Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  
Pages: 1 ... 12 13 [14] 15 16 ... 32

Author Topic: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened  (Read 73259 times)

WanderingKid

  • Bay Watcher
  • The Overfiend
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #195 on: September 19, 2013, 04:30:13 am »

*blink*

Daaaaaamn, son.  Beautiful.

vanatteveldt

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #196 on: September 19, 2013, 04:53:01 am »

That is a thing of beauty, Merendel.  Bravo.

+1, very well thought out and thanks for the exhaustive writeup, Merendel. The bucket never occurred to me. It's amazing what dwarfs can do with a single pick and log under the combined threat of limited food supplies and zombie hordes :-)


I still don't fully understand why this would not work without the bucket and the temporary down stair by dropping a larger area so there is more room for channeling out extra volume for the water to move into, but I will try that later and see where I fail... :-)
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 04:59:22 am by vanatteveldt »
Logged

Merendel

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #197 on: September 19, 2013, 12:27:46 pm »

I still don't fully understand why this would not work without the bucket and the temporary down stair by dropping a larger area so there is more room for channeling out extra volume for the water to move into, but I will try that later and see where I fail... :-)

The reason is no mater what your going to end up with an area equal to your safe zone on level two flooded with the spillover from the cavein.  You could probably skip the bucket if the climet was hot enough to evaporate standing water greater than 1/7.  You could drop a wider chunk into level 1 of the aquifer to skip the first stage of bucketing but you cant make level 2 larger than 3x3 with a single chickenrun so you cant channel that level out for evaporation.  Theoreticly you could do it but you'd probably need to do 4 chicken runs in a square producing a 6x6 safe zone in layer 2. Its risky enough doing this once. 4 times is just asking for your miner to either have an accident or decide to go for a drink at a bad time.
Also to spread and evaporate the water from that on layer1 you'd probably need to drop something along the lines of a slab double the size of the current one 16x16 or so (might be a bit less didnt math it out)  probably doable but I worry a bit about the extra exposure.  Also remember that your possibly going to want roof over your breach at some point so you can have reasonably safe surface access although double sliting in another location might be safer once you can bring pumps and building materials.  I'm already leary about building an 8x8 floor or bridge in a hostile enviroment let alone trying for a bigger one.  on the upside if you wanted to do a larger one you could at least have your miner doing something productive while skilling up.  Mine ended up diging out a rather large chamber before doing the chicken run that had nothing to do with this project nor any particular use asside from the training.
Logged

Stochasty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #198 on: September 19, 2013, 12:51:01 pm »

Lost three more forts tonight in service to the one-pick challenge.

The first time, I embarked to a biome with rain which instantly left those caught in it opposed to life.  Lost the entire fort in a single tick.

The second time, I reembarked to that same biome - mostly out of disbelief at what had just happened.  Sure enough, it happened again.  Never even found out if the biome was reanimating; it killed me before a single critter walked onto the map.

The third time, I picked a new site and managed to make it underground.  This one was a little nicer: only an annoying goblin-blood rain to deal with (well... in addition to the undead).  Managed to get a decent hidey-hole dug out, successfully slaughtered and disposed of the two pack-beasts so that I didn't starve while I leveled up my miner, dug out the preparation for my aquifer pierce, successfully penetrated the second layer as per Merendel's method, and then disaster.  Since I had used one wood for a barrel, I needed to deconstruct my entrance wall to make the bucket. 

About this time, I realized that, due to a lack of foresight (mostly, a panicked attempt to get underground as quickly as possible, thanks to the shock from my previous two attempts), I had neglected to build a safe entrance: there we stairs leading straight to the surface, so any surface undead could just walk right in.  I hurriedly ordered my miner to channel out the stairway, and the bloodied idiot decided he wanted to stand on the surface while he did so.  Catching the attention of everything within a ten mile radius.

I hurriedly conscripted the fort, fought off the nearest (just a couple of lamprey corpses), and ordered everyone back inside.  Whew, problem solved... I thought.  I set up some traffic restrictions to prevent a relapse, and ordered the dismantling of the stairway again - and watched in horror as my miner ran right back out onto the surface, because the idiot had dropped his fricking pick during the first fight.  Son of a... Argh!

