40d Talk:Tower-cap

this is hard to do? my girlfriend has several ponds just inside the ground of her diggings in various locations...

Luck dependent. Not reliable.

Regarding the three-year thing: I dug a couple of tree farm chambers (each 21x21) on the bottom level of my fort. It took about 8 months to set up the irrigation system, after which I flooded most of each chamber. One year later, I have my first mature tower-cap; there are about 50 more juvenile tower-caps, so we'll see how much of an outlier this is. But three years is almost certainly wrong; it was solid rock 20 months ago. Doctorlucky 18:47, 28 November 2007 (EST)

Conjecture: The reason you can't bring tower-cap spawn nor plant them is because trees and shrubs are coded differently; you can plant the latter but not the former. And tower-caps are a variety of tree. Therefore, we will not be able to plant tower-caps until Toady unifies plants like he did for ore and stone. Just as we can now smooth and engrave ore veins. --Alfador 12:01, 10 December 2007 (EST)

You have a GirlFriend?--Hoborobo 13:07, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

• I'm sure she menaces with spikes of... Well, I'll just stop right there.
• This is a Hoborobo. It menaces with spikes of envy. It is encrusted with bands of nerdrage and solitude. --Einstein9073 05:24, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Natural vs carved-out ponds

Is it essential that the pond is already there?
What if I do what I'm doing at the moment and drain a surface pond (well a few actually...) into a subterrenean pond...?
GarrieIrons 06:37, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Huh? You're talking about where the article said you had to discover an underground pond, right? It isn't true - the author meant "lake." You'll get a pop-up message if you discover an underground lake or river.

IMO, tower-cap growing isn't useful unless you want a large metalsmithing/glass industry and didn't settle with magma - traders will, if asked, bring quite a lot of wood. --Savok 08:47, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

Some people will most certainly argue about the cost of wood by trading but atleast you get some exported/imported wealth figures and thus work towards nobles.
But the feature is nice to have, even if we still don't have the seeds. And for regions without trees it goes without saying that tree farms would be a gift from the gods.

--Karp 02:47, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Cost of wood? What? It's 3☼ each! And why are tree farms needed if I don't have trees? I build in a desert. No trees there, and I have about a hundred unused wood. Granted, I haven't started the clear glass industry or the siege industry, but wood is only needed for beds, clear/crystal glass, and siege engine parts. --Savok 11:08, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Personally I always choose to live near a forest, but it's quite acceptable to buy wood from traders. Though you may run into dry-spells if the caravans don't come for a year. I'd recommend having at least 100 logs at any time. Just in case you need to build lots of beds. You can build most other things from stone instead. --AlexFili 11:13, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

I presume you're living next to a volcano in that desert, since 3 metal bars per bin or barrel is 4 bars more than I'm willing to use, and 3 bars plus fuel is just nuts. Anydwarf 14:03, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Aye. Why live in a desert if not for massive glass industries?

Oh, and I don't make bins or barrels with anything – they aren't needed and are in fact annoying if you have OCD management. --Savok 14:35, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Hm.. I suppose that would work if you don't make Dwarven syrup... --Anydwarf 16:39, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

I don't – I find it as cheaty as boozecooking, which is easier, and almost identical to boozecooking. However, I do boozecook, which does use a lot of barrels for alcohol. If you buy barreled stuff from caravans and ask for it in the trade agreement, you can easily get a lot of barrels.

