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[Maolagin]

...or, how I learned some important things about mining after the job priorities release.

Back in the days of legend, or so I'm told, it was possible for a legendary miner to dig straight down through an aquifer and literally outrun the water. But even if that's no more than a fairy tale for young dorflings, I know from experience that it was possible back in the v34.11 days to dig through a couple of layers of aquifer this way. And that led to the elegant little technique described in this thread. An aquifer pierce that doesn't require any wood or opening to the surface sure is handy on an evil biome, after all.

So recently I tried this again in v43.05, and failed miserably at first. As it turns out, the job priorities release (40.23 or so) broke the "chicken run" technique. What used to happen was, you would designate a vertical shaft of up/down stairs. The miner digging down would reveal damp stone and then: 1) the game would pause and recenter, with the mining designation canceled, 2) before unpausing you would redesignate the damp tile for digging, and 3) upon unpausing, the miner would immediately start digging the damp tile. If the dorf was fast enough, the next layer of stairs would be done before the water reached 4/7 deep, the water would fall to the level below, and the miner would be left standing on a dry tile in the aquifer layer. (If you wanted go deeper, you would then clear out an area of the top aquifer surrounded by drains and do it again.)

What happens now is, 1) the pause and cancellation happens as before, but 2) the miner is left in "No Job" status, 3) lacking a job, the miner wanders off, and 4) by the time the job system reassigns the miner to mine, the shaft has flooded and the tile you wanted to dig out is inaccessible. However, I saw a post (sadly I've lost the link) that mentioned in passing that channeling still works. And lo, it does! The trick is to dig downward stairs above the aquifer first, so all the tiles you want to dig are already revealed as damp. Then dig an up/down stair into the aquifer, pause once the job is in progress, and designate an adjacent revealed tile for channeling. In my testing, channeling (which removes two tiles of material) takes exactly the same number of ticks as mining or carving stairs. Thus, a level 9-10 miner can pretty consistently pull it off. And with that minor tweak to the procedure, I got the plugging method working again. Yay, no undead keas in my fort!

I've updated the wiki accordingly.

[Fleeting Frames]

Oh yeah, right.

Seems the miner picks up the job straight on from stairs:

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Now, a dabbling miner can't dig a tile fast enough, though, even with four staircases to help. But if I boost their skill, they do manage to get it dug in time.

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Thanks for posting.

[se05239]

Is there a point to even have an aquifer? They seem more like a hassle than anything. Tend to hack them out with DFHack.

[Ametsala]

Is there a point to even have an aquifer? They seem more like a hassle than anything. Tend to hack them out with DFHack.

Infinite water, easy water power.

[se05239]

Is there a point to even have an aquifer? They seem more like a hassle than anything. Tend to hack them out with DFHack.

Infinite water, easy water power.

Ah, I guess that makes sense.

[PatrikLundell]

Yes, unlimited safe water access and associated power is very handy.

Also, very nice discovery that you can work around it that way.

Does it work on multi level aquifers, though? If it does, I guess a 3*3 ramp spiral should be possible. Looks like something to investigate for my 0.44.0X fortress, though the miners will likely start out at dabbling...

[Fleeting Frames]

Is there a point to even have an aquifer? They seem more like a hassle than anything. Tend to hack them out with DFHack.

Aquifers count as drains, so you can make an entrance cleansing trench with no moving water that automatically moves contaminants into walls/aquifer, even through a hatch in the way.

It's also bit less hassle to place hospitals with wells everywhere on the map, with well water guaranteed to be clean.

[Maolagin]

Yes, unlimited safe water access and associated power is very handy.

Also, very nice discovery that you can work around it that way.

Does it work on multi level aquifers, though? If it does, I guess a 3*3 ramp spiral should be possible. Looks like something to investigate for my 0.44.0X fortress, though the miners will likely start out at dabbling...

Well, I don't think you can punch through more than one aquifer layer at a time. But a single successful channel-through is enough to let me start mining in the first aquifer layer. In this design I used that to set up for plugging the lower layer, but I see no reason why you couldn't instead set up for a second channeling run. So it ought to work for any number of soil aquifer layers.

