Water

Water
Water is widely used for cooking, making potions, and mortar for construction. To collect water, you need to have buckets in your stockpile.
Statistics
Types	Block • Raw material
Placeable
Price	x 5 → 1
Tech needed	Bucket

Water is a resource used in crafting many items.

Sources[ | ]

weather events (rain or snow)
natural water ponds (on surface and underground)
cactus in the Desert World
some bushes in the Elven Biome.

Gathering[ | ]

For the details on:

How to gather water, see: Bucket - Gathering process
How to melt snow or ice in the Snow World, see Snow - Producing water

Placing[ | ]

Dwarfs can be ordered to place water on the world, just as they place any other object. To do so, they do not need to use buckets: they take a water bag from the stock and pour the water at the specified place.

Puddle of water[ | ]

The water will then fall until it finds a "stable" surface, where it will spread horizontally to form a puddle of water. A "stable" surface can be understood as any top surface of a solid foreground block that is sided by two other solid foreground blocks. Some solid blocks however, like bridges and ladders, cannot retain water.

One bag of water can form a 1-block-wide puddle of water; two bags spreading through 2 blocks, and so on. If the water is placed (or falls) over a solid block that isn't sided by other blocks, it will keep falling towards (one of) the empty side(s). This mechanic can be used, for example, to divert water from the rain towards a desired direction—to form an artificial water pond, or simply to avoid it falling over the entrance of an underground shelter.

If the entire surface is already filled with a puddle, and the puddle itself is sided by solid blocks, any water falling over it will start filling that space vertically, to then form blocks of water.

Puddles of water (on any type of surface) tend to evaporate and completely disappear after a while.

Water block[ | ]

A water block contains up to 5 water bags.

To fill a one-block space with water, the left and right sides of this block should be sealed to avoid water leaking, either by a solid surface or by water itself.

If water is being placed in a block space with several empty blocks beside it, the water will leak to fill all the adjacent blocks evenly.

Thereby, a N-blocks space will require (N x 5) water bags to be completely filled with water.

Water blocks (fully or partially filled) on any type surface, except stone, tend to infiltrate and completely disappear over time. Infiltration only happens through the blocks on the bottom, and never through the sides. Regular stone seems to be the only material that's 100% impermeable.

Water pond[ | ]

If the enclosed space has 4 or more water blocks, except in one line, it becomes a water pond, which has the following characteristics:

It will spawn fish(es) regularly, 1 fish each 4 blocks.
If the foreground blocks of the base have been built with regular stones, the water inside the pond will never evaporate or infiltrate.

Natural water ponds[ | ]

Natural ponds of fresh water usually appear on the worlds' surface but also underground, with 5 to 10 blocks wide and 2 to 4 blocks deep. The amount of water these ponds provide can be extremely useful in the early game in all worlds, and at any time in the Snow World, whose surface is absolutely deprived from liquid water. Natural underground ponds can be massive—usually larger than those on the surface—but they're rare (if not inexistent) before (above) the third earth layer.

Artificial water ponds[ | ]

Double 12-blocks Pond — A double artificial underground pond with log bridges.

Surface or underground fishes both produce the same fish meat. Natural water ponds may be easier to find, but harder to exploit, as many enemies spawn over the worlds surface. To overcome this problem, dwarfs can build artificial water ponds underground, near or even inside their shelter.

One pond only allows one dwarf fishing on it at a time, even if it is a huge pond with numerous fishes. Constructed ponds with a dividing wall allow more dwarfs to fish at a time.

Bridges can be used to facilitate fishing.

Underwater[ | ]

All creatures move slower underwater. Dwarfs lose half of their speed when moving underwater.

Many creatures lose health while under water. Dwarfs can hold their breath for 3 minutes before drowning.

Dwarfs with the swimmer skill can stay underwater longer before drowning and suffer less slowness.

A Diving Helmet grants the ability to stay underwater infinitely.

Use[ | ]

Water can be used in the following recipes:

History[ | ]

Version	Release	Changes
1.4.001	22 Mar 2017	Fixed: incorrect displaying of water in Desert world.
0.9.033	31 July 2014	Fixed bug with water drops after building the blocks atop stalactites.
0.9.029	5 June 2014	(Dwarfs AI) Improved underwater digging, pathfinding, gaining skills.
0.9.024	24 Apr 2014	Fixed bug with different water levels inside a pool with thin walls.
0.9.022	3 Apr 2014	Fixed bug with water appearance inside solid blocks.
0.9.017	25 Feb 2014	Fixed bug with water flowing from several blocks simultaneously.
0.9.016	24 Feb 2014	Fixed bug with water gathered from deep ponds.
0.9.015	29 Jan 2014	The deeply fallen water blocks now fill up the pond. Fixed bug with the unlimited water gathering. (Dwarfs AI) Improved pathfinding underwater.
0.9.010	19 Dec 2013	Fixed an issue with dwarves in water outside the screen.
0.9.005	25 Nov 2013	Fixed: dwarfs stuck when tried to swim through ivy or carnivorous plants in the water.
0.9.003	22 Nov 2013	Fixed bug: dwarves could not swim out of the deep water