Why is the water source being ignored

dwarf-fortress

I need to empty a Murky Pool, and as I am fairly early in my fortress, I figured the easiest way to do this was to get my dwarves to haul all the water in buckets into an artificial pond.

I dug a sufficiently sized hole and added several Pond designations to it (so I could have several dwarves working on filling it). I also created a Water Source designation over the Murky Pool. Before long, several dwarves were hard at work emptying the pool. The water level in the pool dropped until it had less than 1/7 deep water per tile. About 30% of the tiles were dry, and the rest were at 1/7. At that point, the dwarves stopped getting water from the pool, and started emptying another nearby pool, which wasn't marked as a water source.

Since there are no other water sources on the map, why aren't they using the remaining water in the Murky Pool?

Best Answer

When the water level gets to 1/7, it's basically considered a "puddle", instead of actual water. At that point, the dwarfs can't scoop it up in a bucket, so it's useless. Since there are no other designated water sources on your map, your dwarfs default to just finding some water however they can, which in this case means other murky pools.

If your primary purpose was to empty out this particular murky pool, rather than to fill up your new pond zone, congratulations; you've done it. 1/7 water isn't real water, and it will evaporate entirely in a few minutes (probably).

Related Solutions

How to make a farm using buckets

Here's my method (illustration below, farm in progress): I dig an 8x8 room and channel out the interior 6x6 square with some stairs down for access. Once you've got that, you need to designate pond zones on the upper level. Only one dwarf will fill each pond zone at a time, so I like to designate six 2x3 pond zones.

Pond zones: i brings up the zone menu. Hit enter to start drawing a rectangle, then enter to set the other corner of the rectangle. Now you have a generic zone that's flashing. Press p (lower-case p) to make it a pond/pit. Press P (capital P) to change the zone settings. Press f to set the zone as a pond. Press esc to go back to the zone screen and draw your next zone!

Now you need free dwarves and plenty of buckets; they don't use buckets very efficiently. If your dwarves act too slowly, the water will start to evaporate, but I find 6 ponds with 6 dwarves will fairly quickly fill the farm area. If you have a stubborn spot that just won't fill, move your zones around to target that spot. If the stubborn spot is in the middle, well, be patient. :)

Once you've got mud on every tile (look, k, should show you mud) deactivate and/or remove your pond zones (via the zone menu) and then build your farm (b, p)! Don't forget you can size your farm plot with the umkh keys.

Advanced tip: I like to create a furniture stockpile that only accepts buckets near the water source to decrease the time dwarves spend running around carrying buckets.

DF Farm

Trouble creating water source

I have not tried the fill pond strategy to make a farm, but rather the "planned flood" technique.

In 2d...

+---!---+             RRRR
|fffffff|             RRRR
|fffffff| +----+______RRRR
|fffffff|X|wwww?__C__CRRRR
|fffffff| +----+      RRRR
+-------+             RRRR

Where:

R is a river (with 1+ layers of water above it, for pressure)
w is water storage, f is farm (7 f to 1 w)
C is a channel from 1 square above
X is a wall to dig out
? is a door/floodgate hooked to a switch somewhere.
! is a door for mud/water containment

To make the water storage:

dig left C, tunnel, and storage room
build door/floodgate at ?, and connect it to a switch
make sure ? is OPEN
Channel out right C
When room is 7 deep, flip switch

Now, the storage room is filled with 7 * w units of water, one unit per bit of farm!

To make your farm muddy:

Channel at X
Run out of door
Lock door until room is full of mud (and possibly fish)

Best Answer

Related Solutions

How to make a farm using buckets

Trouble creating water source

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