I hurriedly reconscript everyone so I can go save him again, but no such luck this time.  He popped out onto the surface right underneath a flight of giant raven corpses.  Game over, the end.  Time to go again.

By the way, Merendel, now that I've had a chance to test it, your method is magic!  I think I might see a way to improve it, though, by omitting the cavein.  :)  I need to do some !!SCIENCE!!, but if I'm right I think it should be possible to manage a 100% safe pumpless pierce.
Logged

Merendel

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #199 on: September 19, 2013, 01:27:37 pm »

By the way, Merendel, now that I've had a chance to test it, your method is magic!  I think I might see a way to improve it, though, by omitting the cavein.  :)  I need to do some !!SCIENCE!!, but if I'm right I think it should be possible to manage a 100% safe pumpless pierce.

If you can figure out a way to do it pumpless and without a cavein more power too ya. 

I just generated a world based off I what I think was your post in the worldgen cookbook.  Picked a nice hot badlands biom.  Not perfectly flat but close enough(surface has 2 levels with the lower runing along 1 side).  Havent seen rain yet but had a bit of a scare because there was a pair of lizardman corpses about 20 tiles or so from my wagon.  Good chance this is a reanimating area at least.  Set a pasture/meeting zone strait away from them, had the miner grab the pick and abandoned the wagon for the time being.  Got away with neither party noticing the other. dug out a hidyhole and got everybody inside.  While my miner was starting the groundwork the lizardmen wandered off far enough for me to go get the wagon and drag the wood inside. Everybody is in and I just colapesed the entrance so nobody's geting out and only flyers can get in asumeing they wander in that far.  Time to start laying the groundwork for the pierce although I'm thinking I'll setup the area for the first animal butcher first.

Sadly I dont think this fort will have much of a metal industry.  Only copper/nickle showed up on a pre embark prospect.
update:
Well at least this method is fast.  I had the main part(pre chickenrun) of it dug out by the 15th of granite along with having an area to do the butchering and the first hair disposal, a drinking sorce for the dwarves and sufficent space to work with.  Now I just need to get him diging crap out till he skills up enough.  Considering the wiki states 3 months for the first stage of booze withdrawl I should be good.  particuarly since I lucked out on stat rolls  my miner is strong and very agile and I also have a mighty dwarf waiting in the wings.  Only bad thing is somehow the miner and the backup managed to get themselves hitched in the few seconds the miner was idle as I was finishing up geting everybody inside.  talk about a whirlwind courtship. they are deleriously happy but if anything happens to either of them...
update2:
hrumph  all that effort and when I did my test dig for the chickenrun I found claystone... I think I only have a 1 thick aquifer.

yep 1 layer thick.  oh well I'm through the aquifer and I'll just run with it considering I did 95% the work required to make the 2 layer pierce happen it just turned out to be redundant.  Might backup this copy and see if I can find an embark with a true 2 layer aquifer.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 03:37:24 pm by Merendel »
Logged

vanatteveldt

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #200 on: September 19, 2013, 03:35:05 pm »

I still don't fully understand why this would not work without the bucket and the temporary down stair by dropping a larger area so there is more room for channeling out extra volume for the water to move into, but I will try that later and see where I fail... :-)

The reason is no mater what your going to end up with an area equal to your safe zone on level two flooded with the spillover from the cavein.  You could probably skip the bucket if the climet was hot enough to evaporate standing water greater than 1/7. 

I understand that you'll always have 3x3 of water flooded. However, if you can make the first drop a lot larger so you have 3x3x6=54 extra tiles to work with inside the first boundary, couldn't you channel them all out after the second cave in so the water spreads? Maybe I should just shut up and start testing, but I don't have time right now...
Logged

Stochasty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #201 on: September 19, 2013, 03:40:39 pm »

As long as you have "very deep soil" and no clay, you should be in a 2-layer aquifer at least.  That's what I search for.

