40d Talk:Ice

Should probably include some information on melting the ice, as this is a common question. sinoth 10:44, 16 November 2007 (EST)

Ice is listed as a fire-safe material, and fire-safe materials are listed as being usable for creation of magma-powered buildings. Does this mean one can make a magma forge out of ice stones? Rkyeun 14:29, 24 November 2007 (EST)

Yep, you can make all 4 magma workshops from ice.

I tryed to get water out of ice by dropping it a floor but it did not work. What am I doing wrong? Diabl0658 23:49, 30 November 2007 (EST)

It no longer seems to work as of 33d, I'm removing that part from the page Klada 20:55, 3 December 2007 (EST)

Regarding melting ice, I found that if you melt ice, drain it off to a 2 or 3, and then shunt the magma off somehow (happens often when magma first flows, due to ebb and flow of the magma waves) the 2-depth water will re-freeze, allowing you to re-thaw it into a 7-depth water. ... I found this out the hard way actually, since the magma waves caused successive re-thaws for the water to flood out my then-thought-to-be-way-too-big water pit. --CrushU 21:20, 7 January 2008 (EST)CrushU 21:20, 07 January 2008 (EST)

One winter, I filled with magma a room beneath a frozen river to melt it, so my injured dwarves could be helped. Next winter, those rooms beneath are still filled with magma, but the river froze and will not melt. This is on version 0.28.181.39d. --Mattmoss 17:50, 2 August 2008 (EDT)

Value of ICE

What's the material value of ice? 1? Noctis 07:51, 31 December 2007 (EST)

Whatever ice boulders are worth I would assume. Probably 2. Lightning4 08:31, 31 December 2007 (EST)

0 Water is free so is ice. It doesn't even have a material entry it is hard coded in the game I think. --Ikkonoishi 10:56, 31 December 2007 (EST)

Yet on a map with water and magma sources one can produce an infinite amount of obsidian, which has value. Not that I'm suggesting obsidian should be valueless, but a fortress making a business out of selling ice sculptures would be fun. :) Bryan Derksen 21:46, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Considering pets can now die in route with merchants due to weather/temp, I bet they don't get far with your masterwork Ice Sculpture. :P --Kyace 23:17, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Not entirely true. I just noticed in a glacier game that I can sell ice "stones" to traders at a value of 3 each (with a weight of about 250 or so). Same price as wood, and roughly the same weight, depending on species of tree. Makes for a handy low-value trade with elves. RedKing 04:56, 23 March 2009 (UTC)

Melting without magma

If there is any way to melt ice without magma this would be good to know. Are there any drinks that are "just water"? ie can I put water into a barrel and have something to drink through the winter, or do I have to get plants and brew beer / wine / rum to not die of dehydration/thirst?GarrieIrons 07:15, 10 January 2008 (EST)

Nope, you have to brew something to store a drink in a barrel. Besides, even if you could store water, you wouldn't want to. Dwarves need alcohol, or they work much slower. -FunnyMan 08:44, 5 February 2008 (EST)

Well they may work slow for a bit but at least they don't die!GarrieIrons 06:50, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Well, if your map does not freeze all year long, build a well. --Stinhad Limarezum 07:03, 23 February 2009 (EST)

Keep in mind that injured Dwarf Soliders need water, along with recently unconscious Dwarves. As such, water is indeed necessary. Speaking of that, the article on the main page is quite unclear. I am not quite sure if I just have to drop the ice one floor for it to melt, Crush the ice to turn it into water, or what...Kenji 03 15:07, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Attempts at melting ICE W/0 Magma

I tried to colapse a section of ice from the top down one floor. That did not cause the ice to melt. I tried building a floor over the hole to make the ice go indoors. That too did not work. I am currently lost at how to melt ice without Magma. Kenji 03 15:30, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Water pit vs lake / pond

Does a water pit have to be a certain number of tiles, depth below ground, or overall "internal depth" (ie go a certain number of z-levels) to not freeze? ie how much of a pit do I need to not only dig, but fill, to have water in my fortress no matter what the weather is like?GarrieIrons 08:21, 5 February 2008 (EST)

Height doesn't seem to be important. It needs to be either Inside or Below Ground to not freeze, I'm not sure which. -FunnyMan 08:41, 5 February 2008 (EST) Update: It's Below Ground. -FunnyMan 18:56, 21 February 2008 (EST)

Well my current thought is to build a wall out of ice to see it melt and irrigate my field... also, I'm building an up/down stair down a few z-levels. Once done I will work out how to drop my ice down it... yes more to do it than anything else.GarrieIrons 06:49, 6 February 2008 (EST)

