40d Talk:Water

Thawed ice = depth 7

I dug into a Murky pool, all 7's, drained out 8 squares of 7's into my reservoir to irrigate my farm, then closed the floodgate up. The murky pool was mixed 6's and 7's. After winter, it froze over, and in Spring melted back into all 7's again. Apparently they can refill themselves. It did snow on top of the pool. Perhaps the snow melted and got it wet? --Tracker 20:36, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

As far as I know, if there's any water in the pool then they will freeze into ice walls. When the ice wall melts, it will always melt to depth 7, irrespective of how much water the ice was originally formed from. It is unaffected by snowfall, so if your murky pool ever completely dries out, it will never refill, even if you get lots of rain or snow. --Morlark

fish

Do fish really flop around after you drain a pool? This didn't happen for me. --Turgid Bolk 17:08, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

brook water

Does anyone know what the water output of a brook is? As in, does it fill a 1-width channel any faster or slower than a river?--Xazak 18:29, 3 November 2007 (EDT)

stagnant water near still

Has anyone else seen stagnant water spontaneously appear beside a still? I had it happen twice, I swear that the still is leaking. --Krenn 02:58, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Likely, a dwarf for some reason dumped out a bucket or waterskin nearby. It tends to happen when you get job cancellations while filling a well or taking water to a prisoner or injured dwarf.--Knivesu 06:58, 3 December 2007 (EST)

Evaporation

I notice that evaporation isn't covered here or in Magma, and I think it might be a useful topic. My observation is that depth 1 fluids can evaporate if left alone. This means that you can get rid of arbitrary amounts of fluid simply by spreading it out enough, or by using a multiple-floodgate lock system to meter measured quantities of fluid out over a chamber floor. In my experience, evaporated water leaves behind mud, whereas evaporated magma leaves behind nothing. --Doctorlucky 16:45, 19 March 2008 (EDT)

Magma... evaporates? Could be true – this is DF, after all. --Savok 14:38, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

While your at it you can create that soap fortress page.--Warlordzephyr 17:40, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Bend bugs

Should we add a section about the u-bend bug?

I've just managed to make a V-bend that can absorb infinite water as well as the U-bend that creates it. Basically I used ramps to create a dip in a pipe trying to make a u-bend, and when I poured a full murky pool into it I ended up with only the bottom three squares full of water. I then got a real u-bend going from another pond and as much as it poured into a pool the v-bend absorbed it all.

Can anyone reproduce? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ikkonoishi (talk•contribs)

The u-bend is notorious, but never heard or ran into a "v-bend" before. A (side) diagram of your v-bend would be helpful in reproducing. As for pages, I'd say no, since they shouldn't end up being around a long time, but who knows. --Edward 18:13, 1 February 2008 (EST)

I was going to do one but couldn't figure out how to make the ramps. I'll just use \.

 Water went in. -->  ~.~########
                     ~.~.~###       <--- No water out
                     ####\~# /##
                     #####\~/###
                     ###########

Even when I brought infinite water from a normal u-bend two levels above it it would not flow through to fill the pond again until I capped the holes. Using periods to break up the ~ so I don't have to use nowiki tags. --Ikkonoishi 18:58, 1 February 2008 (EST)

The map http://mkv25.net/dfma/poi-3138-emptypool --Ikkonoishi 19:02, 1 February 2008 (EST)

Stagnant Water

What marks water as stagnant? I know bucket water dumped on the ground is sometimes stagnant, but it's not defined here and I'm not sure what does it.--Dadamh 13:30, 29 May 2008 (EDT)

Ice that melts becomes stagnant water. So if you mine out ice in an underground area, it will immediately melt into stagnant water. Tachyon 13:56, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

But I've had water in a bucket turn Stagnant. What is your responce Poindexter?! Hoborobo 16:32, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

Water that ain't in a river or brook ain't moving and is therefore stagnant. --Jellyfishgreen 19:11, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Map limits

Does water fall off the edge of the map ? Is it possible to actually make it flow out the map like rivers do ? Is it possible underground, several z-levels below he surface ? --Cptnemo01 03:51, 6 July 2008 (EDT)

I would think so, but bear in mind that you can not construct or dig near the edge of the map, making it impossible to channel out water (however, you could make a big surface delta). --Aykavil 08:07, 17 July 2008 (EDT)

Water doesn't technically flow off the edge of the map, i dropped a few zombies into a brook and they floated downstream, the result was about 20 zombies stuck at the bottom of the map and a whole load of miasma.--Warlordzephyr 17:47, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

You can get rid of water underground by smoothing and then carving fortifications in the "edge of the world" wall. Water falls right out of there quite well. You'll need an outflow 2 levels high three tiles wide, with a 5-tile wide 2 level high wall of fortifications, to guarantee no flooding from a single tile tunnel of water falling down into it. Less pressure may require less drainage. - LeoLeonardoIII

underground water manipulation

I am utterly lost when it comes to making underground channels/resovuoirs/wells or any other aquatic contraption beneath the earth. I've looked through both the wiki and the bay12 forums and all I've found are specialized articles for people who already know the basics. so can someone point me in the right direction? or even make a faq, if you're bored? I'd appreciate it. --Splendiferous 04:54, 9 August 2008 (EDT)

Perhaps you have something a little more specific? Asking for all three is rather big and vague. --borninshadow 22:32, 19 August 2008 (GMT -8)

Umm - Dig a channel (d,u) and a ramp side by side into the earth. Move down one level and repeat. You now have a well shaft, and a service ramp. Allow the dwarf to leave, via the ramp, then pump or channel water into the hole. You now have a hole full of water, upon which you can build a well. Making the hole different shapes and sizes is left as an exercise to the miners. --Jellyfishgreen 19:15, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Finding Water

If there is no water visible on the map, how can I track it down? There's a small glacier away from my mountain, but I don't see an easy way to melt it. Other than that, nothing shows up on the map underground. -- Aegeus (21:09, 20 September 2008)

I'll take a guess and say exploratory mining is the only way to go. Only one that I know of at least. --MagicGuigz 23:19, 4 October 2008 (EDT)

Wrong Information on Page?

