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[Euld]

I've successfully tunneled under the ocean and to the smidgen of land on the other side.  Problem is, every time I tunnel up, I hit a aquifer.  Either there's more than one, or this aquifer is GIGANTIC and covers a few different Z levels or something.  I suppose exploration, same-scumming, and reveal.exe would make this easier, but are there any other techniques to getting around these pesky things?

[Thief^]

Not sure. I suspect that whatever you try it's going to involve dumping an ungodly amount of water out through edge-of-map fortifications.

[blue emu]

Sounds tricky. Have you considered paving the sky until you're above the isolated landmess, then tunneling down? That way, you could use the usual collapse techniques.

[Firnagzen]

Sounds like a fun challenge. I don't think thief's method works, mark you, because fortifications in the map edge don't always drain water out. In particular in aquifer and ocean maps, they are water sources.

Atomsmashers might help, along with very aggressive drainage. Pumps surrounding the dig site.

[dogstile]

Dig out the entirety of the level below it, and dig a large amount of ramps underneath it. Do this for the level below that and the level below that too if you like (but leave out the ramps, just drainage points)

Then  channel out a large area of the aquifer from below, and then quickly wall up the sides.
Might work, not sure though. How about making your dwarfs super hot while doing this?

[Grendus]

Piercing an aquifer up you say? Sounds tricky.

How about a drainage ditch that goes back across the ocean, up a pump stack, and drains into the ocean. Could be tricky to start, but after you get a few staircases built you'll be set. Then just wall off the edges and you're good.

[Derakon]

Dogstile's approach seems like it might work. Something like this:

Code: [Select]

Aquifer Z-level:
#####
#vvv# #: wall
#vvv# v: down ramp
#vvv#
#####

Level below that:
=====
=^^^= =: grating over open space
=^^^= ^: up ramp
=^^^=
=====Put a drawbridge on the level below the gratings, and set it to repeat; it should smash away the water as it gets generated. Then you can clear away the ramps and construct an up staircase in the middle, then a staircase above that, then walls around the staircase, to block the aquifer flow.

...heh, you're going to have trouble walling in the corners, though.

[Kanddak]

Yeah, I've pierced aquifers from below a couple of times. It's actually easier than piercing an aquifer from above, because all the water falls out of your excavations instead of sitting there and blocking further progress.

Don't try a map edge fortification, it will be a water source on an ocean site.
What you need to do is dig down a level from where your dwarves will be coming in, and dig a tunnel into a 10x10 room with one more dug tile on the far corner from where water will come in. You put a 10x10 drawbridge into the room, flip it up with a lever, then put a pressure plate triggered by 0-6 water in that far tile and link it to the bridge. When the room fills up, the plate will untrigger and drop the drawbridge, crushing all water in the room; then the water on the plate will fall off, causing it to retrigger and reraise the bridge. It's a perpetual water smasher.
Then you just dig up a level, smooth all the walls, repeat. All the water falls into the smasher and gets out of your way.

It gets trickier if you're dealing with an aquifer in a soil level. Then you need to dig out the soil and replace it with walls, but if you do that, the dug out tiles end up having too much water to build in. You have to channel them, but if you haven't already dug out the walls below and smoothed everything that gets exposed, you end up with a bunch of extra water on the level below.
Basically, to dig a 1x1 stairwell in a soil aquifer level, you want to plan for a 3x3 stairwell on the level below; if that's soil too, then you want 5x5 on the level below that, and so on until you have a stairwell of constant dimensions throughout any stone aquifers and leading all the way into your water crusher. You'd be best advised to take it slowly and dig up one set of stairs at a time and smooth everything you see before digging another set of stairs.

Don't do Derakon's thing with the ramps and grates, you want to do up/down stairs leading directly into your drains or you'll end up with even more dangerous terrain cancellation spam than you're already going to have. You can grate over the stairwell at the dwarf-entry level if you're worried about dwarves falling in.