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[LesBrisant]

Hey guys, moar newbie goodness for you

How exactly do I know where underground rivers are? I appear to have embarked to a sod of a place that has little clay or other soil to farm in and it seems I'll need to use the underground rivers to muddy up some rock. Not sure exactly where it might be though     I'm pretty sure it should be there. I set the game to find a location with a magma pipe and underground river (free Obsidian made me) so it should be somewhere.

[Ziusudra]

You'll have to dig around till you find it.  Although there are 3rd party utilities that could reveal it for you.

You don't need the cave river for mud for farming, any water will do. You only need to find the cave river to enable natural growth (bushes and tower cap trees) on mud.

[LesBrisant]

Unfortunately there is very little water apart from this supposed river... Oh well, time for some fun.

[Ziusudra]

"Very little" or none at all?  It wouldn't take much to keep them fed and drunk till you find the river.

[martinuzz]

If you are planning on using a 3d party tool to reveal the UG river:
1)save first
2)backup data\save folder
3)use reveal tool
4)remember the location of the UG river
5)savescum (exit game, delete data\save folder, replace it with backed up save folder

If you do not do this, you will not get the message 'you have discovered an underground river'.
While this may not sound so bad, it also means, that there will never grow trees or shrubs underground, as it seems triggering the growth of those is tied to actually discovering the UG river.

[Blargityblarg]

In Dwarfiet Picklock, RIVER DISCOVERS YOU!

http://dffd.wimbli.com/file.php?id=1490

Moral of the story: Don't forget where your river's supposed to be, and don't dig stairs upwards.

[ikkonoishi]

If you have an unowned cat and know in what general area the river is there is a way to find it.

Remove all refuse stockpiles.
Dig stairs down in the area of the river.
Wait till you see miasma.
Check your stock menu and look for olm remains.
Zoom to them.
The river is on that level.
Dig around to find damp tiles.
Dig stairs one tile back and go two levels up.
Dig a tunnel two tiles past where you found the damp tile two levels up, and put down stairs there.
That should reveal the river.

[Dante`]

You bloody cat sympathiser.

[Jude]

Just dig exploratory shafts all over the place. And if you think you've found it, then get a general idea of its shape and make sure you can channel down into it FROM ABOVE. You do NOT want to dig into it from below, and the side isn't too good either. both will flood all sections of your fort below the river and probably drown any dwarves doing the digging.

[Albedo]

You'll have to dig around till you find it.

Just dig exploratory shafts all over the place.

There is actually a better way than "dig and hope for the best" - there can be a science to it.

If you were wise, you noted in your Embark map where it was - that's your first big hint.

(Copied from a question about "How to find a magma pipe", but it goes on to address this question...)

A magma pipe/pool is about 20-25 tiles across (which is big!), a rough circle, and rarely more than 6 deep from the surface. (Obsidian ovals or sheer edges can be a giveaway.)  Each is entirely enclosed within it's own area tile - one of the symbols you saw in the Local map at Embark.  Each of those is 48 individual tiles square in your game map (tho' you could call it 50 and be close - <Enter+ direction key> = a jump of 10 tiles).  You can find them by counting from a corner, and you'll often see the stone/flora change at that cutpoint.  Digging down in the dead center of each 48x48 area tile usually* finds any pipe/pool - and underground pools are even bigger. (* There's a small chance you'll just miss it - then go about 12 tiles out in 4 directions, either all orthagonal or diagonal, and try again.)

If you're randomly mining a pattern of shafts, you could do it in a grid about 20 apart.  If you noted where the magma was on your embark map (hardly cheating), you have a perfect idea of where to start looking.

UG Rivers are harder to find - they're more narrow, and far deeper.  They often run orthogonally or perfectly diagonally, but not always.  I'd plan to run a 6x6 grid of deep shafts, but start off with a staggered grid at 12x12. (A 6x6 grid can be filled in to become 3x3 if you want to do perfect exploratory mining at 100% later.)

If I know where the UG river is from the embark map, I'll dig a row of 4 exploratory shafts, 12 tiles apart, across that area block.  If those miss, I fill those in at 6 tiles apart - the odds are ~almost~ 100% that I'll hit it with those 7 shafts.

[Jim Groovester]

If you remembered which embark tiles contain your underground river, and it spans multiple embark tiles, finding underground rivers is pretty easy.

Sink shafts five tiles apart at the border between two embark tiles that contain it. If you remembered its location correctly, you will find it eventually.

Finding a single embark tile underground river is annoying, but a grid of shafts five tiles apart in both directions across the embark tile should eventually find it.

[Albedo]

(The shafts 6 apart won't guarantee that the game will notify you of the hit, but they will guarantee that even if you miss, if you go back and look, you will spot "damp stone" on the side of one of the shafts.)

[Tryptic]

If you are planning on using a 3d party tool to reveal the UG river:
1)save first
2)backup data\save folder
3)use reveal tool
4)remember the location of the UG river
5)savescum (exit game, delete data\save folder, replace it with backed up save folder

If you do not do this, you will not get the message 'you have discovered an underground river'.
While this may not sound so bad, it also means, that there will never grow trees or shrubs underground, as it seems triggering the growth of those is tied to actually discovering the UG river.

An alternate way to do this, without having to savescum, is to use Ctrl+Alt+Del to open the Task Manager, then close the DwarfFortress.exe process.  This will reset it to your last save (so do SAVE before you use reveal, but less mucking about in folders.)

[Albedo]

(I believe that won't work - I want to say that the file is corrupted the moment you use Reveal, not when it's saved.  But whatever works - IF it works.)

[Quietust]

(I believe that won't work - I want to say that the file is corrupted the moment you use Reveal, not when it's saved.  But whatever works - IF it works.)

Reportedly, this would have caused problems in older versions, but I've done it plenty of times in 40d and have never had any problems with it - 40d stores certain temporary changes in the "current" folder rather than in the region folder, and those changes don't get copied in until you save and exit.