v0.31 Talk:Well

Strange Well Phenomenon

I dropped several pieces of ice that I carved out of my glacier embark down my well that is built over a cavern lake. When the ice hit the lake it became "water laced with water", with a water covering no less. I saved and reloaded and it simply listed several instances of "water" at that spot as well as the 7/7 water from the lake. However, the dwarves no longer seem to use the well, a drinking zone placed over it doesn't say it's a water source, and the well says "bucket full". Has anyone else encountered this?

Mud Contaminant Rumors are FALSE

Two quote the contaminant page:

Water that flows over contaminants can pick them up and redistribute them as the water moves. Water does not appear to move mud, although mud will be created any time water covers a tile. The mechanics of redistributing contaminants using water is not well understood although there have been some observations of strange behavior when mixing blood and water.

And I can speak from experience, I have NEVER seen water move mud. I'm even running tests of it in my well guide fortress, there's no signs of any mud contaminating the water. The dwarves are fine with the water coming out of a well situated directly over a pile of mud. Whoever is making these claims about filtering mud with grates and bars needs to lurk (and experiment) moar. Even if mud were a functioning contaminant like blood, water just makes more mud as soon as it touches a floor tile, which means ALL water would be eternally muddy! Even after being "filtered" through a grate! --Kydo 06:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Further experimentation shows that water moves mud around a room, redistributing it. Mud will be in different piles when a room dries than before. You are correct that cleaned water will pick up more mud from unsmoothed floors. But who uses unsmoothed floors in their water system, you want it blocked up with 'shrooms? The "stagnant" modifier must be an invisible contaminant. I was confused by the fact that mud will collect on grates, and a I smooth my floors. What version are you playing? Do you have a "liquids" category in the first page of your stocks screen? What is listed there? Perhaps I'm not the only one who needs to experiment more, yeah? Or maybe you just need to update your executables so you are playing the same game we are. GhostDwemer 17:08, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Calm down, both of you. This is what my experience is:

• Water can have contaminants.
  • Salt is a water contaminant.
    • Salt occurs in water from any source in an oceanic setting (an ocean is present).
    • Salty water is described as "laced with salt" when you view it in a bucket.
  • Grime is a water contaminant.
    • Grime occurs in water from murky pools, brooks, and rivers (but not oceans or aquifers).
    • Grimy water is described as "stagnant" when you view it in a bucket.
• Tiles can have contaminants.
  • Mud is a tile contaminant.
    • Mud occurs in tiles with water on them.
    • Muddy tiles have "a _____ of mud" present when you look at them.
  • Blood is a tile contaminant.
    • Blood occurs in tiles with creatures bleeding on them.
    • Bloody tiles have "a _____ of blood" present when you look at them.
• Water can move tile contaminants.
• Water is unaffected by tile contaminants.
  • You can't have "bloody" or "muddy" water in a bucket.
• Tiles are unaffected by water contaminants.
  • You can't have a "grimy" or "salty" tile.

Okay? --DeMatt 01:55, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

No. For one thing, water from rivers and brooks is not stagnant as long as it is drawn from the actual tiles of the river/brook itself - this is verified easily enough in Adventurer mode by trying to fill your waterskin. --Quietust 02:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Really? I was just now playing an adventurer, trying to get to a river/brook... and when I finally found a way down to a brook, and tried drinking from it (e), it was stagnant. Lemme jump an adventurer into a river to see whether that's stagnant too. --DeMatt 02:42, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Just created a new adventurer, found a brook and stood on top of it, and both my eat and fill waterskin menus listed "water" rather than "stagnant water". The same was true for a river. --Quietust 02:59, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Okay, now THAT is frickin' weird. It took a while, but I found some stagnant brook water... in the same brook as fresh brook water.

• 

  Hmmm... fresh or stagnant, west or east?

• 

  The surroundings.