In other news, the method I was thinking of to begin with doesn't work, but in the process I stumbled upon a method that does work.  It uses a cave in, but is completely safe (no surface exposure) with a two-deep aquifer.  Strangely enough, it won''t work for a single layer: you need that extra layer for a drain.  Basically, the idea is that you use your chickenrun technique to set up a drain, and then you mine out the first layer of the aquifer underneath the second soil layer.  Dig out the top soil layer, channel away the supports, and viola.

I'll do a little refinement and post a detailed description (probably tomorrow).
Logged

Merendel

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #202 on: September 19, 2013, 03:57:17 pm »

You could do that vet but you'd still have to find some way to deal with the 7/7 water siting in the stairway on layer 2 surounded by your 3x3 that fell into that hole.  you cant channle that layer out to spread that tile or you'll just reopen the aquifer.  You also cant expand what drops into that layer off 1 chickenrun because the miner cant reach any further from the stairs.  Just did the math and you'd need to do at least 3 chickenruns to expand that level enough for you to let evaporation cover it. and just redid the math and I'm a goof, forgot 2 runs side by side produce 4 safe tiles not 3.  could work with 2 in a pinch as long as you let the area above evaporate entierly from the layer above.

I actualy just realized that you dont need to bucket out or evaporate the stuff from layer 2.  If in one corner of your drop area you do the chicken run trick to get a stair down into layer 2 but dont channel out the blocks to seal off the layer 2 aquifer around the stairs all the remaining water in layer 1 should drain into that stairway.  That would leave you with only 7/7 of water to deal with.


oh brainstorm. If you did 2 chicken runs side by side, which would result in a 3x6 layer 2 area but leave the 1 block on the second run furthest from the other stair un channled that would leave the second run able to absorb water but expand the safe area from the first stair by 1.  You could channle out that tile, or preferably make it a stair once layer 1 has finished draining off/evaporating resulting in 3/7 and 4/7 water in the two tiles.  you'd get alot of cancelation spam geting your miner to dig down through that but you could potentialy do it without the need for buckets.

Edit
Hmm I see what your talking about there stochasty.  Hard part is geting your miner able to path into there without geting shoved around too much.   And I'd swear I did embark on a no clay deep soil.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 04:06:14 pm by Merendel »
Logged

Stochasty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #203 on: September 19, 2013, 04:07:20 pm »

"Deep" or "Very deep?"

I've hit both 1 and 2 layer aquifers on "deep", but (I think) I've always gotten 2 layers on "very deep."

As for the miner getting shoved around: the trick is to run multiple, staggered shafts, so that you always have sufficient drainage.  I only have trouble with getting that first shaft down.  I'll post a detailed description tomorrow (a bit too distracted today to do it).
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 04:10:00 pm by Stochasty »
Logged

Merendel

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #204 on: September 19, 2013, 04:23:39 pm »

"Deep" or "Very deep?"

I've hit both 1 and 2 layer aquifers on "deep", but (I think) I've always gotten 2 layers on "very deep."

As for the miner getting shoved around: the trick is to run multiple, staggered shafts, so that you always have sufficient drainage.  I only have trouble with getting that first shaft down.  I'll post a detailed description tomorrow (a bit too distracted today to do it).

Think I'm following you new embark so I'll give your method a try.  in other news new embark is going to have much fun  Ithink.  Got undead flyers so its reanimating and a profane mist just wafted by.  Not sure what it does but I cant think of anything good that could come of that stuff.  Not a particularly flat embark as it slopes down 3 or 4 steps from east to west  but I should be able to find a place to try your method out.

Nevermind. the skin of the water buffalo I butchered instantly reanimated.  Wiped out 3 dwarves before I could put it down and those 3 reanimated before I could get them dumped.  Didnt help that after the skin got put down the other 4 dwarves all decided they wanted to eat/sleep at the same time.  Will have to reembark.

Ok Blushlabors has been founded.  Directly east of my last embark, this time its compleatly flat.  First butchering went off without a hitch crap reanimated down in the pit but I dont really care.  For some reason the fat didnt want to get rendered down in the kitchen... not sure why.  oh well reast of the meat is cooked into meals and is in a barrle.  Managed to pierce down to the second aquifer with the updown stairs at only 8 miner rank although my miner is Mighty (DT says 2075str and 1034agi) so he's a bit above avrage speed I think.  going to try checkerboarding Dig and channles  to see how far the miner can get.