I haven't found a multi-layer stone aquifer to try with recently, but I strongly suspect that mining stone is slow enough that even a legendary miner couldn't pull it off -- I'm counting 80-ish ticks to mine a stone tile, vs about 50 for the aquifer staircase to flood to 4/7 depth. Contrast soil, where a level 9 miner can excavate a tile in 30-40 ticks, and legendary can get that down into the high 20s. So the main limit is that this probably only applies to soil.

[Fleeting Frames]

Was thinking of this a bit, and got even a no-exp (incredibly tough, indefatigable, very good spatial sense - numbers) miner to penetrate into 2nd aquifer layer.

Set four ramp designations up like this, with the central channel one higher priority painted as dwarf reaches down (though really, might as well paint it early since it that gets you convenient pausing):

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No downstairs above - these go straight to the surface so that he falls down the shaft onto next ramp.

Since they can now climb up, this is safe.

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Took only two ramp-drops to get through, here.

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Pretty good, Kol.

e:

@Maolagin: Here's partial multi-z stone aquifer for you to try.

[Maolagin]

Was thinking of this a bit, and got even a no-exp (incredibly tough, indefatigable, very good spatial sense - numbers) miner to penetrate into 2nd aquifer layer.

Set four ramp designations up like this, with the central channel one higher priority painted as dwarf reaches down (though really, might as well paint it early since it that gets you convenient pausing):

||

No downstairs above - these go straight to the surface so that he falls down the shaft onto next ramp.

Since they can now climb up, this is safe.

||

Took only two ramp-drops to get through, here.

Oh, very clever, well done! Yes, by digging diagonally you can get up to four bites at that apple, and indeed, progress on mining a tile does accumulate. I'm not sure I understand why you're using ramps instead of stairs though? With either a ramp or a stair, the dorf will dig from an adjacent tile unless there isn't one to stand on.

[Fleeting Frames]

Because if you dig ramps straight down dwarf falls on bottom of the ramp they dug quicker than if they dug a stairs. The extra step makes it impossible for dabbling miner to do same thing with stairs rather than ramps.

Also note that using ramp instead of channel for central tile doesn't work - I guess invisible tiles don't get accumulated digging.
Though partially-dug walls are mainly useful for darkening bright vein colours.

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Can't be smoothed anymore at this point.

[Dozebôm Lolumzalěs]

Was thinking of this a bit, and got even a no-exp (incredibly tough, indefatigable, very good spatial sense - numbers) miner to penetrate into 2nd aquifer layer.

Set four ramp designations up like this, with the central channel one higher priority painted as dwarf reaches down (though really, might as well paint it early since it that gets you convenient pausing):

||

No downstairs above - these go straight to the surface so that he falls down the shaft onto next ramp.

Since they can now climb up, this is safe.

||

Took only two ramp-drops to get through, here.

||

Pretty good, Kol.

e:

@Maolagin: Here's partial multi-z stone aquifer for you to try.

I'm sorry, I don't understand these instructions. You designate, at the layer above the aquifer, four channels to be dug, each of which is at the corner of a 3x3 square?

[Fleeting Frames]

At least two layers above the aquifer, so that the miner falls down. 1 won't be as fast since they're going to dig from the side, thus taking time to descend by walking.

I also made them priority 2 and centre priority 1, but that shouldn't affect things.

[Maolagin]

At least two layers above the aquifer, so that the miner falls down. 1 won't be as fast since they're going to dig from the side, thus taking time to descend by walking.

I also made them priority 2 and centre priority 1, but that shouldn't affect things.

Careful though. Digging from one layer above should be definitely safe, but I did manage to drown one peasant "miner" while testing the from-two-above concept. He had "clumsy" in his description, which maybe meant he failed whatever check to climb up the hole.

Naturally my test aquifer is in a terrifying biome, so now I have a wet walled up zombie. Not getting that pick back anytime soon!

[Fleeting Frames]

Wow, that is clumsy. Thanks for noting, though; the method is generally safe if not always effective way to dig dump holes, but those don't end in water.

Maybe climbing skill would be helpful, but that sort of defeats the point.