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Author Topic: Prospecting aquifer depth?  (Read 2007 times)

Maolagin

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Prospecting aquifer depth?
« on: February 07, 2014, 10:46:48 am »
Howdy folks, quick question for you.

I have a couple of ideas I want to try out with a deep aquifer. I keep hearing stories of people being stymied by aquifers 5 or more z-levels deep, but I've never found one myself. My aquifers are never more than 2 z-levels, even when I embark on sites with Aquifer and Very Deep Soil. So help me out here, is there a way to locate an especially deep aquifer location in the embark screen? Thanks!
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vjek

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #1 on: February 07, 2014, 11:11:11 am »
Probably the best way would be to ensure lots of soil..  According to the wiki:

Aquifers appear based on the elevation of the terrain. Low elevations, particularly those near rivers and oceans are more prone to having an aquifer present, while locations closer to mountains are much less likely, but still possible.

Layers which CAN contain aquifers:

    sandy clay loam
    silty clay loam
    loam
    sandy loam
    silt loam
    loamy sand
    silt
    sand
    yellow sand
    white sand
    black sand
    red sand
    peat
    pelagic clay
    calcareous ooze
    siliceous ooze
    sandstone
    conglomerate
    puddingstone

I can likely find you an embark with 5+ aquifer layers, but do you want any other features?
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ImagoDeo

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #2 on: February 07, 2014, 11:57:37 am »
vjek, the Wizard of Advanced World Gen, shall find for you the perfect embark, good sir. Never fear.
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Di

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #3 on: February 07, 2014, 03:01:37 pm »
I've only ever encountered deep aquifers in stone near the ocean.
I've also once modded [AQUIFER] into every layerstone. It got boring and tedious rather quickly. You could try doing that to only a few types of stone and then look for places where they're right next to soil using prospect function of dfhack.
You could actually use that even without modding.
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Maolagin

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #4 on: February 07, 2014, 03:22:17 pm »
Quote from: vjek on February 07, 2014, 11:11:11 am
Probably the best way would be to ensure lots of soil..  According to the wiki:

Aquifers appear based on the elevation of the terrain. Low elevations, particularly those near rivers and oceans are more prone to having an aquifer present, while locations closer to mountains are much less likely, but still possible.

I thought as much, and I'd been using dfhack prospect from the embark map to try and check that. But every time I got a large apparent number of soil layers, it wound up just being a soil-covered slope. With multiple biomes it's easy to wind up with aquifers on a bunch of different levels. But even right next to an ocean, I have yet to see a stack of more than three water-producing layers anywhere.

Quote from: vjek on February 07, 2014, 11:11:11 am
I can likely find you an embark with 5+ aquifer layers, but do you want any other features?

I would surely appreciate that!

Since this is more of a trying-stuff fort than a challenge, either some stone or wood above the aquifer would be preferred, but not essential. For same reason, a non-reanimating biome is helpful. Otherwise, surprise me.  8)
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vjek

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #5 on: February 07, 2014, 04:03:44 pm »
Here you go

Has aquifer               :     52317 Z: 141..147 (embark level is 149/150)

Spoiler: deep aquifer embark (click to show/hide)
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Doktoro Reichard

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #6 on: February 07, 2014, 06:04:03 pm »
Quote from: vjek on February 07, 2014, 04:03:44 pm
Here you go

Has aquifer               :     52317 Z: 141..147 (embark level is 149/150)

So technically it only has 2 levels? prospect while embarking only gives a very rough estimation of the properties of the embark location. Seems like I misunderstood. prospect doesn't give out the aquifer layers when embarking, and by embark level I understood the level at start where the aquifers were.

I think I have a fort with 4 levels in a tundra and another with 3 in an unremarking location (although I deleted those aquifers). Actually the tundra one only has 3 levels, and they aren't layered in a way that makes it difficult to breach into. Here are the world gen parameters: The tundra is without remarks and has a smaller aquifer so I'm not even posting it now.

Need to learn how to read less quickly...
« Last Edit: February 07, 2014, 07:08:11 pm by Doktoro Reichard »
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Maolagin

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Re: Prospecting aquifer depth?
« Reply #7 on: February 07, 2014, 07:27:08 pm »
Quote from: vjek on February 07, 2014, 04:03:44 pm
Here you go

Has aquifer               :     52317 Z: 141..147 (embark level is 149/150)

Spoiler: deep aquifer embark (click to show/hide)

Nifty!

So if I'm reading the tags right, you generated this world mainly by maxing out rainfall and drainage, and you set the whole world to the bottom quintile of elevations save 1% mountains to generate dwarves. Interesting to see that the world still won't give you layers and layers of soil, instead choosing to support the aquifer in conglomerate rock.

I'm guessing I could play with the non-topographic settings to get similar results with a less uniformly temperate world. But the aquifer RNG is clearly a bit more sensitive than the topography. I first tried spinning up these parameters with a tileset loaded and got that exact world, but no aquifer in that location. Pristine install, got the aquifer.
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