Dwarves refuse to collect water

[Insane Hoof Addict]

I have a working well, and even set the orderlies job to everyone available, but none of my dwarves are willing to go and actually collect water. I have buckets and barrels, I'm not sure what's missing but my dwarves are starting to kill their own children out of dehydration because I can't brew enough liquor to act as a substitute for water.

[graalGGTV]

Are you sure the well is working? If so, try to set a 3x3 "water drinking zone" with the well in the middle. That wasn't needed in the free version, but maybe there's some problem

[Insane Hoof Addict]

I'm sure the well is working, it's not dry. I've redrawn the zones for both my well and my pumped resevoir to contain standing room around the water source but my drink counter still isn't going up.

[graalGGTV]

Originally posted by Freaky Man-Baby:

I'm sure the well is working, it's not dry. I've redrawn the zones for both my well and my pumped resevoir to contain standing room around the water source but my drink counter still isn't going up.

The drink counter only includes alcoholic drinks, so it's natural that water won't increase it. Dwarves will only drink water if they are close to dehydration and there's nothing else to drink, or if they are hospitalised. They will never stockpile water

[Tharifaz]

I'm quite new, but I'm not sure if the drink counter specifically considers water - only alcohol. Although they should drink water if it's empty, still, so it's weird.
I believe they don't usually collect but just go and and drink on the spot (mine did).

edit: touche

[Insane Hoof Addict]

Originally posted by graalGGTV:

Originally posted by Freaky Man-Baby:

I'm sure the well is working, it's not dry. I've redrawn the zones for both my well and my pumped resevoir to contain standing room around the water source but my drink counter still isn't going up.

The drink counter only includes alcoholic drinks, so it's natural that water won't increase it. Dwarves will only drink water if they are close to dehydration and there's nothing else to drink, or if they are hospitalised. They will never stockpile water

Really? Wack, okay. Noted for the future.

[Decado]

Re Dehydration - i just lost a fortress to everyone dying from thirst despite having around 30 drinks in stock. I dont actually know what the problem was - they couldnt access the drink or something.

I do know that i hadnt been able to establish a working well (im still learning but i do know how it works). So without access to water, they still died even though there was grog.

So not really sure what the deal was there as read they could survive on just grog.

My only thought is maybe not enough buckets to collect water from...well from somewhere.

[Johan 2.0]

My dwarvern children will sooner drink vomit than drink water.

[Xcorps]

Originally posted by Freaky Man-Baby:

I can't brew enough liquor to act as a substitute for water.

Water is the subsitute for booze, and it's a poor one.

You need 5 booze drinks per dwarf per season.

To brew, you need 1 brewable plant and 1 container PER JOB. Each job will create 5 drinks.

So for a fortress of 100 dwarves to drink enough booze for the season you need 100 brewable plants and however many pots and barrels the stacks will fill. (barrels and pots hold an unlimited amount of booze, but they only hold one stack of it, which doesn't matter in the long run, all you have to do is play the game to be able to create enough containers)

So I need a stockpile for brewable plants, a stockpile for brewable fruits, and a stockpile for drinks and I need to make sure that the seeds the brewer makes from the fruit/plants are handled as well.

The workflow I need is as follows:

Order 1: Potmaking : Make (material) pot 10 if less than 10. I put these in their own stockpile near the brewer so I can see at a glance what my container status is. I prefer glass over rock, because I prefer glass for everything else and making pots will buff their skill at glassmaking making the crafter better at anything else. But glass is labor expensive and has 3 steps to production unless you can magma. Rock pots are the simplest to set up and run, all you have to do is mine and build the shop. You can make metal pots but why? When I first get the fortress running, I will also make some wood barrels, Make barrel 10 if less than 5. I don't like using wood for containers though, so I turn this off once everything is automated. Also, during your embark every different type of meat you bring comes in it's own barrels, but you only pay embark points for the meat. So get 1 of each type (not animal) and you'll get 5-8 free barrels.

Order 2: Brewing : For brew orders the number I use depends on how many dwarves and how much of a supply I want in reserve, modified by how many brewable plants I have and how much fruit I have. Let's say that I'm just using peaches, apples, and plump helmets for booze, nothing else. I want to be able to keep 20 dwarves boozy for 2 seasons in case of disaster.
My brew order looks like this:

Brew drink from fruit 25 if less than 175.

Growing enough plump helmets to support that is trivial, so that's the basic survival ration. I'll gather peaches and apples to maintain a variety for happy thoughts, and now I'm good to forget about booze until my stocks start to drop to where they are getting below about 100 drinks with the brewer working nonstop. At that point it's simply a matter of dropping another still and adding a brewer, then maybe increase the brew order.

But you can survive for a really long time on nothing but dwarven wine. If your dwarves are dying of dehydration it means you have been ignoring them for over a year.

Conquer booze. It's the first of few critical steps in survival. Your waterworks are needed, but not as a replacement to booze. Fix that, and your water problems become trivial and easy to figure out.

[TeKett]

Originally posted by Xcorps:

barrels and pots hold an unlimited amount of booze, but they only hold one stack of it, which doesn't matter in the long run, all you have to do is play the game to be able to create enough containers

Pretty sure they only hold 6000 cm3

[Xcorps]

Originally posted by TeKett:

Originally posted by Xcorps:

barrels and pots hold an unlimited amount of booze, but they only hold one stack of it, which doesn't matter in the long run, all you have to do is play the game to be able to create enough containers

Pretty sure a barrel only holds 6000 cm3

Not according to the 47.05 wiki.
Barrels can hold up to 60 prepared meals, plants, or cheeses, 30 pieces of meat or fish, any number of units of brewed alcohol (but only a single stack), 100 units of lye or milk, or 6000 eggs regardless of size. However, alcohol brought at embark will be in barrels that only contain up to 5 units each; this due to alcohol barrels allowing only 1 stack and embark items coming in stacks of 5 units or less.

[Johan 2.0]

Originally posted by TeKett:

Pretty sure a barrel only holds 6000 cm3

I prefer the measurement of 6000 eggs.

[Insane Hoof Addict]

Originally posted by TeKett:

Originally posted by Xcorps:

barrels and pots hold an unlimited amount of booze, but they only hold one stack of it, which doesn't matter in the long run, all you have to do is play the game to be able to create enough containers

Pretty sure they only hold 6000 cm3