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[Dheyjin]

Aquifers are extremely intimidating for newer players who haven't screwed around with any pumps or anything like that [...] They have no idea how to even begin approaching the obstacle, so they utterly fail to make any progress at overcoming it at all. They abandon and embark where they have no aquifer. Even as they become more experienced, they still remember aquifers as something that was completely impenetrable, both in concept and in practice[...]

That's exactly my experience with aquifers. Even after several years of gameplay experience I try to avoid them entirely, first by looking for aquifer free biomes, than by editing them out completly and recently by embarking on split/multi biomes like desert / ocean, where I can simply dig beneath the ocean tiles and use the aquifer as a fresh water source. (And that's only because I tend to be too slow on drink supply, losing forts to die of thirst ... and my recent found love for sand and glass making.

I know they can be extremly usefull in terms of endless water / power supply, but since I don't use either for defensive purposes, I wouldn't miss them if they were gone for good. It's easy enough to lose a fort anyway, I don't need an additional threat.

[Helgoland]

What's interesting is that clay layers will not contain aquifers - so embark somewhere that has clay and try to dig through it .
When I was new to DF and didn't understand much about... anything, really, I discovered this. Later on I abandoned for some reason

[Callista]

I don't consider them a challenge; the challenge is learning how to deal with them in the first place. Once you've got that, it's trivial.

Pretty typical of DF, actually. It's the learning how to do things that's tough; actually doing them, not so much. Thankfully there are many, many things to learn how to do, and even more new things to invent.

[Triaxx2]

I got really lucky, and managed to find an island fort with clay and no aquifer. And even some ocean to draw water from. Then got bored because it was an island.

[Snaake]

Even the double-slit method can and will flop on its ass if you don't carefully micromanage the order of wall building.

You wanted a wall there? Sorry, that's a diagonal, you can't do that.  You deconstructed the wall that was in your way?  Now there's too much water coming and your pump operator can't keep up.

U MAD?

I've developed a variation on twin-slit which is far less micro-management intensive, you can do it blindfolded with a mild case of metal retardation. It's optimized for speed and sheer laziness, and there is basically two aspects which make it much faster and lazier:
1) QM's second method (for layers with aquifer below) is optimised to require no de-construction at all and far less construction.
2) To deal with the bottom layer, a cavern drain is installed as priority, since it's much much easier to work with aquifers with a drain below.

So far the only documentation is my video on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXQH9dliFZE

In the video, it only takes a little more than 5 minutes to get through the 2-layer aquifer. That's like, uh, 1/3rd of a season. I haven't timed QM's original method, but I know it's not nearly that fast.

It's possible to go through 1 layer aquifers in a couple of minutes on most maps. On cold maps, less than a minute. It's really all about knowing the techniques, then aquifers are a total pushover.

Did you rewrite the double-slit article on the wiki, or was it someone else? It's definitely changed since the last time I read it. Which was when I started a fort just to test doing it, the job cancellations were crazy. I think it was a 2-level aquifer, I was using the system the double-slit method now recommends for the last level only, don't know why I wasn't draining to lower levels at all... must have been because the wiki either didn't recommend that back then (this was May or June this year), or I didn't understand that bit.

Anyway, the article now mentions the option of draining once you get a 1x1 safe area at the bottom. However, it (and you) only mention draining to caverns). Wouldn't it be easier and safer just to dig a few z down, then to the map edge, carve fortifications, and drain through those? Or is there some sort of limit to off-map outflow, and the caverns are necessary because they usually have plenty of areas open to the map edge (as opposed to a 1-wide corridor to the map edge)?

[Triaxx2]

Seems to me a stacked pump with power would speed up the process. Drawing up one level then into a drain prevents the difficulties of trying to dig through multiple levels.

[Viking]

Breaching the aquifer isn't hard. It isn't even normally dangerous. And if you use the cave-in/plug method, it's not even necessarily tedious.
The little bastards just insist on finding new ways to kill themselves in the least dangeorus situations.

I find this to be true as well. Aquifers can be an enjoyable challenge to circumnavigate via cave ins etc although if I have the option I'll often also dig around them. lol

[Panando]

Did you rewrite the double-slit article on the wiki, or was it someone else? It's definitely changed since the last time I read it. Which was when I started a fort just to test doing it, the job cancellations were crazy. I think it was a 2-level aquifer, I was using the system the double-slit method now recommends for the last level only, don't know why I wasn't draining to lower levels at all... must have been because the wiki either didn't recommend that back then (this was May or June this year), or I didn't understand that bit.

I haven't touched the wiki article in ages.

Anyway, the article now mentions the option of draining once you get a 1x1 safe area at the bottom. However, it (and you) only mention draining to caverns). Wouldn't it be easier and safer just to dig a few z down, then to the map edge, carve fortifications, and drain through those? Or is there some sort of limit to off-map outflow, and the caverns are necessary because they usually have plenty of areas open to the map edge (as opposed to a 1-wide corridor to the map edge)?

If the article mentions opening a drain, that's good, because it really is faster and easier that way. In some cases it's going to be easier and faster to do a map edge drain. But bear in mind, that you're then going to have a corridor full of water which will have to slowly drain out even after the aquifer is sealed. Considering that there is virtually no danger at all in installing a roof-drain into a cavern (but draining through a wall IS dangerous because dwarves can be flushed out!) I really think it's the better option. Not only can fliers not fly to an area which walkers can't pathfind to, but so early in the game there is very little danger in the caverns. You're not going to have some forgotten beast fly up, because they don't come until later in the fortresses life.
The other two advantages of going down, is firstly it doubles as some exploratory mining, secondly, it 'spores' your fortress so dug out dirt areas start growing plants. I love that, and I like it to happen as early as possible (and I dig out some dirt areas right away to help train the miners). Then I can collect the plants with herbalism, or graze animals on the moss. The earlier the better.
So opening the cavern drain really works for me.