Worst case, you'll use up all your barrels. Then, all you have to do is put more labor sooner into cooking the stuff. --Savok 22:49, 4 June 2008 (EDT)

Was just saying, that some might complain about it.
I myself seem to never have enough barrels for alcohol after I get a population over 30. I just like to have an "emergency" warehouse of booze, which takes barrels upon barrels... And syrup is always handy to have around.
Also, in my personal opinion, all space-saving is good.
--Karp 04:30, 9 June 2008 (EDT)

Hmmm, you must have some gigantic storerooms then savok! --AlexFili 06:25, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

Not really. I quickly get rid of everything except prepared meals and booze, and I trade away prepared meals under ten food units. --Savok 09:21, 10 June 2008 (EDT)

Spontaneous generation and rocks

I have had tower-caps spawn in underground soil, far from my irrigated area and without any muddiness or exposure to the outside. (Though not many). Also, I assume you have to clear rocks in order for them to spawn on muddy cavern tiles? Pavlov 21:39, 28 July 2008 (EDT)

Prospecting in version 0.28.181.39+

Does the newer prospecting feature reveal underground rivers and lakes? I haven't used DF for more than world generation in the new version... If so, the article mentions "currently very difficult to do", which can be changed. --JT 19:08, 29 July 2008 (EDT)

It does, so I have. :) --Raumkraut 06:47, 30 July 2008 (EDT)

The tower cap farm part is pretty much useless...

Do we need that tower cap farm part? It takes more space than the main article and doesn't add much info. Also, it has incorrect information (tower cap farm should be flooded with more water than just to cover all tiles with '1's, because some of them will dry while flooding). Just link to article about farming and irrigation. It explains it well enough. --Someone-else 20:04, 3 August 2008 (EDT)

Muddied soil

I have had mined-out peat sit barren for several seasons with an exposed cave river. After I muddied some of it, vegetation started growing (on the muddy part) before all the water was dry. VengefulDonut 02:24, 9 February 2009 (EST)

OK, how do you explain green towercaps growing in my not muddied corridors? If you don't know, don't post: tower caps grow on: muddied underground anything, OR not muddied underground soil, if there is a solid soil wall on the level below. Just as every other tree it will not grow on not buddied soil, if there is no soil wall underneath. – unsigned comment by dorten

You're leaving out too much info. What is the source of this information? Did you test it, or is it second hand? If you tested it, what kind of test did you do? If it's second hand, where is it from? Have you ruled out different behaviors for different soils? Also, if you're confident enough about this to write in such an arrogant tone, why have you not edited any of this information into the article? VengefulDonut 00:44, 10 February 2009 (EST)

Sorry for arrogant tone, keeping emotions low isn't one of my skills :). Anyway, The sourceof this information is my experience. Especially in my latest forts, where I needed wood on a regular basis. My tests:

normal soil with trees, aboveground => all ok
dig out the room underneath => trees and bushes stop to grow above. 
dig channels, so, that there's a stone under soil => only grass grows.
belowground muddied stone => bushes and towercaps
belowground multilevel soil => bushes and towercaps (green ones, yay!)
remove soil beneath => they stop growing
only soil floor => they do not grow
muddying in last two cases => yay! they grow again.

The tests I did not finished yet (working on them now) -

remove soil layer from below of natural aboveground forest (no new trees), and muddy it after that
muddy channeled to abovegroundness areas in suitable biomes.
do it with or without cave river/pond

Regards. (And I really am sorry for my tone)--Dorten 05:39, 10 February 2009 (EST)

This does not work - after 2 years still no sign of vegetation on soil (sandy loam cavern floor) with soil layer below (sandy loam walls), while my tree farm on muddied tiles runs fine. Can you give more specifics? Does there have to be more than 2 layers of soil? --Birthright 00:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

It had to happen - just when i start to complain, the first (yes, green) shrub shows up. Took forever, but yep, it's there. --Birthright 20:04, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I've got a pretty good counterexample to the idea that a solid soil wall is required underneath an unmuddied soil floor - right now, in my current fortress, I have a fully grown tower-cap growing on a tile of dry black sand between two of my farm plots. If I navigate down 1 Z-level, the area underneath consists of mined-out chalk (specifically, an archery range with unmined chalk walls separating each lane). I also have 2 other tower-caps which grew on dry black sand such that the tiles immediately below them are black sand floors, mined out to create stockpile space. --Quietust 19:50, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

I should add, though, that I have several other areas of black sand with mined-out chalk underneath them which have not shown any signs of plant growth - perhaps it has something to do with proximity to a mountain biome? --Quietust 01:46, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I am building my first tower cap farms now and it seems to be that I can only get them to grow in half of my fortress no matter what. I remember on the embark screen that my area spans two biomes and the border between where they will and won't grow seems similar - perhaps tower caps can only grow in soil in the same biome as the underground river that makes it possible to grow them?

