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[darkgloomie]

So I just chose a pretty bad place to build a fortress. I haven't even been able to dig more than two levels underground because there's just too many aquifers to deal with, and I haven't been able to pinpoint a place where there isn't one. In addition, the only stone I've struck so far- rocksalt- is ALL. TILES. AQUIFER.

Anybody can give me tips on how to dig out the stones and/or dig past the aquifers?

About digging past:

• I've already seen the double-slit method on the wiki, but haven't really understood the full extent of it. Managed to dig 2 floors, but the neverending spawning water prevents me from constructing the pump in the lower level
• I've been digging more or less all over the map, even in the mountain on the other side of my fortress (good news, the way I've dug it makes for a somewhat nifty maze. Bad news, it's still an useless floor)
• the lowest staircase I've dug is a rock (Kaolinite), so I've been thinking if I could smooth it to stop that level of the aquifer, but don't have a good idea of how to

About digging rocksalt:

• I have already smoothed off the walls in an early attempt to stop them from being aquifers. Obviously served nothing (thank you, save-scumming)
• I'm thinking of engraving the walls too, before digging them out. Would this affect the chance of getting workable stones?
• First year has been slow, and I spent most of the resources I had for trading for a female alpaca and other small useful stuff (threads, cloths, splints and crutches for the hospital, some low-grade weapons and a spare pick).

[li]Now waiting for the human caravan after raiding the elven one (hey, free wood/female giant wren/female giant thrips among other things.) Thinking of making it up next year, but would it be wasted effort?
[/li][/list]

Other than that, I guess I should be investing in better defenses (to start with, walling off the fortress and perhaps trying some traps, although I have no ideas. Would pits covered by hatches be a good start?)

[Adequate Swimmer]

Follow the double slit guide to the letter, step by step, and you should be okay.

[itg]

The wiki's explanation of the double slit method is actually quite good. Follow the instructions to the letter and make sure your shaft looks like the picture at each step. Don't try to memorize it, just keep the page open and flip back and forth as needed. If you'd still rather try something else, the cave-in method works well for single-layer aquifers. It's explained on the wiki, too. The basic idea is to dig out a plug of dry soil and drop it into the aquifer. You can then dig a staircase through that plug.

By the way, pits covered by hatches won't make much of a trap at all. Creatures will just walk over them. Presumably they open outward. The best traps (besides over-complicated magma death chambers, of course) are weapon traps and cage traps. Weapon traps reset automatically, but they can get jammed by corpses and limbs. Cage traps need to be reloaded manually, but they never miss, and the caged creature/invader is usually pretty useful.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Large pits covered in lots of hatches opened by a pressure plate at the fortress's side could potentially kill all but one of the siegers.

[Nagidal]

Here's the wiki article on the double-slit method, which is quite good if you have an aquifer of unknown depth.

[Triaxx2]

Someone had a video that showed how to breach it, and it's one of those things that is much easier to do after you've seen it done.

[i2amroy]

Large pits covered in lots of hatches opened by a pressure plate at the fortress's side could potentially kill all but one of the siegers.

If you are going to do this then it's probably better to just use a bridge, since then if the enemy ever brings trolls they won't just smash all of your hatches.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Large pits covered in lots of hatches opened by a pressure plate at the fortress's side could potentially kill all but one of the siegers.

If you are going to do this then it's probably better to just use a bridge, since then if the enemy ever brings trolls they won't just smash all of your hatches.

Bridges are slow. Also, stick an artifact floodgate somewhere for them.

[Berossus]

Why are aquifers even in the game?
They dont seem to add anything useful, apart from solutions how to deal with them...

[GreatWyrmGold]

They're realistic*, they are useful to experienced players, and it's easy to remove them.

*Well, maybe not the way they're implemented, but still.

[Morgorin]

I'm having this same issue, unfortunately.  I'm over two biomes, one has an aquifer 2 tiles down, the other one has an aquifer three tiles down.  So much for digging under.

[Triaxx2]

Morgorin, you've got the advantage over your aquifers. you can drain one into the other, and use pumps to drain the water away to allow you to build walls to seal up the aquifer. It's not nearly as hard as it seems. Unless they're both multi-z aquifers, then you might need to modify your plan.

[zahmir]

Punched through a z-7 layer aquifer using the "fast" version of the double-slit method. It worked like a charm, one of the best parts being that I could work on both "slits" at the same time, without nearly as many cancellations.

OP: You'll be doing a lot of unsuspending of job cancellations. What I do is this: everytime I see the dwarf appear (if just for a frame) I hit q-s-esc. It's very important to only mine out one wall at a time and replace it with a constructed wall as you go.

[zahmir]

Why are aquifers even in the game?
They dont seem to add anything useful, apart from solutions how to deal with them...

Aquifers are, in fact, extremely useful. As they supply your fort with an endless supply of fresh water (in case of booze shortages) and, if you do it right, an endless, controlled source of water power.  Recently, I set up a multi z-level artificial waterfall that passes through my throne room, courtesy floodgates, a pump stack, and the aquifer.

[Morgorin]

Morgorin, you've got the advantage over your aquifers. you can drain one into the other, and use pumps to drain the water away to allow you to build walls to seal up the aquifer. It's not nearly as hard as it seems. Unless they're both multi-z aquifers, then you might need to modify your plan.

Well then, color me thankful.  I'll have to figure out how to do that, they are both 1-z aquifers.