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Dwarf Fortress => DF Dwarf Mode Discussion => Topic started by: Walkaboutout on January 30, 2020, 02:38:24 pm

Title: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Walkaboutout on January 30, 2020, 02:38:24 pm
Really happy with the aquifer changes. We still have the old style, via the "heavy aquifer" sites, but the new ones are completely handle-able. Awesome.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: neotemplar on January 30, 2020, 02:50:15 pm
This really helps is a great change for the game. The old aquifers were way too common and hard to break into. My current fort had a lot partial aquifer area and was not marked as such on the map but it was easy to breach with the starting seven by just building log walls.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on January 30, 2020, 04:08:05 pm
Yes, preach it. I was AWFUL with aquifers, and with some trepidation decided to embark on a space with a light aquifer in the new release since it looked otherwise good. Very easy to handle now! Plus now I could decide to use it for water or wells or whatever, rather than dig out to the river or some such. I am pleased to have another option like this!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Loud Whispers on January 30, 2020, 04:13:48 pm
Agreed, this has greatly opened up the world for exploration without reducing the fun, and the !!FUN!!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Zebra2 on January 30, 2020, 04:48:44 pm
This makes me really excited to try the new release once I have some time for it!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 30, 2020, 06:15:02 pm
The light aquifer throws me off with how slow it is in order of how to proceed with the problem of plugging it up which is the easy part, and how to exploit the now slow trickle buildup rather than consistent flow (which is the challenge since in exchange it'll not be possible to have fast watermills or quickly refilling basins from just ground-water)

Which ill say is a good thing that will require me to re-learn the game as a fresh challenge.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Salmeuk on January 30, 2020, 11:38:52 pm
Safe to say, another hurdle of legendary difficulty has been put to dust.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on January 30, 2020, 11:40:21 pm
I do have one question though.

So I didn't realize that aquifers will basically drop water down into open spaces BELOW them.

If you are an idiot (cough) and clear out some open space below one if the light aquifers, is there any good way to fix it? I mean I could think of a few like building columns below any aquifer tiles... IF I could figure out just which tiles are the culprits. Or just building in the entire room(s) again although man that seems like overkill. Or at this point even just riding it out and figuring that the water will start drying up as it spreads fast enough that it won't start building up into job-cancellation levels, but that's aesthetically annoying plus would probably impact FPS.

So any suggestions for fixing such a situation? Or for that matter for knowing when you're going to dig out the level below an aquifer in the first place, if you don't happen to run into any of the aquifer spaces on your way down? I possibly overreacted and just abandoned the site since I wasn't completely thrilled with a few other things about it either, but now I'm kinda regretting jumping the gun.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Walkaboutout on January 31, 2020, 01:11:49 am
Yeah, so in my experience it's the removal of the tile BELOW the last aquifer level which will cause water to come in. So, as a fix, you can build a wall in the squares that are open, that also have aquifer above (or just watch for the square where the water first appears, if you can).

This is not ALWAYS the case, but also in my experience, usually the last layer of aquifer is followed (one below) by stone; so typically the aquifer is a type of soil, like sandy loam or something, and then you hit the stone layers. Again, that may not always be the case, but every aquifer I ever bothered to pierce, that I remember, was that way. That first stone layer is always a no go layer for construction work. Start your construction on the second stone layer below the last level of the aquifer; and again, that last aquifer layer is usually soil, so sandy loam, or clay loam, or something of that nature.

Hopefully that provides you with a starting point for some aquifer work, and I'm sure others with even more experience than I can chime in. That of course doesn't help much when you have lots of elevation layers, and things are in uneven levels, etc, but it's a start :)
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Bumber on January 31, 2020, 01:21:14 am
So any suggestions for fixing such a situation?

Dig out the aquifer tiles above? Then you can wall the area off and let it fill with ordinary water, because that doesn't drip down for whatever reason.¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: PatrikLundell on January 31, 2020, 04:11:33 am
The mechanics of aquifers cause them to drip (pour in previous versions) down onto the level immediately below it. That level is the first non aquifer supporting one, which usually is stone (and some kinds of stone support aquifers), but it can also be clay.
All of these tiles are marked as wet, so normally you'll get a warning, but there are (at least) two exceptions: when digging upwards (typically by digging a staircase, the warning only appears when the damage is already done, i.e. you've dug out a tile beneath the aquifer, and if the tile is visible, it's marked as wet, but you get no warning, as DF assumes you've seen the warning.

When it comes to Stormfeather's problem, my first approach would be to follow Bumber's advice, i.e. to remove the aquifer tiles above and install walls along the edges. It's also possible to fill up the problem room with walls or just wall it off to let it fill up with water.

