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[Calamarain]

Have generated a nice new world in 31.14 (not played for a while!), and had real trouble finding a decent embark site. It seemed like everywhere had an aquifer. I'm not comfy building on such a landscape yet, so I generated another three new worlds.

Same thing every time - almost every location on the map seemed to have aquifers in it. Eventually found a corner where I could embark, but it took me quite a long time - the autosearch for a location doesn't allow me to narrow things down as much as I want.

Is this common to 31.14 as opposed to 40d? Aquifers everywhere? Is there a good option to set in world generation that means there's not nearly as much groundwater?

[bluephoenix]

It will say that there are aquifers everywhere because of all the water in the caves, so don't worry if it tells you that you are embarking on an area with an aquifer.

[Chocolatemilkgod]

If you're not going to use aquifers you can just turn them off in the raws fairly easy.

[FleshForge]

Be warned if you genned in 31.14 you won't be getting invasions, that was a major bug in that version.  If you want to play in 31.14 then you probably want to gen the world in 31.12 and copy it over.

[Calamarain]

I'm playing 31.14 because that was the most recent version available from the Mayday site - I play with graphics/tiles on. Yes, I could probably manually download the latest version and put the graphics on I suppose...

[Lord Darkstar]

Aquifiers in freezing biomes are easily breached. You just build a shaft down to the aquaifier, and when winter comes, it freezes the soil/aquifier. You dig into that, put up walls to keep water out when it unfreezes, and can go about your way. To breech an aquifier with a 3x3 stair grid, you'd need to make the shaft wide enough for your planned stairs, their dam walls, and the ice wall. So for a 3x3 grid, you need 7 x 7 shaft open to the sky down to the aquifier. That's 3x3 stairs, +2 tile width (1 tile wide on each side) for surround walls 5x5, +2 tile width for ice walls, yielding 7x7.

If you have multiple layers of aquifier to freeze, you will have to add another +2 tile width per additional aquifier level to be breached--- ie, to breach 2 z levels of aquifier, the shaft needs to be 9x9 grid down to the first aquifier, so you can have a 7x7 grid underneath it to get through the second aquifier level.

Non-freezing biomes require different methods (ie, collapse or pump and smooth)

Mixed biomes, where 1 or more biomes don't have an aquifier are easier to deal with. You just have to explore for part of the map where the aquifier isn't present, and tunnel down there.

[Auto Slaughter]

You just build a shaft down to the aquaifier, and when winter comes, it freezes the soil/aquifier.

Does anybody know if there's a trick to doing this in year-round frozen biomes?  The wiki seems to state that it's possible but whenever I try it the dwarves channeling out the aquifer get encased in ice.  (Which doesn't really make sense since a dwarf can channel anything else, even magma, without being harmed by what's below.)

[gtmattz]

You just build a shaft down to the aquaifier, and when winter comes, it freezes the soil/aquifier.

Does anybody know if there's a trick to doing this in year-round frozen biomes?  The wiki seems to state that it's possible but whenever I try it the dwarves channeling out the aquifer get encased in ice.  (Which doesn't really make sense since a dwarf can channel anything else, even magma, without being harmed by what's below.)

Channel one tile at a time.

[zooeyglass]

I'm playing 31.14 because that was the most recent version available from the Mayday site - I play with graphics/tiles on. Yes, I could probably manually download the latest version and put the graphics on I suppose...

play with phoebus' set instead: better looking (imo) and up-to-date.

[Lord Darkstar]

You just build a shaft down to the aquaifier, and when winter comes, it freezes the soil/aquifier.

Does anybody know if there's a trick to doing this in year-round frozen biomes?  The wiki seems to state that it's possible but whenever I try it the dwarves channeling out the aquifer get encased in ice.  (Which doesn't really make sense since a dwarf can channel anything else, even magma, without being harmed by what's below.)

I've done it. You can channel one tile at a time or desinate that tile with a stair (up/down) on the z level of the aquifier--- ONE TILE AT A TIME. That's the important bit. If you designate multiple tiles, what happens is the miner will go down the ramp/climb down the stairs and then get instafroze as the water from the aquifier pours in. At one tile, the miner does the work, and pauses to consider what to do next. During that pause, the water flows into the channeled/staired tile, and freezes. Just make sure you don't dig out something you always collect, ie, gems. If your miner channels/digs a gem out and you have a gem stockpile, he'll decide to jump into the hole to get the gem, and may make it into the hole before the water can fill and instafreeze him.

[Auto Slaughter]

Thanks guys!  I just generated a winter-world and I'm ready to test this now...