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)

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)

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 the right side of 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)