40d:Water

Water is a common flow. It forms all of the oceans, lakes, rivers, streams, and brooks in the world, falls as rain and snow, freezes into ice, and may be home to aquatic creatures. Most creatures can swim in deep water, and like all flows, air-breathing creatures can drown in it. Water comes in two varieties: freshwater, which makes up almost all inland water, and saltwater, which fills the seas; these are home to different aquatic creatures. Freshwater is the only alternative to alcohol to satisfy thirst (though dwarves much prefer their booze).

In addition, water can be "stagnant" or "murky", but this has no known effect.

When water comes into contact with creatures and objects, they become "contaminated" with it. Soil and sand becomes damp or muddy, which can be used for farming.

Water is displayed with the symbols ≈ and ~, sometimes with different blues, brown, and white to show ripples and flow. (The game can be configured to show the depth instead). Dark-colored water symbols indicate the water is one Z-level below the camera level. Water has 7 depth levels per tile, with 1 being perhaps ankle-deep, and 7 filling the tile completely. Dwarves and other humanoids can walk through water up to depth 4. At 4 they can choose to walk or swim, any deeper and they must swim to pass through the tile.

Every material sinks in water.^{v0.27.169.33a}

The tiles above brooks are treated as ground tiles. They are passable to creatures, and objects do not fall into them.^{v0.27.169.33a}

Water in Fortress Mode

In addition to drinking, pools and rivers can be used for fishing. To specify a pool of water as a water source, fishing zone, or pond, you need to create activity zones at the level above the water. The "level above the water" is the level at which the surface of the water is at foot-level instead of ceiling level. Water can be bridged, and can also be used to make a moat.

Water can be moved by digging channels or tunnels, or by designating an activity zone as a pond (which your dwarves will use buckets to keep filled to the specified level). Screw pumps operated by dwarf or machine power can also move water. A lake can be drained by digging into the side of it. Rivers can also be redirected in this manner. It is not possible to dig directly up into a water-filled tile.^{v0.27.169.33a} Fish and other aquatic creatures will stay in the water as it moves, but may end up on the ground if the water becomes too shallow (this is unconfirmed). Drained lakes that are outside are filled by melting ice and snow, but not by rain.

Tiles adjacent to a water-filled tile are labeled "damp" and flash the water symbol. When a miner discovers a damp tile, he cancels the mining designation, the game pauses, and the camera centers on the tile. This happens for every damp tile discovered, and each must be designated again before a miner will dig it out.^{v0.27.169.33a}

Water wheels can be used to generate mechanical power from flows.

Water in Adventurer Mode

Adventurer mode: Water preference (when possible or when necessary) is set by pressing the m key, and moving onto a water tile can be done using the 'careful move', or alt+direction. Alt+direction (even numpad+5) seems to be working for up and down. (Need confirmation on the up and down, I was told by a beta tester that "Swimming up is Shift + 5(numpad), and swimming down is Ctrl + 5(numpad)". , but does not seem to be working)

Once again in adventurer mode, one can discover a river. This is not, however, displayed on the Legends menu. What impact could this have upon the game?-- Twerty (WHO KNOWS?!)

Water in adventurer mode seems to be very 'unwelcoming', and if you enjoy your adventurer, avoidance is highly recommended. If an untrained swimmer jumps into water from a higher level, three things happen, they start drowning (which happens to any level swimmer completely covered in water, I believe, since this kind of represents their breath), they are stunned from the impact and subsequently are forced into a prone position (panicking/thrashing?) and are forced to a little under a third of their speed, which can probably be raised by raising the swimming skill level. Note that if you wish to train swimming from no skill at all, you'll have to find at least water displayed as (1/7); brooks are, as far as normal movement is concerned, actually ground tiles. Also note that the speed of swimming skill training seems to vary depending on the strength of the current; higher levels of water usually mean more current, and more pushing of your character around, which also unfortunately means more lag, so even if you can find a good current that won't drown you, don't expect swimming training to go much faster than ambush skill training.