It took a while to find... most brooks (and streams, and rivers) do seem to be fresh water. I dunno, maybe it's a biome thing? Wandering up and down stream, there were spots where it was fresh, and spots where it was stagnant. Didn't seem to be any connection to surroundings, as the site isn't listed as separate biomes in fortress mode. Building a fortress, there were still fresh spots and stagnant spots in roughly the same areas (though the murky pools got rearranged). Channelling the brook tiles didn't affect it. Adjacent channels always seem to be stagnant. --DeMatt 05:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure adventure mode treats water differently than dwarf mode. We've always been able to fill waterskins from murky pools without trouble, even before the contaminants got added, but dwarves have always had a distaste for water drawn through a well over a murky pool or brook tile. Again, even before contaminants were set up, back when salt water was shown by not allowing you to designate open water as a water source area. It was based on what kind of tile the well was situated over, and simply digging one tile out from the side of a pool or brook made the water perfectly fine if drawn from that location with a well. There's a good chance that this is still the case, because if you do dig a new tile for water to flow into, it isn't exactly sitting stagnant any more, is it? I've been testing it, and yeah, it still works. And really, stagnation wouldn't make sense as a contaminant anyways, it's a lack of movement, not a material. --Kydo 03:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

No... the two modes (should) have the same water. "Stagnant" status, in bucket water, is caused by a "grime" coating on the water itself. What generates the "grime" coating... is not clear. --DeMatt 05:22, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I still can't find any evidence of this whatsoever. The latest version IS 0.31.18, right? I'm only finding stagnant water in pools. Draining the water from the pools makes it work just fine for me. The water from the river is just fine on it's own, thus far. Also, if stagnation is a contaminant, wouldn't it be listed as "laced with grime"? Also, my dwarves don't seem to be minding salty water from the well either. --Kydo 06:51, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Try looking at the contents of the water item - when you're looking at the bucket with the water in it, move the highlight to the stack of water (if it isn't there already) and press Enter. --DeMatt 08:26, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Stagnant water leaves 'a pile of grime' 'a dusting of grime' etc. behind it (when it evaporates?). I guess this is why adding fresh water to a cistern that has previously had stagnant water in it results in stagnant water. I think the grime can be eliminated from dry tiles by building a floor tile and then de-constructing it (just like you can get rid of mud, murky-pool tiles etc). Ptb ptb 20:02, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

You've got it backwards - stagnant water creates grime, but grime does not make water become stagnant. --Quietust 21:33, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Wells DO NOT clean water

Look at your stocks screen under liquids. What sort of water do you have? Stagnant water, or just water? Unless you put in a grate or bars to catch the mud contaminant, you will see that you have stagnant water in your wells and all your buckets. Now go look at your injured dwarf's thoughts. Are they complaining about water quality? Yeah, the info in this article is wrong, I'm changing it.71.222.187.247 19:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

You can't have stagnant water in a bucket. That's one of the best methods of eliminating the status of "stagnant". Water is considered stagnant when it's sitting on a brook or murky pool tile. That is the only deciding factor. At first, I thought people were just mixing up "mud" and "blood", but it's clearly so consistent, that there is no mistake. Also, where in the stocks page does it list water? Is it's quantity in the billion-gazillions? Now, if your well is full of blood, THAT is a big difference. Blood will have an impact, as it is a genuine contaminant that will flow with water.--Kydo 06:54, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

People often go by what they "know to be true" from previous versions or things they have heard or read. I'm just reporting what I have actually seen. I had read that well clean water, so I was surprised to read the stock page and find only "stagnant water" listed in my stocks. Looking at injured dwarves, I saw they had all complained about the water quality.

I have a well which I am experimenting on, trying to make it non-stagnant. If I select the well with 't', and choose the bucket (when the well reads "Bucket full" in the 'q' menu), I can see the contents of the bucket. The contents reads as "stagnant water". The above comment that water in a bucket cannot be stagnant is clearly false. --90.230.139.239 15:26, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Look under "liquids" in the stock page. You are playing a .31 version, right? Liquids have been in the stock pages a while. You may also see other fun liquids listed, like magma, or stuff magma has melted. The quantity of water listed is usually in the dozens. Buckets seem to hold five or ten units of water. Blood will not have an impact, blood does not make water stagnant. FB blood might make dwarves sick though. However, I have determined, mud is not the contaminant that makes water stagnant. It must be an invisible contaminant. Cleaned water will still make mud. Water that has passed through a grate and picked up mud from another source is still clean. Wells will not clean water. Buckets will not clean water. This may be new behavior, but you don't have to take my word for it. Just look.

