40d Talk:Well

Where can these be constructed? only near an aquifer?--Alc 14:16, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Open space probably refers to just that - a dug-out space below it that leads to water. Will have to test, though. --Tracker 15:54, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

Does it need to be a channel all the way down, on all levels below the well, or can you have normal floor below it all the way down to water? Can you put one well directly above another well, and have them both work (if there's water below)? --Sowelu 15:56, 30 October 2007 (EDT)

yes.no.no.--Koltom 12:27, 1 March 2008 (EST)

I've built a well directly above another one, both are stated as "Active" --ConstantA 01:36, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

Has it been verified that you need water down there? --Mitchy 11:22, 8 November 2007 (EST)

yes.--Koltom 12:27, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Does anyone know if it is okay to have a well like this?
(side view)

_W_ 
| |    <-- Empty space between water and well
|~|    <-- Water down here
---

--Delton 16:07, 14 November 2007 (EST)

Confirmed that the above is a functional well. --Delton 07:52, 19 November 2007 (EST)

Potential Problem

As of v0.27.176.38a, when using an artificaly created well (by designating a 'Pond' zone and having dwarves fill it), it is posible that dwarves will take water from the well in order to fill the pond which feeds the well, acomplishing nothing. To correct this, examine the items contained in the well by pressing 't', then forbid the bucket and rope contained in the well. This will stop dwarves from taking water from the well and allow you to fill it. You can then reclaim the bucket and rope to make the well usable again.

Should this be in the article?

Duo March 11th 2008

Flooding?

Gah! Why do my wells keep flooding? How can I prevent this? Runspotrun 06:08, 26 November 2007 (EST)

-- Well ... if you did it like I did (lol), you lost to backpressure. i filled from a reservoir that was taller than my well floor. (and it was attached to a brook. :) I'm working on using a floodgate and pressure plate to regulate water levels. Vaevictus 11:30, 20 December 2007 (EST)

Fair Warning

Whatever you do, don't let a barracks area overlap any of your wells. Military dwarves can and will fall in if they're sparring next to it. Ah well, I didn't want that full set of bismuth bronze armor anyway. -- Vanst 08:39, 26 December 2007 (EST)

Grates and Buckets

Buckets don't pass through grates, in the well construct. That means a well with a grate halfway will become dry. I had 2/7 water above the grate (and 5 levels of 7/7 water under it), but it was not enough. Wlievens 07:24, 23 January 2008 (EST)

flood?

I have a lake murky pool outside(reaching down one more z level). On the same level i want to construct a well inside. can i just build a channel, thus tap the lake on the lower z level and then build a well on top of the end of the channel? or do i need one more level free space? If i can, will the water flood my outpost or will it stop on floor level? would it help if i tapped the lake one more level down? --Koltom 17:12, 8 February 2008 (EST)

So long as the well is at or above the level of the pond you will have no problem. --Ikkonoishi 23:11, 11 February 2008 (EST)

It worked fine. Now however the murky pool is dry, so i built a new one tapping the river. ;) --Koltom 13:53, 22 February 2008 (EST)

Using Buckets?

I'm having a hard time getting my dwarfs to use their new well. I...

• Dug a Channel with water beneath it.
• Designated a drinking zone beside it.
  • The dwarfs now drink from the channel.
  • Looking at the space they're drinking from says Open Space
• Created Blocks, Bucket, Rope
• build well over the water beside the drinking designation.

Now what happened was I got a massive flood of messages saying something like "XXX Cancelled Drinking: No Bucket at well"

So I went and built another Bucket, and now I have 2 buckets sitting in my finished goods stockpile, and nobody who's willing to drink from the well. How do I instruct the lazy dwarves to go and get the bucket and use it with the well?

Zeidrich 15:15, 29 February 2008 (EST)

Why do you need them to use the well? As far as I know, the only time having a well is useful is when the injured need water. Even then, I strongly suspect that people can just drink from the river. --Shadow archmagi 16:02, 29 February 2008 (EST)

Well, I want them to use a well because I built it! It looks prettier than drinking out of the stream. I'm pretty sure they get bad thoughts when they drink directly out of the stream. In this particular circumstance I was short on brewable supplies and I had a bunch of thirsty dwarves. Regardless of whether or not I should necessarily be using a well, I would like know how to use it.-- Zeidrich 18:37, 29 February 2008 (EST)

Well, I believe that the well is *built* with a bucket, since you require one for construction. If it's really not there for whatever reason, then you may want to rebuild the well(and make sure that furniture hauling orders are ON), and if that doesn't fix it, then i think this is a bug and should be reported to the Toady One, along with the save. --Digger 05:22, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Yes, the bucket for 'normal' drinking is built into the well. U only need extra buckets to fill a pond or give water to a resting dwarf. Check with the q-menu if the well is even finished.--Koltom 12:27, 1 March 2008 (EST)

