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[Grendus]

In the most recent version, DF 0.31.05, I've tried three methods so far. Pumping was the closest to effective, though it was also the hardest - 12 pumps, 30 tiles of axel, 8 mechanisms, dozens of cancellation messages, and I think the reason I failed was because I didn't realize aquifers now put water diagonally (at least, that seems most likely... I got through the aquifer but when I started digging deeper it flooded). I tried the ice method, but due to a bug ice walls leave "open space" above them and you can't dig stairs into ice walls, making it useless. I then tried a cave in, which aside from sucking my farmer off the edge and killing him created 25 "black sand" tiles instead of the "Loamy sand" tiles I dropped, all of which were aquifers.

So how the heck am I supposed to get through aquifers in DF 2010? 75% or so of all the worlds I generate are covered in them, so far it's looking like the only ways to get through them are to embark on volcanos or remove the aquifer tags from the raws. Is there any method that's currently doable?

[LordSlowpoke]

Tried cave-in or magma already?

[Grendus]

Tried cave in. The walls changed into the aquifer's soil type and were aquifers themselves.

Have not tried magma, because I can't find a volcano to embark on and the normal magma is several dozen z-levels below the aquifer.

Tried ice. Couldn't dig down through the frozen space.

Tried pumps. Sorta worked, but then flooded.

[Kidiri]

Try again with pumps, and put the output in the aquifer itself. As soon as you can, build stairs down/up, and wall off the aquifer. Also note that aquifers also generate water on the level below it.

[Grendus]

That explains it then. I had pumped the water back into the aquifer, but when I dug below it it flooded so I decided to try something new. Kinda sucks though, an aquifer layer makes two layers useless. Guess I'm still in the 40d mindset of 15 layers.

[Hyndis]

If you don't like the tedium of breaching an aquifer you can just disable them in the raws. Edit the stone and soil layers so they cannot contain aquifers.

[Firehound]

@ hyn: He's already mentioned ways to do it without doing so.

quickbreach method. if you can manage to get one z-level below the aquifer and it also has an aquifer level/cavern, you may build a pretty wicked swimming trainer that all you really need is to post your squad to. Tends to become more difficult for more aquifer levels.

[Grendus]

I managed, back in 40d, to drain one z-level into another during one of the DF masters challenges (which I never completed). I could never drain the bottom level though.

I thought of disabling them Hyn, as I mentioned, but it's about time I learned how to build a fort in a non-ideal location.

[Fourdots]

For ice walls without floors above, if you construct a floor above the tile and then deconstruct it, an ice floor (allowing digging) should be left behind. Really irritating, but it works, mostly.

[UmbrageOfSnow]

Yeah, go back to the pumps.  They work just fine for me.  Not to be a jerk but the problem with the pumps was your screwing up, not that they don't work.  Also, you can totally breach with dwarf power instead of all the mechanisms, although it strikes me as less fun/dwarfish.

Here's an example:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

... And we are officially through the aquifer.  I'll post a screenshot for all those of you who weren't sure how to do it.

[Stargrasper]

So how the heck am I supposed to get through aquifers in DF 2010? 75% or so of all the worlds I generate are covered in them, so far it's looking like the only ways to get through them are to embark on volcanos or remove the aquifer tags from the raws. Is there any method that's currently doable?

The reason that you keep getting worlds covered in aquifers is that Toady changed the default worldgen.  Go into 'Create World with Parameters' and you can see that for each size, there is now an 'island' world and a 'region' world.  These island worlds naturally have a LOT of aquifer's pretty much everywhere because of all the water.  I think the default worldgen is 'Medium Island'.  'Medium Region' is the old worldgen default.

Alternately, go to the DFFD and look up the utility 'Perfect World' and build the world however you'd like yourself.

Or ignore me and learn the punch through them properly.  Your choice.  Just thought I'd explain since nobody else had bothered to.

[fanatic]

Tried cave in. The walls changed into the aquifer's soil type and were aquifers themselves.

I had this one too, but interestingly digging through the changed stones proved the display wrong. they were showing up as "wet" and "aquifer type", but no watrer went out. did you actually try digging in? maybe its a bit like obsidian being "warm" right after casting...