40d Talk:Brook

Fishable?

Might be worth mentioning if brooks are normal water with respect to fishability, or whether a channel needs to be dug first. Runspotrun 16:31, 11 November 2007 (EST)

I suppose so, since it is a potential source of confusion. --Dryn 22:23, 28 November 2007 (EST)

damming

1. How do I know which side of my dam is going to be dry, before I dam a brook? (ie which way does the water flow, if the entire z-level is level, and the brook stays on the whole z-level from one edge of the screen to the other??)
2. Will it cause a flood, when I dam a brook, if I don't leave a spillway?
3. If I channel my brook so it is non-walkable, will it still freeze in winter?

GarrieIrons 07:37, 9 February 2008 (EST)

1. Check the edges of the brook that meet the map, one of them will be losing water. That's the downstream side.
2. Assuming this is the same level brook, no, as the dam would be at the same level as the source.
3. Channeling will simply remove the brook floor tiles, the brook itself will still freeze, like any exposed water.

Edward 07:36, 13 February 2008 (EST)

Magma vs. Brook

So I've been playing around with magma and a brook, and in addition to setting about twenty dwarves on fire, I discovered some interesting things. The first I posted to the magma article a few days ago: namely, magma coming in contact with a brook will cause the water below the brook to harden to obsidian, but does not seem to produce steam. When I dug the obsidian out, I discovered WHY: magma falls through the brook floor tiles (and onto my miners, who of course catch on fire, and go back to their barracks to "sleep it off". Yeah. That went well). This also gives the brook tile the appearance of a boulder, but it does not obstruct wagons, and if you k over it, the description is still "brook". So now I'm curious: Does water fall through the brook floor tiles as well? Once I've finished draining the brook, perhaps I'll build a water pump and find out. If so, that would mean that brook "floor tiles" act like floor grates, or possibly floor bars: that is, solid things (or solid things larger than vermin) cannot pass through, but fluids can. Which kind of makes sense. Any thoughts? Has someone already done this? --Zombiejustice 01:17, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

While the end effect might be the same I think you would find that when the magma comes in contact with the brook, some of the magma is turned to obsidian boulders by the water. The rest of the magma then falls through the boulders to the next level. The water would not become obsidian. Possibly the water is not even destroyed, just displaced... that would probably need source diving to work out. (I would guess that when a channel of magma reaches a brook tile there is infinately more water than magma - there would only be 1 x 7 units of magma but every brook tile and every aquifer tile is a gate to the elemental plane of water)GarrieIrons 02:11, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

My second point is, there is a huge difference between the natural surface of the brook and a ground layer scattered by obsidian boulders. You can tunnel under a brook, if you keep resetting all the "wet rock detected" stuff. I think magma would be destroying non-magma safe surfaces it is resting on that would be why it is "falling through".GarrieIrons 02:14, 15 June 2008 (EDT)

Research, continued:

(1)Water will, in fact, pass downward through the surface of a brook. I dried up a brook, then pumped water onto its surface. The brook got muddy, and the tiles below suddenly had water.

(2)If you dry up the water under the brook floor, the brook tile dries up; the character for a dry brook is the same as that for a boulder. This same character is visible on the tile below the brook floor (that is, at the level where the actual water would otherwise be). If you turned the water to obsidian with magma, you can mine it out to form an obsidian floor, but the upper tile will still be the dried brook character. If you run water over the floor, the dried brook character above turns back to a flowing brook character.

(3)Dwarves do not appear to be able to walk on the bed (that is, the lower level) of a dried-up brook. A player can designate these tiles for digging (as in d,d - which strikes me as weird) but dwarves will not dig them out.

Addressing Garrie's points above:

(1)It's my understanding, based on reading the wiki and my own observations, that any amount of water in a tile and any amount of magma in that same tile produces obsidian (and steam, which in the case of brooks appears trapped under the surface of the brook). The fact that the water replenishes does not affect this. I've dammed my brook in this manner twice now.

(2)There is indeed a huge difference between the natural surface of a brook and a field full of boulders; my further research has shown what is going on here. As to magma destroying non-magma-safe surfaces: I believe (though I've not tested it) that this is the case for constructed surfaces. Magma will not melt naturally occurring floors, even if the area below has been mined out (this I have done myself). The fact that water also passes through the surface of the brook, and that the surface of the brook remains after the magma passes through it, leads me to believe my original analysis is correct.

Oh, erm, I sound so severe. --Zombiejustice 15:48, 18 June 2008 (EDT)

Wagons

Can wagons travel along non-dried-up brooks, or do they need to be dammed up first? My latest fort is in some rough terrain, so I was thinking the local brook would make a good substitute for a road, and I didn't feel like wasting any dwarven human resources. --User:Toastdieb

Brooks are small rivers that have a floor on top of them. So, yes. --Savok 00:10, 25 June 2008 (EDT)

What the hell?

If he wanted to simulate a shallow river, why not just have a bunch of depth-2 water tiles flow through the map? Why have a bunch of depth-7 tiles with a floor on top of them? When you cross a brook, you're wading through the water, not walking across the top. And the game already simulates wading through water.

Can someone explain why it works this way? --LogicalDash 04:07, 5 November 2008 (EST)

I see it as representing a mass of loose mud/gravel that's saturated with water. It's effectively solid when walking over the top, but if you dig a hole in (channel) or around it, the hole floods. That's good enough for me, at least. --Bilkinson 23:07, 4 November 2008 (EST)

Taking a guess, I'd say that it's because of the way water pressure works. In order to auto-generate a tile like you're talking about, the game would have to make sure that 9/7 strength water enters the map from the upstream edge, one z-level below the top of the brook. The computer would then have to calculate what happens to that extra pressure. Because of the way water flows, it is not guaranteed to go directly up. Each edge of the brook tile would splash in a randomly chosen direction, and ultimately eat up a lot of processing power. Many slower computers will quickly lose framerate on a map with any kind of running water, even given the current setup.

Oh, and please remember to sign your posts with --~~~~. This makes the wiki a friendlier place all around. --RomeoFalling 23:09, 4 November 2008 (EST)

done --LogicalDash 04:07, 5 November 2008 (EST)

If you just added depth 2 water, it could/would go anywhere, and quickly flood the map. Unless you put it in a channel, and now you have a nice little hole running through your map, which you can't walk over, which only has depth 2 water in it. So, in order to best approximate a brook (shallow water you can walk through which follows a set path through the map) He created what he did. Tis the only way I'm afraid. --Hkidnc 15:00, 5 November 2008 (EST)

The best possible explanation for this is as such. A shallow brook filled with depth 2 water would be several feet below ground level. Because the game does not have fractions of ground depth, the brooks are simply thin rivers with floor tiles above.
PS: RomeoFalling, try <tt><nowiki>--~~~~</nowiki></tt>. <_< --GreyMaria 15:56, 5 November 2008 (EST)