Growing Tower Caps Without Water

So I've been growing tower caps without water for quite some time Trick is to carve out a sandy room near the edge, as you'll see in the picture, there's a border of usually 1 block between the carved sandy room, and the outside natural world. I believe that outside needs to be forested, but I haven't tested that enough yet. In any case this seems to circumvent the need for water. --Loganis 10:48, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

See the article (and entry above) for an explanation - sand is a soil --Birthright 10:31, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

unmuddied soil

Okay, folks, I don't know whats going on with you, but I have a huge cavern of sand floor with stone below and not a single shrub or tree there for years. This is also consistent with all fortresses i had so far. On those tiles with soil below, caps grow just fine, same with my muddied tree farm on stone. Guess I will wait for a few years more.. Im not even the one who came up with this, but only learned that from testing it..see also Talk:Irrigation --Frickinglogin 21:22, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

Tell that to my fortress, where I've got a few tower-caps which have grown on dry sand floors with air underneath them, and a few of which originally had stone underneath them (see here, specifically the farms on Z-level 16 - this one only has saplings, but a few of them have since fully grown). Then again, I've got other sand nearby which won't grow anything at all (same map, but the refuse pile on Z-level 15 and the hallway to the left)... --Quietust 01:58, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I, too, have TC's with nothing underneath, and they grow great. But I also believe those who say otherwise - I think this is an area where both parties have blindly assumed "X = Y", when in fact there's much more going on, variables that cause it to work sometimes, and not others. Since it seems to be consistent with each player (no player I've seen has said "sometimes..."), it's either habitual choice of maps, habitual play element, or <shudder> some obscure programming glitch specific to some computers, along the lines of the sort of thing that causes some computers to gen worlds differently. Whatever, I think more is going on here than we understand.

(For one, I've notice that TC's growing on dry soil tend to grow better "near" water - at the edge of irrigation, near a damp wall, or closer to a river (that level or 1 below). Just as fire imp fat reacts differently at different times (sometimes it burns, sometimes it explodes), perhaps TC's are more sensitive to subtleties in the game that we are only beginning to suspect.) (Best explanation of FI fat is map temperature! Who would have guessed that connection?)

That said... what do we do about it? I'd suggest (reluctantly) backing the article off, and simply stating that both effects have been observed, and the variable is not perfectly understood. Because neither "yes" nor "no" is universally true or applicable.--Albedo 10:26, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I have a theory as to what's going on, based on what you've observed - just as Willow trees, fisher berries, muck roots, rat weeds, sun berries, kobold bulbs, and rope reeds only grow within 2 tiles of a river or murky pool, tower-caps also grow on soil such that either there's a solid soil wall underneath within a 2 tile radius or there's a muddy tile on the same level within a 2 tile radius, even if the tile immediately underneath is stone. It certainly fits with what I've seen, since all of my farm plots are irrigated, and I observed similar behavior in my last fortress with above-ground trees growing only in certain spots over the stockpile rooms I had dug out. --Quietust 00:37, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the two-tile radius bit. I have clay rooms dug into the side of a mountain with clay soil beneath them. Not having researched any of this, I was perplexed by the fact that some years after I discovered an underground river, I had spattering of towercaps growing in those rooms on the upper level, except for a three-tile wide stripe that was densely covered with 'shrub' and had no towercaps whatsoever. That stripe exactly corresponds to a three-tile-wide corridor I'd carved out directly beneath them. All of the no-growth tiles are within a 2-tile radius of soil walls on the level below (since the corridor is only 3 wide, obviously. Even if I'm misinterpreting you and the center row isn't within the radius, the outer edges should be, but the stripe on the level above clearly refutes that). All of these tiles have always been totally dry on both relevant z-levels; the nearest water is more than 70 tiles away. I don't know what role irrigation plays, but the 'soil below' bit certainly seems relevant. As an aside, all those three-tile-wide corridors in the soil on the underground level totally lack any growth - they're never walked on or anything (quite far from my actual base), but they have only rock beneath them. So again that seems to fit nicely.Tofof 04:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Update: I -believe- the radius bit (at least on same z-level) for muddied soil requirements. I experimented some with it and found towercaps growing up to two tiles away from my muddied spots. Still see only counterevidence to any radius effect on the "soil below" alternative requirement.Tofof 09:59, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

