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DF2010:Water
From Dwarf Fortress Wiki
| This article is about the current version of DF. |
Water is a fluid found all over the world. It flows from mountain springs, forming the world's oceans, lakes, rivers, and brooks. Water falls as rain and snow, and freezes into ice. Water is home to a variety of aquatic creatures. Many creatures can swim in deep water. Air-breathing creatures that are submerged in water can drown in it. Water comes in two varieties: freshwater, which makes up almost all inland water, and saltwater, which fills the seas. In this version, some brooks and murky pools can be saltwater even if the fortress site is partially mountainous. It is not known if this is a bug. To tell the difference, attempt to set up a drinking zone including some of the water in question. If there are zero tiles of water source available, the water is saltwater.
In the new system mud is now a contaminant which is created any time water covers an area. Any tiles that contain mud may be used for farming.
Water is displayed with the symbols ≈ and ~, sometimes colored different blues, and white, showing ripples. Water can also take on other colors indicating contaminants such as mud and blood. (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 a shallow puddle, and 7 filling the tile completely. Dwarves can safely walk through water up to a depth of 4. Dwarves finding themselves in water at a depth of 5 or greater are at risk of drowning unless they are skilled at swimming.
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[edit] Evaporation
Evaporation occurs when water or magma is at a depth of 1/7. In hot or scorching environments murky pools can sometimes evaporate at greater depths as well. Any fluids that evaporate are gone forever.
[edit] Flow
Water and magma are both fluids which are constantly trying to flow into adjacent tiles until they have filled all available space or until they run out of fluid. Fluids move in 10 directions, up, down, and to the sides. Fluids cannot move diagonally up or down. Fluids at a depth of 1/7 no longer attempt to move unless they can move down. Fluids under pressure can be pushed up until the pressure equalizes.
If the flow is strong enough, it can move objects such as dwarfs, pets, stones, weapons or corpses.
Fluids in Dwarf Fortress acts like a fairly thick, viscous material. This makes it possible to do highly implausible things like pump out a dry hole in the middle of a river or ocean.
[edit] Sourced Water
Water that comes from rivers, brooks, oceans, aquifers or springs is considered to be sourced water. Any sourced water is an endless supply of water that can never run dry.
When using sourced water you should strongly consider installing floodgates and be aware of how pressure works or you could easily end up flooding your fortress and having a lot more fun than anticipated.
[edit] Salt Water
Dwarves can not drink salt water until it has been desalinated. Water can be desalinated through the construction of a pump that pumps water into a completely constructed cistern. A well no longer desalinates water.
[edit] Contaminants
Contaminants that get into water currently can do very strange things. A pool of blood that gets covered by water will be pushed out of the water as the water flows creating more pools of blood at the edge of the water. Overflowing a large reservoir that contains contaminants of blood will generate a large amount of blood very quickly. This behavior is thought to be a bug.v0.31.08
