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[Duntada Man]

The problem a lot of people have with the pump method is trying to do it all at once and viewing the project as one big thing.

Just focus on the one step you are doing. When it is done, back up and plan only the next step. Once you have that step, go through with just that step. If you view it is a series of small tasks rather than one big one, it gets repetative, but it also gets a lot less frightening.

[Jake]

If you're embarking on a site with an aquifier, try and make sure it's only in one biome on the site. That way, once you know what z-level it's on and have a rough idea where the boundary lies, you can simply route around it.

Besides, if you're not interested in the caverns or the Hidden Fun Stuff, you can always start at the base of a mountain and build upwards instead.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Aquifer+freezing climate+patience= best ice traps set up in the world. Also, my personal favorite is using the drainage aspect to build really convenient dwarf baths, with no or almost no chance of accidental drowning, nor the danger of the f.b. contaminated shallow 3/7 cleaning pool killing all who walk through it.

p.s. consider the terrain-marring holes involved in getting through an aquifier as creative opportunities--they make great pyramid foundations, underground pastures and greenhouses.

[Jingles]

Aquifers are easily avoided if you want, but once you get used to them you really start to like them.  There are also lots of easy places to have them, if there are sufficient hills for plugs or in a cold climate where you can simply expose them to air and dig through the ice.  Even pumping them out is relatively easy if time consuming.  Besides that they add challenge and interest to the game.  Once you stop being afraid of them they are really a very nice feature.

It's like asking for tantrum spirals to be removed.  I think its perfectly reasonable that random murders and stranglings and berserk rages happen when a dwarf gets a little too little to drink and a little too much unpleasantness.  Its hard to imagine DF without it really.

[Lytha]

I do have a sexy multiple z level sandstone aquifer now. What I am doing with it is to clear a relatively large area in each level, enough to cover the space that my spiral central ramps (3 tiles wide, each) occupy and some extra at the edges (more or less 9x9 tiles per z-level.) This gives me more than enough room to juggle the draining hole around as needed. No extra bits for draining needed anywhere, and the area won't look like a stupid inverted pyramid in the end.

But yes, it is slow and somewhat tedious. Especially since my dear miner is a lazy slob who idles "on break" every half a year.

Pumps used: 1.

Aquifers don't leak diagonally. That's the secret that makes this a lot less of a pain.

And try to get the engravers gain some engraving experience so that they can engrave faster. It's stupid how they struggle sometimes against the "tide". They're talented swimmers by now , but they're still acting like morons when the water sloshes at 2/7 around their knees.


I don't know how the last level of the aquifer will turn out to be. Might be problematic with my current approach, but I guess I could just dig a tunnel to the side and drain any left-overs into a prospective farming plot or to the edge of the map.