Nope, not a bug. I figured out what it was. Apparantly my architect was far too busy tilling soil and hauling rocks to go and gather the rope and the bucket and connect them to the well. So while I had all of the materials, and the well looked complete, it was actually waiting for construction. I think I was just confused by the message as my dwarves were trying to drink from it before it was ready. Zeidrich 11:54, 3 March 2008 (EST)

Another Fair Warning

Dwarves don't even need to spar to fall into wells, they will generally not avoid walking over a well tile. This will result in the warning "X cancels...dangerous terrain" followed by dropping in anyway. The last bloody fool who dropped in seems to have been gobbling away at his food while walking, down the shaft among his gear i found 1 dwarven sugar roast. I mean, i know my sugar roast is delicious, but can you please sit down first like any goodmannered dwarf? How will I ever clean up that bloody mess you left in our water supply? --Koltom 22:24, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

Might be a good idea to designate the well's square a restricted traffic area and the eight squares around it low traffic. This should make aimless wanderers step around it instead of going WHEE! Animals don't respect traffic though, so maybe there will still be dogs and cats in the well. Rkyeun 09:32, 17 July 2008 (EDT)

1x1 Well

Does anyone have a good plan for digging a deep, unconnected 1x1 well? I'm currently thinking about trying something like this design, side view:

  _W_ 
  | |     <-- Empty space between water and well
  | |     <-- Empty space between water and well
  | |     <-- Empty space between water and well
 |   |    <-- Opening room
 |~~~|    <-- Water down here
  ---

It would be built like below, with a level pulled to knockout the support. Would the center collapse leaving a nice shaft?

  _ _ 
  |r|     <-- Ramp down
  |r|     <-- Ramp down
  |r|     <-- Ramp down
 | X |    <-- stairwelldown
 | S |    <-- Support.  Water will be down here, but starts out dry?
  ---

Tulthix 12:49, 20 March 2008 (EDT)

It won't fall down as the ramps still have support from the adjacent stone/walls. I've been trying to figure out how to make a 1x1 shaft too but haven't had much luck. When getting the dwarves to build ramps on top of each other they do build a shaft downwards but after a certain depth the pathfinding seems to get confused and they stop. Yvain 02:36, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

I was able to accomplish this by digging out a side-wall and re-building the wall after deconstructing a staircase down the shaft one tile at a time. If you want it to look pretty the 1x1 shaft going down should have nice stone smoothing on as well (and it covers up the "filled in wall" seam. Alternate methods: sacrificial dwarf can pull it off (he will rot away at the bottom of your water tank) and a utilitarian "escape hatch" out the bottom of the tank. I like putting in an escape hatch at the bottom, connected to a lever, with a grate and outflow underneath so I can retrieve that adamantium armor that falls down there. (when I don't build in an escape stairway anyway). Weasello 10:34, 21 March 2008 (EDT)

Salt Water

I've had a map with only salt water and an injured dwarf. Nobody could give him water because it was all salty. But I built a well over the water and dwarves brought the injured dwarf water. This happen to anyone else? --Bouchart 12:29, 14 April 2008 (EDT)

FAQ

"How deep can a well be?"

This was added to the Water FAQ. I thought it better to put here, and the answer can be put on the Well page if/when it's discovered; as opposed to creating an entire new FAQ page. --Juckto 06:04, 3 May 2008 (EDT)

At this time (33g) I believe there's no limit to how far from water a well can be, as long as all tiles between are open space.

I've got a particularly vertical map (something on the order of 50+/- levels!) so I'll give this some testing later and update this (within a week hopefully) if my tests conflict with my opinion that there's no limit. --Edward 21:59, 3 May 2008 (EDT)

Smoothing walls for a well

Does smoothing the walls of a place to be filled with water prevent stagnant water?

Makes no difference. Rkyeun 09:32, 17 July 2008 (EDT)

Monsters and wells

Way back in the 2D days, monsters would sometimes come out of wells. Does this ever happen in DF3D? Now that there's a real Z-axis, I imagine that monsters aren't just randomly generated like they used to be... but I do wonder whether tapping an underground river might cause something unpleasant to ride the bucket upward. I'm playing on a map with an underground river and a chasm, and I'm wondering how careful I need to be with my wells. --Ookpik 05:45, 5 August 2008 (EDT)

IIRC monsters can't pass through grates - so instead of putting the well directly over the river, make an artificial stream with both ends blocked from the river by a grate. Random832 01:33, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

I've never managed to make a grate block any water creature. I've had perch and lampreys pass through grates and pumps to end up in my meeting area. Corona688 02:30, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

Zone only drinking

Will a dwarf still drink from a well if zone only drinking is set? --Groveller 02:14, 1 September 2008 (EDT)