The salt water section states:

"If a site contains saltwater (there will be a warning before embarkation), then all the naturally occurring water in that site will be salt water; including ponds, rivers and aquifers."

However, I have made wells from aquifers before on a map that was 1/4 tropical ocean and my dwarves drank from it. I think this information might be wrong. (Edit: I did not use a pump at all. I just channeled out above an aquifer and let the area below fill up, and then created wells over top of it). – unsigned comment by Frewfrux

According to a comment on the well talk page, it may in fact be the well that somehow manages to desalinate the water! Check to see if a zone drawn over the aquifier can be marked as a water source. If not, then this is most certainly a feature of wells which should be noted! --Raumkraut 16:28, 20 October 2008 (EDT)

A recent test confirms that wells desalinate water - I embarked next to an ocean and brought no booze, waited until my dwarves were thirsty , then built a well right off the shore (which I verified as non-drinkable by trying to place an activity zone) - once it was built, all 7 dwarves ran up to the well and walked away, no longer flashing with blue down-arrows. --Quietust 23:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

How strange - one of those effects is a bug, and should be reported in the forums - either that salt water wells are drinkable, or (if that's what was intended) that they don't show as a drinkable water zone. --Albedo 07:28, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

Salt Water and mud

I've discovered that desalinated water will become salt water once again if used on muddy constructed floors.

I constructed a cistern/aqueduct with no natural tiles exposed; however, in my temporary ignorance I had forgotten pumps attempt to fill to the same z-level. Resulted in a large flood; luckily I was using lakes/ponds and not a brook or river.

After waiting for 3 seasons for the single bits of 1/7 water to evaporate (already pumped it back out, couldn't pump it all out) leaving the entire construction muddy. I figured it would be a good time to test something else.

1. Does mud influence freshwater on salt water embark sites? Yes.
2. Does rain influence freshwater on salt water embark sites? Unsure.

After answering the first, I'm going to confirm the well desalination issue next. http://www.dwarffortresswiki.net/index.php/Talk:Well#Salt_Water--DracoG 10:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

After finally getting my cloth industry going to make rope, a well DOES act as a freshwater source. It doesn't change the water source underneath (it might if well uses 1x1 water?) to freshwater, so I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug. Looked over the bug list and didn't notice anything other than "# 001026 □ [dwarf mode][buildings] (Report) well buckets do not use low water in a square even if there is more water below".

Verifying this is easy enough; build a well then mark a zone (before and after well completion) and "Water Source (0)" will remain the same. Also, even with Standing Orders of "Zone-Only Drinking", dwarves will still use the well for drinking/pond/etc purposes regardless if it is marked with a zone.

I made sure to take a quick screenshot, if needed.--DracoG 00:38, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I think once you "break" an area that used to be freshwater (by breaking something and accidentally letting the freshwater come in-contact with something "natural") then it remains that way permanently. I haven't done an exhaustive exploration of the conditions, but twice I tried to completely reconstruct my formerly functioning freshwater canal and both times after the work was finished the zone still did not report it as a water source. I had removed all the walls and got rid of all the water and mud and rebuilt everything dry and it didn't work. So I decided to build a replacement water source somewhere else and that worked. Of course, to be completely safe I built the new thing out of wood whereas the previous thing was from glass. --Gamli 10:59, 28 July 2009 (PST)

Jesus Brooks

I think that humanoids shouldn't be allowed to walk over brooks, this was underlined to me when i saw the fisherdwarf asleep on the open space above the brook. – unsigned comment by Warlordzephyr

First off, sign your comments please. Secondly, and I don't mean to sound like an annoying Wiki bureaucrat, opinions about how something should or shouldn't be don't really belong on the talk page; you'd get a better response over at the Bay 12 forums. Nonetheless, I will address your point.

The way brooks are now is just a simple way to represent shallow running water that shouldn't block movement. A more realistic rendering would be to make the brook a small depression with ramps on both sides, and the bottom filled with depth 2 water, but for now, this is what we've got. --Mikaka 22:32, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

A "brook" isn't deep enough to go from 1 z-level down to the next. It's like sleeping in the gutter: you'll get wet but not drown.Garrie 02:58, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Stockpiling water?

My dwarfs like to carry water to food stockpiles. This only happens when I have given them a command to fill a pond (note that the said pond is on the other end of the map and on a different z-level from the stockpiles and that the stockpile is not in between the water sources and the pond). At first I thought it had something to do with fish so I disabled all meat and fish from the stockpiles and the little dwarfs kept on dumping water in the stockpiles. Does anyone know how to stop this or why it happens? L337chica 01:28, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

A wiki is not a Q&A - you'd get better feedback on the forums.--Albedo 04:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

Saltwater biome only?

I just embarked in a mixed saltwater/freshwater swamp site, and while the pools in the southeast corner (where the saltwater was) are undrinkable (designated zones over them have "0" water source tiles) the pools in the rest of the map seem to work fine as water sources.

--Syndic 22:06, 30 January 2010 (UTC)