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[Walkaboutout]

Really happy with the aquifer changes. We still have the old style, via the "heavy aquifer" sites, but the new ones are completely handle-able. Awesome.

[neotemplar]

This really helps is a great change for the game. The old aquifers were way too common and hard to break into. My current fort had a lot partial aquifer area and was not marked as such on the map but it was easy to breach with the starting seven by just building log walls.

[Stormfeather]

Yes, preach it. I was AWFUL with aquifers, and with some trepidation decided to embark on a space with a light aquifer in the new release since it looked otherwise good. Very easy to handle now! Plus now I could decide to use it for water or wells or whatever, rather than dig out to the river or some such. I am pleased to have another option like this!

[Loud Whispers]

Agreed, this has greatly opened up the world for exploration without reducing the fun, and the !!FUN!!

[Zebra2]

This makes me really excited to try the new release once I have some time for it!

[FantasticDorf]

The light aquifer throws me off with how slow it is in order of how to proceed with the problem of plugging it up which is the easy part, and how to exploit the now slow trickle buildup rather than consistent flow (which is the challenge since in exchange it'll not be possible to have fast watermills or quickly refilling basins from just ground-water)

Which ill say is a good thing that will require me to re-learn the game as a fresh challenge.

[Salmeuk]

Safe to say, another hurdle of legendary difficulty has been put to dust.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All those who experienced hard aquifers are now eligible to receive an exclusive award honoring your experience with the earlier versions of Dwarf Fortress. Simply contact your local Dwarven embassy via caravan mail and your complementary pin will arrive in two to four seasons.

[Stormfeather]

I do have one question though.

So I didn't realize that aquifers will basically drop water down into open spaces BELOW them.

If you are an idiot (cough) and clear out some open space below one if the light aquifers, is there any good way to fix it? I mean I could think of a few like building columns below any aquifer tiles... IF I could figure out just which tiles are the culprits. Or just building in the entire room(s) again although man that seems like overkill. Or at this point even just riding it out and figuring that the water will start drying up as it spreads fast enough that it won't start building up into job-cancellation levels, but that's aesthetically annoying plus would probably impact FPS.

So any suggestions for fixing such a situation? Or for that matter for knowing when you're going to dig out the level below an aquifer in the first place, if you don't happen to run into any of the aquifer spaces on your way down? I possibly overreacted and just abandoned the site since I wasn't completely thrilled with a few other things about it either, but now I'm kinda regretting jumping the gun.

[Walkaboutout]

Yeah, so in my experience it's the removal of the tile BELOW the last aquifer level which will cause water to come in. So, as a fix, you can build a wall in the squares that are open, that also have aquifer above (or just watch for the square where the water first appears, if you can).

This is not ALWAYS the case, but also in my experience, usually the last layer of aquifer is followed (one below) by stone; so typically the aquifer is a type of soil, like sandy loam or something, and then you hit the stone layers. Again, that may not always be the case, but every aquifer I ever bothered to pierce, that I remember, was that way. That first stone layer is always a no go layer for construction work. Start your construction on the second stone layer below the last level of the aquifer; and again, that last aquifer layer is usually soil, so sandy loam, or clay loam, or something of that nature.

Hopefully that provides you with a starting point for some aquifer work, and I'm sure others with even more experience than I can chime in. That of course doesn't help much when you have lots of elevation layers, and things are in uneven levels, etc, but it's a start

[Bumber]

So any suggestions for fixing such a situation?

Dig out the aquifer tiles above? Then you can wall the area off and let it fill with ordinary water, because that doesn't drip down for whatever reason.¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[PatrikLundell]

The mechanics of aquifers cause them to drip (pour in previous versions) down onto the level immediately below it. That level is the first non aquifer supporting one, which usually is stone (and some kinds of stone support aquifers), but it can also be clay.
All of these tiles are marked as wet, so normally you'll get a warning, but there are (at least) two exceptions: when digging upwards (typically by digging a staircase, the warning only appears when the damage is already done, i.e. you've dug out a tile beneath the aquifer, and if the tile is visible, it's marked as wet, but you get no warning, as DF assumes you've seen the warning.

When it comes to Stormfeather's problem, my first approach would be to follow Bumber's advice, i.e. to remove the aquifer tiles above and install walls along the edges. It's also possible to fill up the problem room with walls or just wall it off to let it fill up with water.

You can clean up the visuals by building a floor or constructed road on top of the muddied floor (and, when you're at it, construct nice patterns by using different color building materials). Note that DF does not support mud removal, neither as a "clean" task or an order, and the build floor/road on top and then remove process to remove mud is subject to a material transmutation bug, whereby some of the tiles can become soil ones. Magma can sometimes burn away mud, but that's a lot of work, and it can start fires in cave moss growing on top of it, resulting in ash on the floor, and the usual issues with dorfs and fire.

[FantasticDorf]

Forcing water into a diagonal rather than cardinal direction (NESW) will also kill the pressure to flow outward, but will not stop its attempts to overflow to the same z-height as where the aquifer came from even with a slow flow.

If you are on high embark relative-elevation, you could probably connect up a windmill into a screwpump quite easily to just gather from a collection point of aquifer pillars (a few z high if nessecary to the non aquifer level to pool) to be more efficient with making it bleed out water vs risk to miners digging it out and automate the pumping into a basin or waterwaterway.

Unless you drop a legendary pump operator skill vampire instead into the pool. hah.

[Stormfeather]

Aaah, thanks everyone. So it's just the tiles below the *last* aquifer file that are subject to this? That'll help. (I ask because with the slow water flow I'd actually started digging out rooms within the aquifer itself to wall off and use normally, rather than skip some levels). That will help at least.

And yeah, didn't realize if I dig out the area above that'll prevent it. I may have to go back and do a reclaim, although I wonder if then the level will be filled with water due to the aquifer or something. One way to find out I guess!

[Garfunkel]

It'll be filled with water if I remember it right. But do reclaim and report back!

[Stormfeather]

So yeah, it actually wasn't filled with water. I reclaimed, and am now working on building the fortress.

It doesn't seem to be just the last level of the aquifer that drops water below it though (of course maybe it was phrased like that since normally people build below the full aquifer anyhow and aren't crazy enough to try to build within it...lesson learned for next time). I'm pretty far behind in my fortress construction in some ways since I've been losing a lot of time to aquifer control, but I'm also learning as I go.

I've been slowly fighting my battles to dig rooms into the aquifers, wall off/smooth walls where needed, and dig out more than I normally would above any other rooms that have water dropping down on them. It's a bit crazy-making honestly since every small sliver of digging that gets done exposes more damp sand/chert and a cancellation of the designation. I wish there was a way to select a "dig without interruption" mode (maybe similar to the "marker only mode" that just doesn't cancel, which yeah is risky but man would it make my job easier right now.

Currently have my game saved with one level starting to get deeper than I'd like with water. I've got most of the walls smoothed down now, and am mostly working on getting the zlevel above them dug out so there's no more water draining on them. I do still have a bit of digging out there to do though, sadly. I might cancel it for now and smooth that wall down too though until the digging is done.