Engraving ice

Ice Walls can be engraved. I can prove it if you like. I made the change to the article, change the wording if you want.--Niaba 06:06, 6 April 2008 (EDT)

This seems a reasonably viable way to train engravers without wasting valuable wall space in a glacial sort of map.--Dadamh 15:28, 29 May 2008 (EDT)

If a masterfully engraved ice wall melts, does it cause a tantrum? --Raumkraut 16:06, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

It causes unhappy thought, like all masterworks. It's not instant-tantrum in new versions. --Someone-else 23:58, 3 August 2008 (EDT)

Some notes on engraving ice:

• Ice walls, floors, and snow-covered floors can be smoothed, then engraved.
• Smoothed ice floors are called "Level" and smooth ice walls are called "Straight".
• Smoothing removes snow cover.
• Engraved floors and walls are called "Sculpted".
• In the k Enter view of an engraving, ice floors are called walls.

— Calculator (talk) 00:31, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

Outside/Above Ground

I made a deep channel by actually digging a tunnel (so dwarves wouldn't get stuck by channelling stupidly), so it was all inside. BUT I dug an opening through the floor on one of the corners for some reason (thought it was required for flood gate lever). Anyway, so the water in this corner was inside, but above ground. And in late autumn it froze over, just when I was thinking I would need a well there! All the other water is still intact in the channel, but with a corner of damp ice wall blocking flow. Anyway, if someone else can confirm it doesn't have to be outside to freeze! --KernelJ 10:38, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

I don't think I follow your situation. If you mined out an L-shaped path underground for water, then dug a channel on top of the corner, that corner tile should be outside/light/above ground, unless you put some kind of construction over it. It's possible that the tile became outside, and then froze to ice, which might cause the game to claim the tile was inside/light/above ground (the game seems to report most outside impassable tiles as inside). However, even if you've got an ice wall in the corner, water should still be able to flow around it diagonally, shouldn't it? --Marble Dice 12:21, 28 May 2008 (EDT)

I just ran into this problem myself while trying to build a tower of ice to carve out. I had Inside, Above Ground tiles in my pump tower, and water froze solid the instant it was pumped into them. Water does not have to be Outside to freeze, it only needs to be Above Ground. --Tomatofruit 11:01, 29 December 2008 (EST)

Same thing here, z-level doesn`t matter. A cistern was made by dropping down a large portion (2 Z-levels high natural walls) of ice that formed a natural cap of ice and stone above water _after_ falling, so there is a subterranian area under it. Removing this cap makes the cistern freeze.. --Delduvat 07:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Moving Ice Stone

Ice stone or "water" can't be put into a stockpile right? So it'll stay where it's mined until I decide to make something out of them?

Yes, it's not listed under stockpile options, which is probably good, because you wouldn't want your dwarves bringing it inside so it melts or firing it out of catapults. --Tachyon 11:56, 1 August 2008 (EDT)

However, you could dump your ice anywhere you like.--Aykavil 14:52, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

If I dump the ice inside, like in a room I eventually want to farm, will it melt and give me a muddy floor? That would be really nice...--Jpwrunyan 07:15, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I tested this. Ice stone (as opposed to ice wall/frozen terrain) melts into a puddle of water which gets cleaned the same as spent bolts. There's no way to change solid ice wall into terrain water on a frozen map unless you collapse it with a cave in. This also seems like a bug as weird things can result from this. For example, any stone that might be on top of the section of ice wall you are collapsing remains suspended in mid-air after the floor(s) disappear under it. Ramps also stayed suspended in mid-air with nothing connecting them. It was very unsettling. The ramps and "stone" in question were all "water" (ie ice)--Jpwrunyan 18:21, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

building with ice

I know it's possible to make constructions out of ice, but can you make things that use the masonry skill, like tables? I've tried making a mason's workshop near the ice and ordering a table made, but he got rock from a different area. maybe if ice was the only thing available they would make it into furniture? It would be cool, because I made an ice tower and a need a door to go with it. :P --Tachyon 10:42, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

No. They count it as an "economic stone" for some reason, and there's no way to disable this that I could find. It's kind of a shame, because an ice palace WOULD be awesome. --Count Dorku

Magma Melted Ice Pressure

Is it just me, or does the water that comes from melted ice have strange pressure characteristics? I tried to get it to U-Bend but it wouldn't come back up to the original source and it seems to flow very slowly for water.