You can clean up the visuals by building a floor or constructed road on top of the muddied floor (and, when you're at it, construct nice patterns by using different color building materials). Note that DF does not support mud removal, neither as a "clean" task or an order, and the build floor/road on top and then remove process to remove mud is subject to a material transmutation bug, whereby some of the tiles can become soil ones. Magma can sometimes burn away mud, but that's a lot of work, and it can start fires in cave moss growing on top of it, resulting in ash on the floor, and the usual issues with dorfs and fire.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: FantasticDorf on January 31, 2020, 04:30:40 am
Forcing water into a diagonal rather than cardinal direction (NESW) will also kill the pressure to flow outward, but will not stop its attempts to overflow to the same z-height as where the aquifer came from even with a slow flow.

If you are on high embark relative-elevation, you could probably connect up a windmill into a screwpump quite easily to just gather from a collection point of aquifer pillars (a few z high if nessecary to the non aquifer level to pool) to be more efficient with making it bleed out water vs risk to miners digging it out and automate the pumping into a basin or waterwaterway.

Unless you drop a legendary pump operator skill vampire instead into the pool. hah.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on January 31, 2020, 12:15:19 pm
Aaah, thanks everyone. So it's just the tiles below the *last* aquifer file that are subject to this? That'll help. (I ask because with the slow water flow I'd actually started digging out rooms within the aquifer itself to wall off and use normally, rather than skip some levels). That will help at least.

And yeah, didn't realize if I dig out the area above that'll prevent it. I may have to go back and do a reclaim, although I wonder if then the level will be filled with water due to the aquifer or something. One way to find out I guess!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Garfunkel on February 02, 2020, 10:26:13 pm
It'll be filled with water if I remember it right. But do reclaim and report back!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on February 03, 2020, 12:04:39 am
So yeah, it actually wasn't filled with water. I reclaimed, and am now working on building the fortress.

It doesn't seem to be just the last level of the aquifer that drops water below it though (of course maybe it was phrased like that since normally people build below the full aquifer anyhow and aren't crazy enough to try to build within it...lesson learned for next time). I'm pretty far behind in my fortress construction in some ways since I've been losing a lot of time to aquifer control, but I'm also learning as I go.

I've been slowly fighting my battles to dig rooms into the aquifers, wall off/smooth walls where needed, and dig out more than I normally would above any other rooms that have water dropping down on them. It's a bit crazy-making honestly since every small sliver of digging that gets done exposes more damp sand/chert and a cancellation of the designation. I wish there was a way to select a "dig without interruption" mode (maybe similar to the "marker only mode" that just doesn't cancel, which yeah is risky but man would it make my job easier right now.

Currently have my game saved with one level starting to get deeper than I'd like with water. I've got most of the walls smoothed down now, and am mostly working on getting the zlevel above them dug out so there's no more water draining on them. I do still have a bit of digging out there to do though, sadly. I might cancel it for now and smooth that wall down too though until the digging is done.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Shonai_Dweller on February 03, 2020, 12:29:57 am
I discovered some damp tiles while digging out my latest fortress. Despite no warning (almost sure I checked F1, F2, etc biomes before embarking), I'd hit an aquifer. First time ever that discovering an uninvited aquifer lead to a positive reaction. Oh, new obstacle, not too tricky but something that has to be dealt with. And a new water source, how interesting!

Yep, loving the new aquifers here.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Bumber on February 03, 2020, 09:28:49 am
It's a bit crazy-making honestly since every small sliver of digging that gets done exposes more damp sand/chert and a cancellation of the designation. I wish there was a way to select a "dig without interruption" mode (maybe similar to the "marker only mode" that just doesn't cancel, which yeah is risky but man would it make my job easier right now.

For anyone that doesn't know:
In announcements.txt, remove ":P:R" from "[DIG_CANCEL_DAMP:A_D:D_D:P:R]". That'll stop it from pausing and re-centering your screen. You'll still have to re-designate, though.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on February 03, 2020, 10:54:53 am

For anyone that doesn't know:
In announcements.txt, remove ":P:R" from "[DIG_CANCEL_DAMP:A_D:D_D:P:R]". That'll stop it from pausing and re-centering your screen. You'll still have to re-designate, though.

Yep, luckily that's one of the few edits I always make before I start playing (along with stopping it pausing an re-centering whenever there's a birth), which helps. The re-designation is what's driving me nuts, but yeah, if it were pausing and moving my camera each time... urgh. >_<
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: PatrikLundell on February 03, 2020, 11:15:44 am

For anyone that doesn't know:
In announcements.txt, remove ":P:R" from "[DIG_CANCEL_DAMP:A_D:D_D:P:R]". That'll stop it from pausing and re-centering your screen. You'll still have to re-designate, though.

