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[Bodkin]

I am trying to figure out how to play this game without having to miss out on so many fantastic embark sites because I don't want to argue my way around their aquifers. (I come from the days before aquifers were so freakin omnipresent in this game, and maybe I got spoiled.)

So I tried the instructions on the wiki page on aquifers: http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Aquifer

Seemed straightforward enough, but it doesn't work. It robs the entire continent of its ... well, almost everything. The only kind of rock anymore is just "rock." I see no flux stone, no sand, no clay, anywhere at all on the world map. That's after two different regens.

Can it actually be made to work? Or is it hopeless? Should that portion of the wiki page be modified? (I'll be happy to do it, except that I don't have enough knowledge to know what to put in its place.)

Thanks for any hints or feedback or even for "screw off Bodkin, you're in way over your head here." In fact, insults are more fun, so go crazy.

Cheers,
B

[Clover Magic]

It's actually very easy with Notepad's Replace function.

Open inorganic_stone_soil, inorganic_stone_mineral, and inorganic_stone_layer in your raw/objects folder.

Go to Edit->Replace (or ctrl+h).  Fill in the "Find" area with [AQUIFER], and the "Replace" area with whatever you want (I personally usually use "whee" or variations thereof lol).  Click "Replace All" and it should replace all aquifer tags with whatever you said to replace it with.  Make sure to do this in all three files, save, and gen a new world.  Your new world should be completely without aquifers.

[Bodkin]

I think I wasn't clear. I did it the way you said, and the world was indeed without aquifers; it was just without a whole lot of other stuff too. No sand, no clay, no flux, no rocks other than the generic "rock"; it just wasn't worth playing.

To be clear, I don't really mean to complain; it's a great game even if I can't get what I want in this aspect. I was just wishing for a magic bullet that would take away all the aquifers, and leave everything else equal. Perhaps there isn't one. That would be a shame, but I think it wouldn't bring an end to my universe. Thanks!

[Meph]

Bodkin, Clover Magic described it perfectly. It will not influence anything besides the aquifers if you do it like he said. All soils, sands and the like will still be there.

You can also try the Lazy  Newb Pack, it has a .exe that automatically disabled Aquifers if you want. But it wont change anything else on the game.

[Playergamer]

Bodkin, are you crazy! The DethSquads will get you for daring to mod out aquifers!

[Putnam]

Bodkin, are you crazy! The DethSquads will get you for daring to mod out aquifers!

Shoo, let us casuel mod in peace :I

[Bodkin]

Could it have messed things up that I made backups of the raw files with names like "inorganic_stone_soil_original.txt" and left them in the directory?

Playergamer: I am actually trying to run a DethSquad Challenge fortress. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[Clover Magic]

Actually that would be exactly your reason.  That means that your raws are duplicated, which will do all that funky stuff - to back up vanilla files, either keep a clean install of DF in another folder, or move them out of the DF folder.  If you keep them in the same folder, then the game will try to read them, see it has multiple items with the same name, and promptly lose its shit.

So take those out and try genning again.

[Bodkin]

Okay cool. I made the mistake of assuming that DF is programmed to read only certain filenames. It is apparently quite a lot more omnivorous than that. Good to know. Thanks!

[Clover Magic]

It's programmed to look for, I believe, the first parts of all the text files in raw - creature, inorganic, item, b_detail_plan, etc.  For example, creating a inorganic_modname.txt file will make the game read it as an inorganic material file.  So keeping the inorganic at the beginning of your file name meant that it loaded it up as normal, but also loaded up your modified ones and bam, duplicate raws.  If you put the "original" part in the front, it might not read it, but I am not so sure on that one.  Safest thing is just to move your defaults out of the original folder.

[Demonic Gophers]

Or replace the [OBJECT:INORGANIC] near the top of the file with OBJECT:INORGANIC.  That should keep DF from trying to implement that file, I think.

[Putnam]

It's programmed to look for, I believe, the first parts of all the text files in raw - creature, inorganic, item, b_detail_plan, etc.  For example, creating a inorganic_modname.txt file will make the game read it as an inorganic material file.  So keeping the inorganic at the beginning of your file name meant that it loaded it up as normal, but also loaded up your modified ones and bam, duplicate raws.  If you put the "original" part in the front, it might not read it, but I am not so sure on that one.  Safest thing is just to move your defaults out of the original folder.

Nope. It looks for [OBJECT:WHATEVER] for that purpose. The name at the top is for organizational purposes, I'm pretty sure.

[Clover Magic]

It's programmed to look for, I believe, the first parts of all the text files in raw - creature, inorganic, item, b_detail_plan, etc.  For example, creating a inorganic_modname.txt file will make the game read it as an inorganic material file.  So keeping the inorganic at the beginning of your file name meant that it loaded it up as normal, but also loaded up your modified ones and bam, duplicate raws.  If you put the "original" part in the front, it might not read it, but I am not so sure on that one.  Safest thing is just to move your defaults out of the original folder.

Nope. It looks for [OBJECT:WHATEVER] for that purpose. The name at the top is for organizational purposes, I'm pretty sure.

Ah yes.  I knew the OBJECT thing was part of it, but was unsure if file naming meant anything as well, if the game would look inside text files without the names or not.  But yes, the OBJECT thing is the important part.

[arbarbonif]

I've just taken to cheating my way through them using dfhack's liquids painting feature to paint 1/7 magma around my flooded stairs, then removing the remaining water.  I did the double slit method first but it takes forever and is super tedious to actually implement.

[milo christiansen]

OBJECT:WHATEVER is important, but so is the beginning of the file name.

The raw loader is all sorts of messed up IMHO, for example using the extension .txt is a really bad idea for various reasons, and a more flexible name system would be good. Oh well.