Whether or not water is "stagnant" is determined by a flag set on the tile from which the water was gathered; an adjacent flag determines whether or not the water is salty. If you try to (g)et water (or fill a container with water) in Adventurer mode, it'll tell you whether the water is stagnant and/or salty, and it seems that both rivers and brooks are nonstagnant (haven't checked lakes). --Quietust 21:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

What would explain my observation that I had a well, drawing from a brook, and a liquids stock screen full of stagnant water in buckets? And when I put in a grate, I had regular water? I'm trying to test this now. I have three wells built, one from a murky pool, two from a stream, one of which has a grate. I've forbidden two of them for now, to test the last one, but it is surprisingly difficult to get blood on the floor the first season. Chasing mountain goats all over the screen did not help. I have some cage traps set up outside and am waiting for a sacrificial test subject to bring underground and kill with my "military." I suppose I could embark without any booze... GhostDwemer 21:52, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Through a stairway or ramp

Is this confirmed? I've built a well over a downward ramp and it seems to be working fine. Haruspex Pariah 02:04, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Just confirmed that it works through a ramp, but not through a stairwell --Kuroneko 02:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

When you say it works through a ramp, do you mean it can reach the bottom part of the ramp through the top one, or do you mean it can reach below the bottom part of the ramp? VengefulDonut 03:27, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't really understand your question, but where the ramp points upward it is sharing space with the water source. The source is only a square deep. Haruspex Pariah 03:33, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the tile above a ramp counts as open space. You can build wells, grates, hatches etc on downward ramps, even if there's water below.

Yes, a well will work over top of a ramp. Ramps act like an empty tile with a special function applied. So if all you have is a hole in the ground with a ramp in it, full of water, the well will still work there. But because a ramp requires ground to be built upon, you can't dig out anywhere below said ramp, so you can't exactly have much of a reservoir if you do that. Basically all it means is that having a ramp at the bottom of your well does nothing to the functionality of a well. But staircases still interrupt functionality should they be at or above the water level. --Kydo 15:05, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

This seems like a good thing if you dig the ramp into an aquifer. You don't need a water reservoir and little dwarven children can just crawl out(maybe)-- JamesPlaysDF 6:28, 26 August 2012

Can creatures come up through wells?

I've just created a fortress the bowels of a cavern - the only way to make a well would be to siphon some water from the bottom of it.. I don't want any Giant Olm's or anything rushing up through my well :P What I'll do for now is place some bars in the tunnel that leads under the well to the water. But for future reference, can anyone tell me if a creature has ever come up through their well?

Yes, it can happen, but only under certain circumstances. If you put two sets of bars or two fortifications in the passage, that'll stop creatures from getting into your reservoir. Mind you, if you use a pump/stack, you won't need to worry about that. As for creatures getting out of the wells, I've never had that happen in any of my fortresses. I'm certain it's possible if your well has a staircxase or some other escape method and an amphibious creature from the deeps or some zombified fish got in, but I've never done anything that would allow such things access to my well. And the water level in my wells is rarely right to the top. (That cuts it too close, as far as flooding potential goes, in my mind) --Kydo 15:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

At least as of .12 and later, bars, grates, and fortifications all turn the well to 'Dry'. Probably because they all block the bucket. Also, a pumpstack isn't feasible if your ground water is an expanse below many z-levels of open space. Uzu Bash 02:40, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I meant in the filling passage, the aqueduct, leading to the well. Not inside the well itself. Look, just go to my user page and look at the work I'm doing on the well guide. You'll see what I mean. --Kydo 07:24, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I see. Well, the simple question: can creatures come up the well? Simple answer: yes. If you can block access to the well's source, it won't be a problem, but if that's not possible, or not immediately feasible, then the well shaft is an easy access for flying creatures. Uzu Bash 18:31, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Non-freezing wells?

How do you make a well so that it doesn't freeze in winter?

You put it underground. Also, sign your comments. --Quietust 02:07, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Verified Well Fishers

Because a well is not an obstructing object, it's possible to designate a well as a fishing zone. The game basically reads it as a fancy hole in the ground full of water. Fisherdwarves can and will fish from a well, which could be a good thing if the well is over some underground water source. However, the water level must be right up under the well, or the available tiles for fishing will be reduced to 0. --Kydo 15:04, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

Muddy water from a well.