LOL my poor miner got quite drenched during this procedure.  Would have been able to trigger the cavein to breach the aquifer at around the end of slate if I hadnt made an error in layout.  Still isnt hard to start over agian a bit to the side.

well it worked... wasnt prety but it worked... Think I would have goten through faster doing it the other way but then agian this never exposed me to the outside.... first of sandstone though thanks to the false start I had.  First migrant wave was only 2. got them in. second wave was 9 got 7 of them in. 1 is dead and the other is still runin around like a loon from the undead and a hill titan just showed up.  He seems to shoot boiling and freezing extract.   Gota get down to the caverns quick or I'm going to be in trouble. since everyone is safe for the moment going to dig out just enough to get the mason and craftsdwarf shop up so I can slab the dead then try to breach the caverns so I can get some booze plants.   gona have to just say to hell with the first caravan. maybe I can recover an anvil from its remains.

speaking of the caravan... hello boys I'd like to introduce you to MR hill titan... oh you've already met?  well thats nice.  on the bright side he took out both mules and theres an anvil in that pile and a bunch of food/wood I need.  droped food stockpiles on them, soon as the corpses reanimate and move off that tile I'm going to dig on over and goferhole that stuff down.


Sigh now I want to cry. left the game on pause to get some food and came back to find my computer had rebooted for some reason.  I hadnt saved since the initial auto save, I'm back at the wagon agian.

In other news I'm not sure I like my variant of whatever you did stochasty.  While it did work it took forever.  Even with staggered drains the miner was geting knocked into the drains so much to get the right formation down below that it took till the begining of summer to get it ready.  Conversely I could probably get the other way open a month or two earlyer and just roof over the gap by the time I'd get through with the undermining approach, even with haveing to watch out for flyers. really intrested to see what your dig pattern was cause mine isnt working too well.
« Last Edit: September 19, 2013, 10:17:28 pm by Merendel »
Logged

Stochasty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #205 on: September 20, 2013, 06:59:35 am »

Okay, here is my completely safe (no surface exposure) pumpless method for piercing a two-level aquifer.  This method requires one (recoverable) wood, to build a temporary floor to provide access to the stairway down.

Notation is as follows: S1 indicates the first (top) soil layer.  S2 is the second.  A1 is the first aquifer layer, and A2 the second.

Step one:
At a point off to the side (two spaces away) from where you want to make the pierce, use Merendel's chickenrun technique to create a drain into the second layer of the aquifer.  This is the only difficult part of this procedure; you'll need to level up your miner, but once you get the first drain running the rest is easy.

Step two:
Mark off a minimum of a 3x3 area where you will run your peirce.  In A1 and A2, carve a double ring of up/down stairs surrounding this region, and then channel out (on A1) the ring outside of that, so that you have an untouched central 3x3, 5x5 and 7x7 rings of stairs, and a 9x9 ring of channels.  On layer S2, carve a 7x7 ring of down staircases above the outer ring of up/down stairs in the aquifer.

You should end up with something that looks like this (note that I used a 4x4 central area, since I wanted a 2x2 staircase down for future traffic considerations):
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I should note that, when digging inside the aquifer, it is important to dig one tile at a time, working outward from your first drain.  Dig the outside channels first, so that you have a little additional drainage before digging the stairs.  Always make sure to dig the stairway down into A2 before moving further around the ring on A1.  The idea is to maximize drainage at every step; if you do it right you should never have more than 1/7 on any of your stairway tiles, and most of the time they'll be completely dry.

Step three:
Once you have the outer drain rings constructed, mine out the inner area on A1, then channel away the floor (into A2) starting from the center tile and working outward.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step four:
Now you are home free.  From here on out, this operates like a standard cavein puncture.  Dig a 5x5 ring of stairs on S2 and S1, and mine out the central region above the plug on S1.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step five:
Channel out the inner 5x5 ring of stairs in A1, S2, and S1, leaving one stair connected on S1 (this is where you will trigger the cave in).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step six:
Channel out the final tile.  It's a good idea to give the pick to some hapless peasant for this part, just in case.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Step seven:
Build a floor to give access to your plug, and mine down into the sweet, sweet rock below.

