Drill to Aquilifer

[Patashu]

Does anyone ever use it?

[Lazerus]

No, though some people use it on their energy parks. But personally i can't remember ever doing it once mainly because i'm always changing the height of the land and if a rivers course changes that it starts messing around with the terraforming in other areas.

[Sikander]

The only time I made much use of it was when I was using a three on the diagonal spacing. Using this spacing you end up with tiles that are not within the base radius of any base three tiles to the NW, SW, NE & SE of your bases. I raised these to 3000+ meters drilled a river on them and placed an echelon mirror on them, which I crawled. The 9 tiles around them got farms (and eventually soil enrichers) and solar panels. It was fun, but not a real game breaker.

[Chaos Theory]

I've seen rivers drastically change course as a result of elevation changes, but I've never seen it cause anything more than a change in raininess as a result, and condensors fix that. What's wrong with an uppredictable path of +1 energy?

[Skanky Burns]

Former time?

On a more serious note, I should start trying this drilling.

[Chaos Theory]

Of course former time is an issue, but there's no *downside* to drilling aquifers, just perhaps not enough of an upside. As Domai I had enough formers once that I selected a large (~100 tile) patch and drilled aquifers on it so that every former would finish at the same time, violating the normal restriction of not drilling aquifers next to rivers. The result was a river on every tile in that patch, but none went to the sea...

[Flubber]

I don't think they have to finish the same time --- as long as there is no river adjacent when you start I believe the former will complete its terraforming correctly even if there is an adjacent river formed in the work interval

Just working from memory

Often working adjacent tiles backfires anyway since the rivers often run together after 1 tile. I don't mind the former time to get a river on 3-5 tiles but it seems awful inefficient to get it on 1 tile

[Dis]

I must comment on the spelling of the thread title.

It's not even close

In any case I never do it. I probably should. Especially if there is a scarcity of rivers. But often times I can find enough rivers to my liking.

[Hydro]

//start rant//

The entire idea of ‘drilling to an aquifer’ to get a river almost anywhere you want is ridiculous, even if you assume uber-technology. One does not just poke a (large) hole in the ground and have Mississippi-sized rivers result. You’d have to sculpt and entire drainage basin, and that assumes one does not already exist (and they would). So, the best you could do is change the location of an existing river, or dry one up if you depleted its watershed by over-use of groundwater and surface water resources (like the Colorado in the USA) or by diverted its headwaters.

And don’t get me started about raising and lowering terrain. Where does all the mass come from, or go? Even uber-technology would have to tread carefully on the conservation of matter.

//end rant//

There. I’m all better now.

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Hydro

There. I’m all better now.

No your not! Essentially you need to understand plate tectonics better, and realize that the face of a planet is ever shifting, and that what was here today, can very well be gone tomorow!
Essentially if volcanoes can erupt overnight in some regions, then I would expect that given the proper leverage (i.e. the technology and understanding of a planet), that acquifers can also be "built" in short notice as well.
People have made it a distinguished challenge to climb the highest and most difficult peaks on Earth. How many have issued the same challenge to Spelunkers to do the exact opposite and penetrate as deeply as they can into the Earth's crust? If this were explored more deeply (pun intended) then who knows what might result?


D

[Hydro]

Darsnan,

Plate tectonics does indeed mean that what you see today may be gone in, say, 100,000 or 1M+ years. Maybe less if you're near a major fault line (San Andreas), or on a hotspot feature (e.g. – Hawaii or Yellowstone).

Rivers and aquifers are an interconnected part of a watershed, and taking from one usually means giving from another. So, when you ‘take’ from an aquifer you either 1) run out of water when the (deep) aquifer goes dry or 2) drain your rivers and lakes since it is now ‘feeding’ the (shallow) aquifer. See what I mean? The point is you’ve got a fixed water budget, so you can’t have both.

BTW, in case you hadn’t guessed, I'm a hydrogeologist (hence, the tag). I make my living monkeying around with aquifers (hydro), and playing with dirt and rocks (geologist).

OK. NOW I'm done. Most of you have probably slipped into your own private coma by now, anyway.

Hydro

[Darsnan]

Originally posted by Hydro
BTW, in case you hadn’t guessed, I'm a hydrogeologist (hence, the tag). I make my living monkeying around with aquifers (hydro), and playing with dirt and rocks (geologist).

OK. NOW I'm done.

Boy do I feel dumb now...... Sorry about trying to lecture you, Hydro.


In RL isn't there a major ongoing drought causing the Rio Grande to have some real issues with levels? And isn't the major aquifer where you live being overly taxed now, as well? Just curious, as one of the things I've noticed about the falls of some civilizations are theoretically to have been caused by droughts (most notably the Mayans).


D

[Snowflake]

Well whether realistic or not I've actually done it. Sometimes it's not bad if you are able to get a rive to run 5 or 6 squares when your formers don't really have anything to do. Once I have forested all squares in Garland crater or something like that, and I drilled a river that flows around inside the crater. Pretty cool.

[GeoModder]

I like to make dry maps. In a game on it is almost a necessity then so the map becomes more rainy without having to put condensors up everywhere.

[livid imp]

I hate to be the one that brings up the only disadvantage to rivers, cause I do like to use them.

Rivers wear down river tiles to 10m during gobal warming, causing more land to submerge. In a vain attempt to save my terraforming, I tried to raise the land in front of a river to save a city that it ran through. It simply redircted the river to another part of my continent, effectively lowering twice as many tiles to 10m including two I had cities on . So then I had three cities to rush pressure domes, instead of one. And I guesstimate about thirty-ish tiles of terraforming, instead of ten-ish lost.