tried to clean up and clarify the page

The main paragraph with all the good info looked somewhat muddled together. I tried to improve it and make it easier for new DF players to understand.

webkilla

Huh? Tower caps seem to grow in any wet underground area.

What's this about underground rivers and ponds?

I find this page fairly misleading. It pretty much says forget it that you ain't getting no tower caps unless you find a natural underground source. Which seems to be bogus. I discovered quite by accident when I didn't immediatelly use all of my newly irrigated subterranean farm room I noticed a few things growing in the muddy rock. I'll run more tests before mucking with the page itself, but this is what I'm seeing so far.

Tower caps seem to spontaneously appear in any wet underground area, rock or soil doesn't seem to matter much. Soil is perhaps better because it only has to be irrigated once. Rock on the other hand will periodically revert to dry rock (once a year or so) and nothing will grow in dry rock. Also it does seem to be possible if probably rare for tower caps to spontaneously grow in dry soil that has never been irrigated. I've got one green tower cap that is growing near my irrigated soil. It may have spread from the nearby towercaps.

Also worthy of mention is that other harvestable plants will generate as well. I'm assuming for now that these give out the various underground seed types you can naturally start with, but I'll need to test that.

Doctorzuber 03:40, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Everything that you're describing is textbook of finding such, and has always been dependent, 100%, on finding an underground river/pool. No river/pool, no TC's or UG shrubs, but both spontaneously generate when you do. This has been confirmed independently countless times (altho' that's not proof positive, merely "strongly convincing"). Are you using vanilla DF? Any utilities? Is it the download from the main page, or a customized version? (like the Mayday tileset?)--Albedo 08:39, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Also, by any chance does your embark contain an already-revealed "underground pool", exposed to the surface (it'd be a round chamber, with or without water, with a bunch of frog/snake/olmmen inside it)? --Quietust 17:54, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

<slaps forehead> That. That's what it'll be, betcha a dwarfbuck.--Albedo 22:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

ah, I see now... the "farm" doesn't need to be anywhere near an underground water source, one simply must exist... that's... silly. Doctorzuber 00:26, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

When you discover an underground pool or an underground river, it effectively "releases tower-cap spores" which can then grow in any valid location (on subterranean mud or on dry subterranean soil with either sufficient soil walls beneath or mud nearby on the same Z-level). --Quietust 01:07, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Real-world tower-caps?

Just a silly little tidbit, but so as to help envision a tower-cap, see these real-world trees.

Tower-cap 1

Tower-cap 2

Aescula 02:15, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Toady quote re: TC spawning

Given how long ago there was an 'arbitrary vegetation cap', I found the following segment confusing - I imagine it's even more so for anyone who never played the 2D version. Oddtwang of Dork 12:27, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

On the subject of spawning tower-caps, Toady said:

Right now, you can't plant tower-caps or bring spawn along, so you need to find a cave river or cave pool, in which case they will start growing underground if it's all working. It's trickier to find such things, so it's mostly impossible to do.¹ Later, you should be able to plant them. There are no arbitrary vegetation caps now².

^{1: Note that it is working and that underground rivers are not that rare any more.}

^{2: The "arbitrary vegetation caps" comment is referring to the old limit of 200 tower caps growing by the cave river in the mud.}