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[Shiv]

So I've read the wiki on magma, and volcanoes, but it doesn't really answer my question.

Is magma ONLY found in volcano areas?  Because each volcano I find is deep in the mountains, and the game won't let you embark there.  So can magma be found in ranges that have volcanoes or do you just have to keep looking til you find a magma on the skirts of the mountain range?

Also do you ever get a volcano and river in the same spot?  Or I guess a better question would be, how do you know if there's an underground river present, as finding the perfect spot with magma AND a river would take quite some time.

[Simmura McCrea]

Magma can be found in a lot of places, not just volacanos. And to find it and underground rivers, edit the init.txt and set
[SHOW_EMBARK_RIVER:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_POOL:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_M_PIPE:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_M_POOL:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_CHASM:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_PIT:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_OTHER:ALWAYS]
[SHOW_EMBARK_TUNNEL:ALWAYS]

[kalida99]

In the init.txt (inside Data/init/init) is the text file that you can set to display underground features, (chasms, underground rivers, magma pipes) Magma Pipes can pop up almost anywhere, but the ones in mountains are often labeled as Volcanoes and are exposed to the surface, and no, rivers never run into volcanoes (or at least to my knowledge)

[Shiv]

So, without editing the game, you can't have water and magma?

[Simmura McCrea]

Oh you can, but they won't run into each other without some dwarven ingenuity.

[kalida99]

oh you can, you can use the "(F)ind" feature in the embark screen to find the perfect place for you (although what you're looking for might not be in your world, and rivers run near volcanoes, not into them.

[Shiv]

Oh well I didn't mean that the river runs directly into the volcano, just that it's nearby.  Poor choice of wording I suppose.

River into a volcano = just a bunch of rock (or in real life at least, not sure about the dwarfdom world).

[Simmura McCrea]

Yep, water + magma = obsidian.

[Jim Groovester]

Just to add to this, magma typically occurs in areas where at least one stone layer is igneous extrusive. These include, off the top of my head, obsidian, rhyolite, felsite, basalt, andesite, and any other stone layer that shows up as dark gray on the embark screen. Any region where an igneous extrusive layer or a combination of many igneous extrusive layers takes up the majority of a region tile will have magma.

[Shiv]

Ok I found a good site.  Doesn't have a river like I wanted but it does have a brook so...guess I'll just live without fish.  Not much in the way of trees either but that's what traders are for.


So I have one other question.  When pathing out the magma for the forges, how do you prevent it from spilling out into other areas?  If I put down a door or a flood gate, wouldn't it just burn through?  What about building a wall?  Would that stop it?  I don't have any Bauxite so I'm a little hesitant toward tapping into the reservoir.  Don't want to have my game end before it begins.

[Jim Groovester]

Magma does not flow upward*.

*Except when pumped.

You can use this to easily make any magma channel to your fortress at any depth. So long as you put the forges a level above the channel, nothing will be burned.

If I put down a door or a flood gate, wouldn't it just burn through?  What about building a wall?  Would that stop it?  I don't have any Bauxite so I'm a little hesitant toward tapping into the reservoir.  Don't want to have my game end before it begins.

Walls of any material will block magma. Doors and floodgates of any material* will hold back magma but they will deconstruct and melt as soon as they open and let the magma in.

*Except wood. Don't use wood to hold back magma, even though my wooden screw pump is doing just fine holding it back.

If you want to operate doors and floodgates within magma, you'll need a door or floodgate made out of magma safe materials and magma safe mechanisms. There are many materials you can make magma safe furniture out of: iron, steel, bauxite, nickel, glass, and others. But you can only make mechanisms out of bauxite*. If you have magma safe floodgate but no magma safe mechanism, the floodgate will deconstruct.

*With one special exception.