Yep, luckily that's one of the few edits I always make before I start playing (along with stopping it pausing an re-centering whenever there's a birth), which helps. The re-designation is what's driving me nuts, but yeah, if it were pausing and moving my camera each time... urgh. >_<
The way I deal with that kind of digging (e.g. above the magma sea, where all tiles are "hot") is to dig an outline tunnel (with a bazillion cancellations) and then designate one layer inwards at a time, which means those will be dug without cancellations, as they're revealed already. In my case it's typically around candy spires, so I don't want to dig too deep, but otherwise the "dig around this" tunnel would instead be at the center, so digging can take place at the outside layer as well as the inside one.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on February 03, 2020, 11:57:44 am
True, that'd work if you just want to avoid the cancellation spam. I don't mind that so much (as long as it's not pausing and recentering) though, I just get annoyed at having to constantly go back and tell them AGAIN that yes, I really do want this next layer dug out, which is pretty much going to be the same. :/

(I do appreciate the helpful suggestions though! Everyone here is always helpful, which is great.)
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Quarque on February 04, 2020, 06:27:12 am
Magma can sometimes burn away mud, but that's a lot of work, and it can start fires in cave moss growing on top of it, resulting in ash on the floor, and the usual issues with dorfs and fire.

Yes, use magma. Perfect solution, nothing can go wrong.  :P
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Bumber on February 04, 2020, 03:48:49 pm
A macro could probably speed up re-designation a bit.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on February 04, 2020, 03:51:39 pm
oo, good point. I think I got all the stuff (or at least most) I was digging out done while huddling in my fort trying to wait out an undead siege. But that's a thought to keep in mind for later
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Moonshadow101 on February 04, 2020, 04:40:42 pm
It's an excellent change. I used to edit Aquifers out of existence every time I downloaded the game - I know how to get through them, but I just didn't want to be bothered most of the time. It's a lot of time and work that I'd rather avoid. Now it's something I'll keep on.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: tiresius on February 05, 2020, 11:31:38 am
I tried to dig down a 5 tile wide ramp through the slow aquifer, building wood walls or smoothing stone as I went along, and failed miserably as too much water collected at the bottom and made it a danger to work on.   I couldn't figure out how to bucket out the water to the outside.

I'll have to keep working at it or prepare better so I can do it next time.  Would be nice for someone to post a video of how they conquer the new aquifer.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: PatrikLundell on February 05, 2020, 11:40:10 am
While I haven't tried the new aquifers yet, trickling water is easy to deal with, assuming you react in time: just dig out a sufficiently large area at the bottom for the water to spread in, and it will evaporate.
Thus, while one miner works on digging out room for walls to be set up, another should dig down to an aquifer safe depth and dig out an evaporation area (evaporation happened even with the old artiesian aquifers: poured out in a sufficiently large room it failed to reach the whole floor and build up a non evaporating water depth).
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Stormfeather on February 05, 2020, 11:40:56 am
I think part of it for me is just that I tend to big bigger stairwell areas, about (*does math in head*) 9 by 11 tiles, so it takes a bit longer to fill. Plus since mine was in sand at the higher/earlier levels, I dug out an extra space, then constructed walls (wooden at first since that was easier to get to) around the inside instead of smoothing stone. That seems to go quicker, since pretty much all your dwarfs will do constructing as a high-priority job.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Mort Stroodle on February 05, 2020, 12:49:50 pm
Consider this: aquifers slowly drip water down. That water comes down fast enough that it can be easily drained off by frequent drains in your fort that lead to evaporation chambers. Dripping water creates mist.

Build your fort under a light aquifer and you now have a fortress-wide mist generator that auto-cleans away the vomit. Now this'll also leave your floors all muddy, but hey that's free plump helmets!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Craftsdwarf boi on February 06, 2020, 08:54:53 pm
Beautiful
Is this documented on the DF wiki?
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Dragonborn on February 08, 2020, 11:45:49 am
I love the changes too!

I embarked on a marsh with a light aquifer.  I dug a staircase a few levels down through the aquifer, so now my staircase has a built in mist generator from the water dripping from the wall.  My dwarves now have happy thoughts about being near a waterfall when they go down the stairs!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: delphonso on February 08, 2020, 09:40:35 pm
I love the changes too!

I embarked on a marsh with a light aquifer.  I dug a staircase a few levels down through the aquifer, so now my staircase has a built in mist generator from the water dripping from the wall.  My dwarves now have happy thoughts about being near a waterfall when they go down the stairs!

That's so crazy. I'm programmed by old aquifers to still fear them. I wall them off as soon as I can and then dig into them later. That's crazy that you can just let it run down the stairs now.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Dragonborn on February 08, 2020, 09:57:12 pm
Yeah one thing though is that I can't get consistent waterfall thoughts from the aquifer in the stairs.  I think if you make the staircase go down to far, they don't get sprayed with the water unless they walk all the way to the bottom too.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: vjek on February 08, 2020, 11:20:20 pm
Try digging out an extra light-aquifer tile around the stairwell, plus one additional, in each direction (N,S,E,W).
That should provide enough water-source-tiles to provide more consistent flow.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Naryar on February 09, 2020, 02:14:19 pm
I've literally dug through a layer of weak aquifer (or maybe two, I'm not sure) and build my coastal fortress under it. No flooding issues, just a fairly wet fortress entrance and some job cancellations due to 2/7 water. And also free mud on stone, so made water out of it. Now I'm trying to remove the water by walling/flooring it off.

