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[Babylon]

I tend to play with aquifers turned off, because I haven't figured out how to deal with them and they seem to show up whenever I have found a spot that has the stuff I want in it (I'm playing .18 for the moment, although hoping detailed embark info will be back soon)  the wiki suggested some sort of draining scheme that made no sense to me at all, and also caveins.  Caveins at least made sense, mostly.  I assume I need two layers above the aquifer for that to work, dig out a room, channel down into aquifer, presumably leaving a support, channel around top layer, drop support and I can go through?  Also what if the aquifer is mutiple z levels deep?  Whenever i have embarked on one they seem to be awfully close to the surface.

[Urist McBusDriver]

I tend to play with aquifers turned off, because I haven't figured out how to deal with them and they seem to show up whenever I have found a spot that has the stuff I want in it (I'm playing .18 for the moment, although hoping detailed embark info will be back soon)  the wiki suggested some sort of draining scheme that made no sense to me at all, and also caveins.  Caveins at least made sense, mostly.  I assume I need two layers above the aquifer for that to work, dig out a room, channel down into aquifer, presumably leaving a support, channel around top layer, drop support and I can go through?  Also what if the aquifer is mutiple z levels deep?  Whenever i have embarked on one they seem to be awfully close to the surface.

Pretty sure this is in the wiki, but yeah that's the idea. You can probably do without the support if you're careful about where your miner stands when he channels out the last piece of the layer 2 z-levels above the aquifer.

If the aquifer's 2 layers deep, you'd need four layers of stuff above the aquifer. Just as before but the cavein for the top layer of the aquifer must be big enough for you to dig a hole in the middle of it to drop the second cavein through.

[shlorf]

Well, in 3.18 you get detailed information, so unless you're prepared for a few seasons of pumping i suggest embarking on nothing that hasn't 2 layers of soil above the aquifer layers. Also make sure it's not a layer stone aquifer (puddingstone, conglomerate, sandstone, possibly some i forgot) as one layer of them can (and probably will) span multiple z-levels. If you have more than one layer of soil aquifer but you can use cave ins (2 layers above), you can pierce as many layers as there are by making concentric rings with a 3x3 plug in the middle. The safest way to drop the rings, is to have them hanging from supports from constructed floors from above (this means you need to bring enough stone for as many levers and mechanisms to link them as you have aquifer layers (the support itself can be made of wood). You drop the rings from the outside and pump the middle clear of water every time and then channel a new hole for the next ring to fall.
There's a nice tutorial on this method with pictures in some thread on this forum.
If you want to try the pump route i suggest an aquifer of only one layer but high up on a map with at least some wood. You can make entire pumps from wood and with enough pumps you can drain a 3x3 hole (pump into another hole into the aquifer; put/leave walls around pump exit tile to not flood anything) and then build walls in the 4 corners and then in the 4 other tiles. Bring a skilled carpenter to get the walls up quickly and keep on unsuspending.

Never make the mistake of digging around below the aquifer. Aquifer tiles create water orthogonally also in the z-direction, so you want to dig one extra level below it.