now I can seal up my cave and give the raiders the middle finger! Figure out how to play the game before I do any real combat.