Ice Constructions melting

I built a Trade Depot ENTIRELY out of ice (water stone), and it stayed properly frozen throughout winter. However, when the ice melted in spring, the depot melted too!!! I had also built some walls out of ice but they did not melt. Does anyone know why this happened? --Stinhad Limarezum 07:10, 23 February 2009 (EST)

I've not tested this, so I don't know for certain, but I'm pretty sure that it's because constructions and buildings are not the same thing. Constructions are only the things that you can build under the b - C menu (i.e. walls, floors, fortifications etc). These are indestructible to everything. Everything else in the b menu - from armour stands to trade depots - is a building and can thus melt if made of ice. Aosher 08:39, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

This is very much the case. I once had a craftsdwarf's workshop spontaneously disappear out from under my stonecrafter because I built it from ice without being on ice. --Count Dorku

I had a farmer's workshop, a still, and a kitchen all disappear mysteriously... but not at the same time! All three made of ice at around the same time, built in dark subterranean ice, on different z-levels. The trigger seems to be use: the farmer's workshop only disappeared once I queued up a bunch of Dwarven Syrup jobs, and the same seems true of the other workshops. Doesn't DF do some basic heat-dissipation calculation? Seems to me the dwarves are melting the workshops with body heat, unless workshop activity generates heat of its own. Yet I've heard of people making magma smelters out of ice... maybe temperature disabled? --Rolan7 12:14, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Temperature Off?

I noticed a lot of people pointing out that water wasn't thawing out for them, and I know it may seem obvious, but could it be because they turned off temperature? That could be half of why some people have stuff that melts, while other people have stuff that doesn't melt. Probably the cause for much confusion on this subject, maybe something should be stated (though obvious) in the article that the effects of Ice thawing/freezing only work if temperature is turned on? Shardok 03:08, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Brook?

Digging out my brook does not produce ice blocks. It just produces "water" that is cleaned up by my dwarves. Normal? Mention in article? --Confused 00:05, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Obsidian ice?

I recently tried to magma warm a murky pool. The pool itself melted, but the ice floor above remained, so I just channeled that out. It was a 3x3 area of ice, and it kept refreezing, so I decided to ignore the middle square to prevent the accidental drowning of stupid dwarves... I caused a cave-in, which resulted in an OBSIDIAN square in the center, an ice block on top of it, and a dwarf somehow freezing himself to death inside of it. Which is kind of expected, as I had forgotten about cave-ins, but the obsidian was... unexpected. Talonj256 17:48, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• If you channeled magma underneath the pool to melt the ice, then a cave-in would have smashed through the floor of the pool into the magma channel, and some of that magma would have then splashed upward into the water and turned into obsidian. --Quietust 17:51, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

I had forgotten about that... And while that does explain the obsidian, it still leaves the question of the ice block remaining on top. Talonj256 19:13, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

"Damaged" floors?

In the section about using ice cave-ins to generate water, it is suggested that "the floor will also be almost completely destroyed" and that farms cannot be designated in that area. Unless there's something inherently special about ice cave-ins versus regular cave-ins, this sounds like total hogwash, since a 1 Z-level ice cave-in should simply deposit 1/7 water on the floor of the room, leaving it perfectly suitable for a farm. An independent test would be welcome, as I don't have a world handy with a glacier. --Quietust 17:59, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

• A closer test seems to reveal what happened - it actually melted the floor itself, leaving water floating on top of "Open Space" and revealing the stone on the Z-level below. I also managed to get the game to completely glitch out, generating an infinite series of cave-ins until I channeled out the roof and allowed the outside air to freeze the lot of it. --Quietust 18:40, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Ice Farming

Easiest way to melt ice (and grow more ice) is to capture a magma creature and have some dwarf haul him back and forth near the ice. The ice will melt within a 1-tile radius and re-solidify at any distance greater than that. To prevent your man from getting trapped into a wall of ice (and to aid in getting usable liquid water), prepare the field first by installing an underground chamber with plenty of down stairs for drainage. Then, when you cart your magma man/fire imp around, you grow ice on the surface, capture liquid water underground for use, and always provide your hauler an underground alternative route in case he gets surrounded by ice walls.

Be very careful not to let other dorfs wander around near your man as he is ice farming-- there is a very serious risk that you will encase and kill passersby with your movements.

This is also a relatively painless way of clearing out hidden fun stuff. Dig up fun stuff on freezing map so that it is outside and subject to freezing. Add water. A single heat generating creature will melt water and encase/kill all the others.