[mordrax]

I'm one of the 'newer' players who haven't got my head around aquifiers. Embarked with one, figured it would force me to learn how to deal with them, dug down, it was on the second level and encompassed 90% of the 5x5 embark, so i dug a way around it and tested the depth. I think it was 10+ levels, eventually got to a level that i could dig through without having damp stone warnings.

So i went onto the wiki and learned how to do the piston thing... however, it was only for a 1 level aquifier, didn't figure out how to extend this method unless i extended the widthxlength of the piston and figured that i'd need a huge piston to do this. ended up killing most of my dwarves and flooding due to accidental side piercing.

Was the trick here that i needed to build a 10 storey tall by 3x3 piston above ground and then let that fall through it? Just thought of it now actually... never embarked on an aquifier again.

All my dwarves drink beer and the weak ones don't live through infections

[daveralph1234]

I'm one of the 'newer' players who haven't got my head around aquifiers. Embarked with one, figured it would force me to learn how to deal with them, dug down, it was on the second level and encompassed 90% of the 5x5 embark, so i dug a way around it and tested the depth. I think it was 10+ levels, eventually got to a level that i could dig through without having damp stone warnings.

So i went onto the wiki and learned how to do the piston thing... however, it was only for a 1 level aquifier, didn't figure out how to extend this method unless i extended the widthxlength of the piston and figured that i'd need a huge piston to do this. ended up killing most of my dwarves and flooding due to accidental side piercing.

Was the trick here that i needed to build a 10 storey tall by 3x3 piston above ground and then let that fall through it? Just thought of it now actually... never embarked on an aquifier again.

All my dwarves drink beer and the weak ones don't live through infections

building it above ground wuldn't work, it has to be natrual/dug out.
I've never heard of aquifers more than 3z deep, I'm quite sure thats impossible.

[Panando]

Aquifers can be something like 13 levels deep, I've never counted precisely. However the sand/loam layers are almost never more than 3 layers deep. Once you get into rock, it's easy, because rock can be smoothed. Using twin-slit method, smoothing is SOOOO much faster than digging out and building constructed walls. Also rock layers are rather likely to contain large deposits of ore or other minerals which aren't aquifer bearing.

[Rez]

Can you cast pistons?  I realize that you don't need a piston if you have access to the lava necessary for casting, but just wondering if cast obsidian deconstructs.

[Snaake]

I haven't touched the wiki article in ages.

I checked, and actually the whole Double-slit method article was written on the 8th of June, then rewritten on the 11th (all by Nagidal, kudos to him), so pretty recently. He also added a link to the youtube video you posted about. The tutorial for the method was probably on the aquifer page before that, because I remember reading some older, more tedious version (the same one that was on the article between the 8th and 11th, I think).

Aquifers can be something like 13 levels deep, I've never counted precisely. However the sand/loam layers are almost never more than 3 layers deep. Once you get into rock, it's easy, because rock can be smoothed. Using twin-slit method, smoothing is SOOOO much faster than digging out and building constructed walls. Also rock layers are rather likely to contain large deposits of ore or other minerals which aren't aquifer bearing.

I guess it's improbable, but possible to be really unlucky and have eg. a 3-layer aquifer, 1 layer of damp non-aquifer, then maybe more aquifers repeating like that, if it's possible, and if you can get to something like 15 z belowground, then you could have really bad luck and have an underground lake right underneath, and so forth...

Can you cast pistons?  I realize that you don't need a piston if you have access to the lava necessary for casting, but just wondering if cast obsidian deconstructs.

Cast pistons should work (=stay intact when caved in), since cast obsidian counts as natural rock. See eg. the magma piston with the integrated obsidian caster to make it reusable.

[Nagidal]

I am pleased to see that you like the double-slit tutorial in the wiki. I think there still is need to document and tutorialize the shortcut as shown in Panando's video. I know I tried to follow it, do as I saw there, yet it ended in a disaster for me. (Trapped dwarf in level 3 water, unable to move, other's unable to save him without losing control of the aquifer.)

I also did not know that you can dig a channel and carve fortifications to the map's border tile (and that fortifications are no obstacle for liquids). Yet I have suffered so many fails on trying anything more effective than what I have already written up in the wiki, that I currently need to fail a couple of fortresses before I'll be willing to tackle this topic again.

[Snaake]

I am pleased to see that you like the double-slit tutorial in the wiki. I think there still is need to document and tutorialize the shortcut as shown in Panando's video. I know I tried to follow it, do as I saw there, yet it ended in a disaster for me. (Trapped dwarf in level 3 water, unable to move, other's unable to save him without losing control of the aquifer.)

I also did not know that you can dig a channel and carve fortifications to the map's border tile (and that fortifications are no obstacle for liquids). Yet I have suffered so many fails on trying anything more effective than what I have already written up in the wiki, that I currently need to fail a couple of fortresses before I'll be willing to tackle this topic again.

Yea, to be specific, you can channel/dig(?) up to the 2nd tile from the edge, but you can then smooth and carve fortifications into the rock at the edge. It's probably recommended to have the water fall through a set of grates at an earlier point so dwarves/items don't get flushed out, indeed.