This method took me just over two months game time to complete.  The primary time sink is training up your miner for that first chickenrun; after that things are easy.  You might be able to pull this off in under a month, but there's no real rush (since you aren't exposed to the surface) so why hurry?  I took my time, slaughtered the pack animals and cooked the meat, and basically made sure I had a somewhat stable fort before descending.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2013, 07:13:20 am by Stochasty »
Logged

Snaake

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #206 on: September 20, 2013, 07:59:15 am »

Testing Stochasty's method now... so far, I'd like to note that at least the entirety of step 4, the first screenshot of step 2, and channeling out all but the 1 cave-in trigger tile on S1 (in step 5) can and probably should be done before doing the "step one" chicken run, as that should train your miner from 5 to 7-8 already. You can also prep the gopher-holing of the wagon etc. as part of the training.

update:
Ok, so here's my go, a 1x1 pierce, with pictures. I won't go into all the details, just wanted to show a 1x1 shaft/fill in some details/show what I maybe did slightly differently. I'll use the same notation as Stochasty.

S1, all dug out before chicken running. The training areas were 2 11x11s and a 5x11 btw, that got my miner (strong, but average agility) to 10.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

S2, again before the chicken run. I dug out that 1 tile off to the corner because Stochasty had a similar one, but didn't find any use/need for it.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A1, after successful chicken run and a couple of stairs/edge channels dug out. I did my first chicken run when my miner had 8 skill, didn't work out, fills up to 4/7 too soon. For some reason I picked the inner ring to do the first couple of attemps, but if you use the outer ring, and attempt it on every 2nd tile, you can actually do 12 attempts of the chicken run ((1 per corner and 2 per side between them), so you don't really need anywhere near 100% chances. I still would've had 6 more attempts even with the initial inner-ring ones losing me a couple. The NE corner was a failed run at 10 skill, but it's already been dug out in the picture.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A1 and A2, with the double rings of stairs and channels on the outside done. Unfortunately, my miner chose this point (mid-slate) to fall asleep in the SW corner of A1 stairs (was just blinked out in the screenshot), so any timing measures will probably be off. 1½ months should definitely be possible to pull the whole thing off, possibly even faster, especially with an agile miner (my only agile embark dwarf was also flimsy and weak, so this guy was the better choice IMO). This was just an aquifer pierce test fort for me, so the embark was in a badlands with saguaro/grass, and even a couple of pools (that maybe will evaporate in summer), and I brought food and booze besides the pick and wagon wood. I think the aquifer is salty, though, since the biome borders an ocean.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ready for the drop. Channeled out the stairs on S2, which is the one thing in my order of doing this (I think) that could've been done earlier for miner training, but I kept them for faster access around the work area (no need to go to the stairs in the tunnel). Removing the inner ring of stairs on A1 actually isn't at all necessary, I think (Stochasty channeled them out, too, and then had to build a floor to get access to the plug). I just removed the up stairs, which has no effect I think, since up stairs don't support walls diagonally up from them anyway.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Aquifer levels after the cave-in. My dwarves can access the down stairs on S2, and from there the outer (now only) ring of up/down stairs on A1, the ring of down stairs act as floors, allowing access to the center. There was claystone (with tetrahedrite!) beneath the aquifer levels, and even with my messing about, and the miners drinking, eating and sleeping by now, the pierce was done on the 23rd of Slate.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)


So yea, it's possible to pierce a 2-level aquifer in 1½ months, with just 1 pick, NO LOGS NEEDED. Kudos to Stochasty for writing up the mini-chicken run+drainage method, I just found out where you were wrong about needing even that one log. ;)

No logs needed means you could wall off the tunnel from the gopherhole, which can also be your dwarves' initial access underground, as soon as you cave-in the cart down and haul the logs, and be completely safe, no surface access even from fliers. This should be doable within the first minute or so of embarking, right? And AFAIK this method should also work fine in freezing biomes, since water doesn't freeze underground, so you're safe from fliers there too. Now I'm getting the feeling that I/we broke the "challenge" of the single pick challenge, reducing it to a matter of luck, basically whether you get any hostiles pathing too close to your initial location before you first get your dwarves underground. :P Well, there's still the matter of safely getting rid of the draft animals, and stabilizing the fort in terms of food/water.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2013, 09:57:25 am by Snaake »
Logged

Stochasty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #207 on: September 20, 2013, 09:53:21 am »

Thanks for the test and the refinements, Snaake.

