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[Lobster1071]

Anyone else having this issue?
I select no aquifers when doing a search on the map, but I still get them.  I pick a starting location and make sure it has absolutely no aquifer.  Then, when I play the location, I find aquifers.  It's happened twice to me so far, no positive idea why.

I know there are aquifers around me, is that the reason?  Even selecting a block NEXT to an aquifer will give you one (even though it doesn't say it when I embark)?

[Shonai_Dweller]

It's a bug that started in 47.01 when the majority of aquifers were replaced with the far more reasonable light aquifers. It's been reported on the bug tracker already.

[martinuzz]

Circumvent it either by downloading the lazy newb pack and setting aquifers to NO in the LNP launcher, or by going into your dwarf fortress\raw\objects folder, and removing the [AQUIFER] tag from all soil and minerals in the files inorganic_stone_layer.txt, inorganic_stone_mineral.txt and inorganic_stone_soil.txt (open files in notepad, press ctrl+F to search for keyword [AQUIFER] to find them all.

Note that this only works BEFORE you generate a world.

[PatrikLundell]

For some reason vanilla DF doesn't report the presence of aquifers in the SW half of a world tile (i.e. S/W of of a line from the top NW tile to the bottom SE tile (https://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=11527) since 0.47.01, as Shonai_Dweller said. Thus, an alternative to disabling aquifers is to avoid embarking in the blind half of the world tile (or use the DFHack Embark Assistant tool to get a correct display).

[Shonai_Dweller]

Or just play. Aquifers are about as much of an obstacle as starting with a river on the map these days. "Aquifer" is not the "all noobs avoid!!" annoying feature that they used to be (and heavy aquifers are still around occasionally for those who really want to hunt them down for nostalgic challenge).

[Bumber]

Or just play. Aquifers are about as much of an obstacle as starting with a river on the map these days. "Aquifer" is not the "all noobs avoid!!" annoying feature that they used to be (and heavy aquifers are still around occasionally for those who really want to hunt them down for nostalgic challenge).

The damp stone cancellations are still annoying, though.

[Lobster1071]

Ah, didn't know it was a known bug.  Thanks.
Yeah, I'll just turn them off in the Starter Pack with the next world I create then.  When you want to try a world without them, and they surprise you when they're discovered, it can be annoying.

Actually, I have learned to work with them.  Quickly digging down and then either smoothing the walls, or building a wall around the clay or sand.

I've learned to make wells out of them now with a setup of floodgates and levers.  It takes a while to fill up, but it's a nice way to self contain your fort without being dependent on a brook for water.

Thanks all.

[Sarmatian123]

Some places on map can have couple biomes present. This is not a bug. This is a feature. This is why I always dreamed about largest area embark. A dream, that was ruined by an old bug happening after couple years of play, which Toady never cared to spare a moment to fix. Such places on map allow embarks with aquifer, which have places with stone rocks to dig around aquifer without bothering with it. Mostly interesting are places with different weather conditions, so you can have even more options for surface farming crops or catching and taming animals. They could bring flux stone, other metals or sand/clay, which maybe are missing in the rest of the embark. Usually, those are just some "rocky/hilly" outcrops on edges of the embark, which usually gets leveled down eventually.

IMHO aquifers were always wrongly advertised. Heavy aquifer means simple and safe under ground water access. A Dwarven luxury really. The only hazard with heavy aquifer is when some new player uses DF-Wiki "simple digging through" solution, as it is dangerous for Dwarves and it shouldn't be advertised on Wiki for learning by beginners. Particularly those unaccustomed to pressing "space" not to mention "." or ",". Still, it is only my opinion, which is heavily contested on this forum by avid users of this "simple digging through" method, which I never use. I used this method only once, when I was learning about aquifers. I made a bad call of judgment when channeling, an innocent mistake really and lost almost instantly 5 Dwarves out of 17 Dwarves to drowning in a very short time. I never lost a single Dwarf ever again even on embarks with very tick in many (10+) layers of water soaking porous stone under aquifer itself. I dug out hugest 2 levels deep mass pits in aquifers without issues. I even dug out entire underground spaces for my fortress, like 50x50 inside of aquifers, until I discovered automated (mine-carts + stops + hauling route) quantum stockpiles. I was creating on surface funny water cascades and water falls, slowly evaporating on large areas, because of my leveling of terrain down. IMHO aquifers are a lot of utility, fun and harmless really entertainment (maybe sometimes little hard on weak CPU), which got nerfed down now by Toady. All, because of people irrationally scared from embarks on aquifers purely by irrational forum posts and Wikipedia presenting bad for beginners digging through aquifer methods. This is sad. IMHO that is.

[martinuzz]

Why is that sad? It's free choice. Heavy aquifers are still in the game, it's just pick and choose on embark if you want one or not (except for the current bug ofcourse)
Your complaint makes no sense.

[PatrikLundell]

Once upon a time, before the jobs rewrite during 0.40.X, it was possible to chicken run dig through (heavy) aquifers, but that was made impossible with the rewrite due to "walk away while thinking" rather than resumption of digging. Reasonably lately someone found a way to sort of chicken run through, but I haven't bothered to learn that method.

However, heavy aquifers are a hindrance to newbies, and they are an annoying micro managing thing to muddle through for people who would rather do other things. I don't mind them and haven't yet made up my mind about whether I prefer them to the slow version or not, but I can easily see why a lot of people don't like them (but I see little reason to mind the light one much, apart from issues stemming from not understanding the aquifer rules [leaking roofs, etc.]).