Dwarf Fortress > DF Dwarf Mode Discussion

Dealing with Aquifers

<< < (2/3) > >>

Sphalerite:
In order to pierce the aquifer, you can either use the cave-in method (which requires you to have a solid expanse of non-aquifer, unmined natural rock over the area you want to plug) or use pumps to clear water away long enough to make a sealed path.  You will want to use pumps powered by a constant power source (windmills or water wheels) so that a pump operator getting exhausted won't suddenly flood your work site.  Aquifer tiles which are rock can be sealed by smoothing them, which stops water coming out.  Aquifer tiles which are soil can't be sealed, and have to be mined out and replaced with rock walls.

Euld:
So... in order to dig though a soil aquifer with little to no stone available (as far as I can understand this so far):

O O O O O
O          O
O     X   O
O          O
O O O O O

Sorry, this is a pretty bad representation, but I don't have the time to upload a screenshot.  Assume it's a 5x5 area.  The O's are the soil walls, the X is the up/down stair.  Empty spaces are actually ground.  I guess all the water on this level is supposedly being pumped out at rapid speed.  So in order to continue digging downward, I'd have to build walls around the up/down stair?  Let me worry about dwarves getting stuck on the wrong sides, I've figured out ways around that.

o_O[WTFace]:
Right so 1) have a bunch of wood/stone to build with 2) have a bunch of extra haulers with pump operation enabled and nothing much else to do.

Mine out a huge room where you want to poke through the aquafier, on the level right above it.  Now channel out a smaller square roughly in the middle of that room, say 8x8 or so, and don't forget to make one of those tiles a stair so you can get in/out.  Now surround it with pumps set up to pump from the square you made.  Channel out the area right behind the pumps, 2 squares wide to avoid flooding.  Now when the pumps are activated the suck the water out of your little square and ram it back into the aquafier in a different spot.  Exactly how many pumps depends on size and stuff, but not every tile needs one, focus on one corner at a time if you need to.  Ok now to power the pumps ideally you want windmills or waterwheels because those are automatic but just a bunch of dorfs works fine (but keep in mind they get tired quick).  So activate as many as you can then send some dorfs down into the place and build walls around the edges.  They will cancel every time they get splashed with 2/7 of water but thats ok, just keep unsuspending the walls and use more pumps if you cant get any completed.  Keep in mind, when a wall finishes a pump right above it can't get to the water anymore, so you may need to move your pumps around a few times, unless you made them in excessive quantity.  Remember the layer right below an aquafier leaks from the ceiling so repeat the process. 

beekay:
1. Dig your stairs. These will be the permanent ones, so make them 3x3 or whatever you use. They will fill with water.
2. Channel the ground around the stairs.
3. Surround the hole with screw pumps.
4. Channel the ground in front of the screw pumps, so that the water drains back into the aquifer.
5. Power up the pumps and build walls around your stairs.

http://mkv25.net/dfma/movie-120-aquifercmv is a good demonstration of this, and also includes a convenient power plant design.

AceOne:
They told me I was daft for building a Fort on an Aquifer, but I built it all the same, just to show em'.
It flooded then caved in.
So I built a second one; that one caught fire, was besieged by orcs, and then flooded and caved in.
but the third one... stayed up! and now you can do the same! good luck to ye!

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page