I realized that bit about not channeling out the inner ring on A1, and instead only removing the up stairs, about an hour after I finished my demonstration run and posted (I think you had already started your test).  Bit of a facepalm moment for me there.  ;)  Glad you verified it!

Oddly enough, this new method now makes 2-level aquifers safer to pierce than 1-level aquifers.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2013, 10:09:18 am by Stochasty »
Logged

Snaake

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #208 on: September 20, 2013, 10:11:00 am »

Thanks for the test and the refinements, Snaake.

I realized the bit about not channeling out the inner ring on A1, and instead only removing the up stairs, about an hour after I finished my demonstration run and posted (I think you had already started your test).  Bit of a facepalm moment for me there.  ;)  Glad you verified it!

Oddly enough, this new method now makes 2-level aquifers safer to pierce than 1-level aquifers.

I was going to point out how to do it even with a 1-layer aquifer, but nope. With a 1-layer aquifer and 2 soil levels above you'll need to be exposed to the surface. Of course the dig itself is quite a bit simpler, smaller and faster though, and you still don't need any wood. Just channel out the plug area on S2 (right above the aquifer, again), dig out a ring of floor/stairs around it, and a ring (leaving an access gap) of channels around that for the splash water to drain in. For minimal surface exposure time, I think the best way to continue is to carve a ring of up stairs on S1, then remove all but one (the trigger), then remove that last one to trigger the cave-in. (Channeling only the surface floor from below should be faster than carving upwards ramps on S1, I think). Yea, pretty elementary comparatively, also requires no wood and can be done much faster, don't even need a skilled miner, but does involve a bit of surface exposure time.

I also started thinking whether it would be possible to do this method with an arbitrarily deep aquifer, but I think the upper limit on the aquifer's depth is how far your miner can reach on his chicken run. So 3-level may be doable, with a highly skilled and agile miner. Also, in such a case you should make sure to dig the tiles out so that the miner is standing directly above his chicken run spot, mine always did it from 1 tile over to the side, which gives the hole ~10 ticks more time to fill up as the miner first moves 1 tile horizontally, to the chicken run spot, then goes down to A1 and starts digging the second staircase on A2.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2013, 10:12:51 am by Snaake »
Logged

Stochasty

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Single Pick Challenge - Reawakened
« Reply #209 on: September 20, 2013, 10:29:07 am »

There's a slight modification you can make to manage an arbitrarily-deep aquifer, but it requires a miner who never fails his 2-deep chicken run as it is not robust against a failure.

You still use S2 as your plug layer, but you carve out a 3x5 plug instead of a 3x3.  Let's label the five squares of the central area by the coordinates 1-1, 1-2, ... , 1-5, 2-1, ..., 2-5, 3-1, ..., 3-5.

When you mine out the interior of A1 in preparation for channeling, don't channel.  Let A1 drain completely.  In square 2-2, do another chicken run.  Channel out squares 1-1, 1-2, 3-1, and 3-2 for drainage, dig a double down staircase on 2-1, extend the outer drainage ring down one more level, and then mine out the remaining nine tiles (1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, 3-3, 3-4, 3-5).  This gives you a pristine 3x3 surface in layer A2, so you can do another chicken run to build a drain down to layer A4.  Repeat the process (mirrored to the other side) and you can alternate between using squares 2-2 and 2-4 for the chicken run to get you as deep as you need to go.  When you get to the final layer, channel out everything as before and drop the plug.

The only potential problem here is that all of those wall tiles above you are still producing water, so eventually you might out dig your drain capacity.  I've no idea when this would occur, but I would be surprised to find an aquifer with enough levels that this would matter.
« Last Edit: September 20, 2013, 10:31:14 am by Stochasty »
Logged
Pages: 1 ... 12 13 [14] 15 16 ... 32