I had a well built about 100 levels above 1 level-deep underground pools and the water from these was always "muddy" when used to clean hospital patients (It was muddy already in the bucket on its long you-may-die-of-thirst-waiting-long way up). Water from a 2 levels-deep water source was never "muddy". It may be related to "muddy floor" of the tile the bucket reaches to fill with water. It may have a minor effect on thirsty dwarven thoughts and infection chances. Some dedicated experiments may clarify this more.--Another 17:50, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Well, a 100 level drop was really difficult to pull off before. It only makes sense there'd be some weirdness when the distance itself gets weirdly long. I'm building a fortress full of example and tutorial wells right now, to illustrate the step-by-step guides, so I guess I'll see what comes of this. Though I need more clarification. Wells only care about the tile of water DIRECTLY underneath themselves. As far as I know, a floor covered in water can't be muddy. It's either dry, covered in water, or muddy, I don't think I've ever seen those states overlap. Because there can't be any floor between the water and the well opening, I can't see how floor tiles would cause a change in the water itself. Maybe it is just the distance itself, as you said. --Kydo 07:28, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Verifying Happy Thoughts

Dwarves always think happy thoughts for well-crafted goods, no matter what they are. The thought is "(dwarf name) recently admired a (quality eg "Fine") well lately" --KingAuggie

Verifying "Never Booze" and desalination

Recuperating dwarves will never drink alcohol, because other dwarves will never haul the alcohol to them. Until dwarves nolonger drink directly from the barrel in it's stockpile, recuperating dwarves will simply be unable to drink booze, because they can't walk to it. They stay in bed and recuperate. Or just stay in bed. --Kydo 07:32, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Also verifying well desalination. Went to a saltwater ocean (It warns you on embark) with an aquifer. Tried to make an area, to see if the water could be used as a water source. It could not. It was definitely salt water. Built a well over that water without changing ANYTHING. Well reads as active. Locked all alcohol in a vault, (Dwarves will still drink forbidden alcohol!) dwarves drank out of the well with no unhappy thought. Also worked with the aquifer when I dug into it. Wells make water saltiness irrelevant. This is probably still as much of a glitch as before, but I'm adding it to the reasons for building a well in the well guide. --Kydo 08:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Regarding dwarfs drinking forbidden alcohol: did you forbid the barrel or the alcohol inside? Forbidding a barrel will not stop dwarfs from drinking or eating what is inside. It's the same with other containers. --Hermano 15:47, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

I forbade both the barrel and the alcohol inside. They'd still drink it. And then I forgot to unforbid it when I told them to haul it underground, and they wouldn't do that. It was actually rather a pain in the butt, and I could have avoided it entirely if I'd just not started with any alcohol. Not like I started the fortress to actually PLAY it... --Kydo 19:22, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Grates do not stop water from being stagnant.

I just spent some time blocking off the inlet of my well with wall grates, and I also dug the watered tile under the well 1 z-level deeper and put a floor grate so that the well would not draw from the lowest tile. All the water in my fortress is still stagnant. It does not seem realistic that a grate would magically make water not-stagnant, but I tried it because the wiki page said it would.--96.248.39.87 18:10, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I'm removing the misinformation about grates before someone else wastes their time trying to make their water not stagnant. --96.248.39.87 13:21, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to do an experiment to see if this stops stagnant water

People keep saying that if the water is moving(ie from a river or brook) water will not be stagnant. Usually when I design my well system, I dig directly into the river and I just let it constantly keep my reservoir full that way, but I can see how that once it fills up that the water doesn't "move" anymore. I have tried building and exit and an entrance for the water, but it was connected to the same river, and each side ends up becoming an "entrance" and meeting somewhere near my reservoir. I'm going to do try this same type of infrastructure, except this time I am going to have the water exit the map by carving a fortification at the edge of the map.

That should keep the water flowing. I hope it works, I can not bare the thought that my sickly dwarves are drinking bad water =( --Mateo 22:01, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

It did not make the water non-stagnant, I think however, that the biome that I am in is considered a swamp, and that makes the river stagnant even though its not touching the swamps at all.--Mateo 23:45, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Mud laced water?

Examining a bucket of water taken from a stagnant water source will show it as carrying stagnant water coated with grime. However, examining a bucket of water taken from a 1 z-level cistern with a muddy floor does not show anything about "laced with mud". Is "laced with mud" an invisible flag? -- Khym Chanur 08:05, 11 June 2011 (UTC)