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DF Suggestions / Re: Aquifers - a suggestion
« on: June 10, 2012, 07:46:20 pm »The job cancellation spam is an unavoidable side effect of various other mechanics used to keep dwarves from drowning themselves while building a wall they noticed in a room that is about to be all flooded.Yeah, it shouldn't take that much. One pump per level at best, IMO. And no job cancellation spam because of such a normal task as breeching aquifers.I've pierced an aquifer with four dwarves operating four pumps. No windmills needed. Also, DF strives for realism in every way it can.What are some realistic ways to deal with aquifers? Other than avoiding them.
It seems realistic to me to be able to pump out aquifer water and build walls to keep more from coming in.
Perhaps the issue isn't what's the most realistic way, as in the nature, to deal with aquifers in the game, aka super realistic mechanics and such. But surely the goals should be to make it desirable and fun overall, an to create aquifers that's more or less sensible in the way that they don't, almost 100% of the times, covers an entire zx-level and is made up of limitless water producing stones.
It's possible to pump out a smaller area in an aquifer but that requires an ridiculous amount of windmills and pumps. Or as most do: drop a gigantic stoneplug down into the aquifer and dig through the rubble.
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It might also help to be able to build walls into the soil without digging out that tile, as if you're building supports into the walls of the hole. This would be helpful for when cave-in physics is back in.Seems reasonable.
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[/quote]QuoteAquifers should be as much of a challenge as they are in real life, and no more. Players can and do disagree on how much fun aquifers are; that's not a reason to change them. Their lack of realistic operation is.Then again, that might make them a bit to easy. Maybe every so often one of the walls will crack, leading to water seeping in?QuoteAquifers shouldn't be seen as a encounter of some sort that should and will hinder the advances of the player and the fortress to an 100%. It should be seen as a natural occurrence that might be a hinder.Look above for my first part.
Now, as I see it, aquifers are 100% passive encounters that will effect your fortress always negatively, well perhaps not always but more or less. The aquifer might doom your fortress right from the start because of the lack of materials that can be plunged into it as a plug to be dug through.
BTW: I do like the idea of walls being able to crumble/crack and let water forth into your fort or into whatever open area there's behind the wall. It would make digging a lot more !FUN! The problem might how to implement it as a mechanic that doesn't ruin your game because of flooding occurring too often and too random.
Also, why shouldn't aquifers be a challenge? DF is a game where everything is a danger, if you don't know what you're doing. It's not like breeching the aquifer wrong wil cause it to start shooting water up to flood your fortress!
I do agree that eventual but inevitable breakage of walls would ruin the fun in aquifers.
How much of a challenge are they IRL? None, because humans build their settlements above the water table. Dwarves don't. Apples and oranges, pal.
I was giving an example. Never having seen any real-life mines with aquifers, I had to go with an extreme RL example. Presumably not all real-world aquifers are identical.It probably depends on the aquifer. For instance, as someone mentioned, when impermeable rock is on top of an aquifer, it becomes pressurised, so the water would come out faster.Ok, but when do you find impermeable rock on top of aquifers in DF? Not most of the time. So if all aquifers are made the same, then the water should come out slowly. For the more rare, deeper aquifers like you describe, maybe the 4 pumps would be needed. But in those cases, things are easier, because you have access to the rock on top.