So different from the earlier aquifers. Then again, this is a bit more realistic and not Moses-struck-that-rock tier of flood.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Anandar on February 09, 2020, 05:52:01 pm
In a fort I hit light aquifer and I was going to use it to make a well but the water is too darn slow... I have mined out like 6 squares but I think it just went into the layer underneath... same stone type and it wasn’t damp stone before lol so I decided with my current fort to make sure I have a stream which fortunately does freeze over so when it freezes next I will have my grate ready to stop fish and the fortification at the end of the map for run off and have a nice well set up if I have set it all up correctly that is XD
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Dragonborn on February 10, 2020, 07:19:25 pm
Try digging out an extra light-aquifer tile around the stairwell, plus one additional, in each direction (N,S,E,W).
That should provide enough water-source-tiles to provide more consistent flow.

Digging out more walls around the stairwell seemed to have worked better, thanks!

However, I ended up walling up the space around each staircase, and I switched to a different approach.  Someone on the previous page here mentioned creating a sprinkler system by building one z-layer underneath an aquifer.  I just channeled some holes in the ceiling above a frequently trafficked hallway, and let the water slowly drip down and create mist.  Seems to work pretty well too!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Nikow on February 11, 2020, 04:56:10 pm
New aquifers are a bit anoying, because of cancelation spam which They're causing, but They're much better than previous ones.

I breached the 4 layers of aquifer with 3 miners mining 3x3 channels down layer by layer. At the bottom i just created side room to one level lower and my usual 'last defense hallway'.
It worked quite good - now i have sewer system which is watering my underground fields and hospital wells. Actually - i have wells and stone grate drains in some hallways too. Looks like under normal water layers there are another ones, so every third layer has it's own water system. On the side i have a water pump stack with 10x10 storage tanks, so if water is overflowing some of my dwarves are set to pumping duty.

Actually the new challenge made by them is allows to train power mechanic and pump stacks, so in my opinion, it's huge plus.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: darkhog on February 11, 2020, 09:06:53 pm
The light aquifer throws me off with how slow it is in order of how to proceed with the problem of plugging it up which is the easy part, and how to exploit the now slow trickle buildup rather than consistent flow (which is the challenge since in exchange it'll not be possible to have fast watermills or quickly refilling basins from just ground-water)

Which ill say is a good thing that will require me to re-learn the game as a fresh challenge.

Maybe we should have medium aquifers that are somewhat in between the old ones and the light aquifers in terms of speed of filling up?
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: anewaname on February 14, 2020, 09:01:34 pm
...
Maybe we should have medium aquifers that are somewhat in between the old ones and the light aquifers in terms of speed of filling up?
Aquifers could have a rating indicating how much time passes before it releases water, based on biome data. Then, because aquifers one of the places where rain water and melted snow flows to, the rating would change during the seasonal changes for each biome.

Summer has arrived and my near-polar fort is drowning because of the melting snow!
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Garrie on February 14, 2020, 09:47:00 pm
...
Maybe we should have medium aquifers that are somewhat in between the old ones and the light aquifers in terms of speed of filling up?
Aquifers could have a rating indicating how much time passes before it releases water, based on biome data. Then, because aquifers one of the places where rain water and melted snow flows to, the rating would change during the seasonal changes for each biome.

Summer has arrived and my near-polar fort is drowning because of the melting snow!

Rate Aquifers 1-7 just like fluid depth is.
Light is possibly a 2. Heavy is possibly a 6. As in there is room for even worse (removing the tile above, causes that tile to flood?)
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: PatrikLundell on February 17, 2020, 03:00:39 am
The wiki claims there are three levels of aquifers:
- Light
- Varied
- Heavy

and that matches what DF displays pre embark. However, I'm unsure what "Varied" means: does it mean there's a mixture of light and heavy aquifer on the embark, or does it mean the intensity is in between light and heavy?
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: Naryar on February 17, 2020, 05:23:47 am
I think Varied is having both light and heavy on the same tile.
Title: Re: Love the aquifer changes
Post by: PatrikLundell on February 17, 2020, 06:56:05 am
Thanks. Looking at a "Varied" embark I shrunk it down to a single tile, and depending on where it was in the former embark rectangle it showed "Light" or "Heavy", but I also found a single tile marked as "Varied", completely surrounded by "Varied" tiles. I guess the two aquifer bearing soil layers could have different aquifer types in them.