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Author Topic: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)  (Read 1213 times)

Urist_McArathos

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The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« on: July 06, 2012, 10:17:04 am »

Okay, so I was preparing to test out a fort, when I saw what seemed like a good site: two overlapping biomes, one with clay, the other soil (here's hoping for sand), flux, multiple metals, trees, plants, and a volcano.  All going super well.  I didn't like how little of the second biome I had access to, so I moved it down a square and suddenly it "Aquifer" appeared on the first biome's layers!

I didn't move into a similarly-named biome; when I pressed F1 and F2, I could clearly see that the flashing green zones covered the entire area I'd shifted, so there were only two biomes there and both were the same two from before I moved.  Bug, or does the geology shift that dramatically one row down?
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Garath

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #1 on: July 06, 2012, 11:19:38 am »

I've noticed the same, usually near rivers
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SpiralDimentia

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #2 on: July 06, 2012, 11:21:12 am »

I think that; what you see is the results of the larger biome. When you shifted positon, you put more of biopme 2 in the picture and less of biome 1, and biome 2 doesn't have an aquifer. Suddenly being the majority, it told you the aquifer was gone, since most of your map is now aquifer-less.
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Garath

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #3 on: July 06, 2012, 11:25:05 am »

I think that; what you see is the results of the larger biome. When you shifted positon, you put more of biopme 2 in the picture and less of biome 1, and biome 2 doesn't have an aquifer. Suddenly being the majority, it told you the aquifer was gone, since most of your map is now aquifer-less.

I'm pretty sure that is not what happened. First of all, the OP states that he viewed BOTH biomes before moving one tile down. Second, so did I when I noticed it.

What happens is that you view the biome(s), move for example a tile closer to a river and suddenly the biome overlapping the river (You can tell it's the same biome because it gets highlighted when you press F1, F2 etc) has an aquifer
« Last Edit: July 06, 2012, 11:27:09 am by Garath »
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Quote from: Urist Imiknorris
Jam a door with its corpse and let all the goblins in. Hey, nobody said it had to be a weapon against your enemies.
Quote from: Frogwarrior
And then everyone melted.

SpiralDimentia

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #4 on: July 06, 2012, 11:32:10 am »

I took it as he knew the only two biomes in the square were the two from before, and made it seem like he thought both had an aquifer. Thus my conclusion. After rereading his post, I'm still gonna go with this. Because he said the aquifer vanishes, not reappears. Just my two cents.
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Legacy of Insightshields
Many more made tales in this hall,
before the stronghold found it's fall.
An enemy none could stop or yield,
had taken over Insightshields.

GhostDwemer

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #5 on: July 06, 2012, 11:41:57 am »

This is totally normal and expected behavior. Every map has this, in hundreds of locations. Surprised you guys didn't notice it before. Biomes are not all or nothing when it comes to aquifers! They have aquifers in parts, and not in other parts. It is not a "dramatic shift" in geology. The geology is the same. The biome is capable of supporting an aquifer, but not all of the biome has enough water, or too little drainage, to create an aquifer in certain parts.
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Urist_McArathos

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #6 on: July 06, 2012, 11:45:05 am »

I think that; what you see is the results of the larger biome. When you shifted positon, you put more of biopme 2 in the picture and less of biome 1, and biome 2 doesn't have an aquifer. Suddenly being the majority, it told you the aquifer was gone, since most of your map is now aquifer-less.

I'm pretty sure that is not what happened. First of all, the OP states that he viewed BOTH biomes before moving one tile down. Second, so did I when I noticed it.

What happens is that you view the biome(s), move for example a tile closer to a river and suddenly the biome overlapping the river (You can tell it's the same biome because it gets highlighted when you press F1, F2 etc) has an aquifer

This is correct; I checked both biomes, both were aquifer free.  I moved down one tile, the first biome suddenly had an aquifer listed (the second still did not).  Oddly enough, I moved AWAY from a stream rather than towards one.

I will admit I usually avoid aquifers entirely, so that would explain why I hadn't noticed this behavior before.
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SpiralDimentia

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #7 on: July 06, 2012, 11:46:17 am »

Oh I'm retarded and couldn't read apparently. I thought the aquifer was naturally in one of your biomes.
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An enemy none could stop or yield,
had taken over Insightshields.

Kaos

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Re: The amazing disappearing aquifer! (Bug? Strange Geology?)
« Reply #8 on: July 06, 2012, 07:30:37 pm »

I noticed this by using the search feature in the world view, I would search for a 4x4 site without an aquifier, in the search results I get a 4x4 area with a biome without aquifiers, when I expand the local area to check out what other biomes there are, I go from a 4x4 area to a 16x16 (or whatever the max is) and the same biome that in that 4x4 area showed without aquifiers now says it has an aquifier...


If you embark in such a biome and use reveal, you'll see that the biome's layers are not uniformly aquifierless or aquifierfull, it has several patches where there are aquifiers and some where there aren't in some cases you can dig straight down to the rock layer without hitting aquifiers if the aquifierless patches in the layers line up across the z-levels....


I used to think that the whole biome was meant to have an aquifier and the only way to get different patches was using a combination of different biomes... at least it seemed to be that way, I remember revealing maps before and seeing whole same biome layers covered in aquifier... maybe something changed in the latest versions?
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