Bay 12 Games Forum

not to that degree through advanced options.   If you specificly want a real world shaped map you'll need to use an external program to modify the world.  Try looking up "perfect world"  I couldnt make heads nor tails of it when I poked around at it but its soposed to be able to let you design a world of your choosing.

ahh from what your discribing the schist is not an aquifer, only the sand/clay layers.   From my experiments with DFhack Reveal the layer directly below the final aquifer shows up as damp.   It wont actualy produce water although if you dig under the non sealed aquifer you'll still get water from above.   Either way the schist is the layer under the aquifer, seal off the layer above as normal, dig down an extra layer to avoid accidents with leaky ceilings and start building.

Schist can't be an aquifer.  Only soil layers are aquifers.

there are several sedimentry stones that can support an aquifer such as sandstone.  I just tend to forget which stones are on that list if I dont look it up.

And your sure the aquifer continues on the next Zlvl down, still in schist?   Honestly my first thought was you had reached the last level of the aquifer and didnt realize it in the sand.   Are you positive that your first rock layer is actualy an aquifer?   Is it actualy producing water or does it only have the damp stone designation due to the level above?.

If there are further aquifers below that level the only even remotely plausable option I can come up with is you might have 2 seperate aquifers stacked 1 Z lvl appart.   AKA 2 levels of soil aquifer, a level of stone under that caping a second stone based aquifer.   Then agian I dont even know if aquifers can spawn that way, I've seen varrying shapes but never this particular senario.   I've never had the double slit method fail me asside from that one time I found out I was trying to pierce the aquifer right on the edge of the aquifer and there was 1 tile I couldnt drain into.   That time I just abandoned the old slit and drilled down through the non aquifer after a double facepalm coupled with a few head on desk moments.

Yep, you can power pumps from all sides. I don't know how connecting in front or behind it affects fluid flow, though.

fluid flows around axles and gear assemblies so it shouldn't block flow.  However I wouldnt recomend runing power in from the output side of a pump stack movin magma unless you are geting it there via magma safe materials, that and it makes leakage a problem unless comeing in from above.   Personaly I just hook power into the pathable tile (where a dwarf stands to manualy pump)  No issues with leaks that way and you probably have an avalible path to it anyway from construction and the gears/axles dont block future dwarf pathing either.

if your embark has sand you can use green glass in your pumpstack for magma.   Alternitively if you already have a few magma safe pumps you might find it easier to just make the obsidian factory down near the magma sea.   It takes much less effort to drop water down a shaft than to bring the magma up.

I generaly find you dont need a complicated flushing system to draw enemies into an atom smashing trap.  Try this instead.  Build a standard Zig zag trap coridor with each leg 9 tiles long and 1 wide.  you can add as many legs as you wish but I recomend 3 for safetly (just in case you get something really really fast and lucky).   Cut back 1 extra tile on each leg and ancor a raising drawbridge in that extra tile.  If done correctly you should end up with a zig zag coridor that is passable when the bridges are both up or down with only 1 safe tile free from being atom smashed between each leg.  Once done hook it up to the repeater of choice and the bridges should open and close while everything tries to path through there geting crushed in the proccess.

I however wouldnt recomend leaving this type of coridor open to the outside all the time as your dwarfs will happliy path through the deathtrap to retrieve a migrants sock.  Bait animals pited in from above are ideal but you could also rig up a pit with a hatchcover linked to a preasure plate to block pathing if a dwarf trys to get out that way.   also have a way to seal it in a hurry if something not atomsmashable shows up.

I've not had personal experience with burying dwarves specifically because I literally never build coffins or caskets, since they're not quite as safe (necromancers oh joy) and require resources that are often scarcer. Plus, you can walk over a built slab, not a coffin, and I don't have to worry about people burying everyone BUT the guy I want buried.

Well you can make coffins out of rock, same as slabs so really no resorce issues there.  As to safety from necros, Personaly I just stick them way back where necros cant get to them.   If the necro can path through my primary baracks, the dining hall, and my dog breeding room to reach my burrial chamber to start raising my dead I'v got much bigger problems.   Even so I litter a few traps along the way just to be sure.   Personaly I prefer coffins vs slabs just because I can build a bunch of them and forget about it and the dwarves will take care of things on their own while slabs require a bit of micromanagement.   I only use slabs if a body is unrecoverable or to avoid a tantrum spirle if I need to quarantine some disaster.

I wonder if that blizzard man had a head that was effectively invulnerable to your attackers.   One quirk of the combat system is all combatants will take shots at the head of an unconsious target.  If they cant do any damage to the head (due to a helm too powerful for the attacking weapon to penitrate for example) they can wail away forever or at least untill one party or the other starves to death.  you can see this with Giant cave spiders.  send dwarf in with helm, spider webs dwarf and proceeds to attack head but cant do any damage.  Dwarf will eventualy starve to death traped in the web if no other dwarf shows up ot kill spider.