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[Surray]

Hi!
There's a few things that confuse me a bit, mostly concerning the embark location.

First up would be... what determines how far you can dig down?
I've embarked on spots where you can merely dig down like 20 z-levels, while on others you can dig down 150 or something.
Is this random somehow, or does it depend on the actual location? Like.. you can dig really deep if you start on a mountain-edge and can't dig deep if you start in some woods on a plain?
Is there any way to see how deep your spot will go before actually embarking?
Or is there anything I can change in world generation to increase the z-levels?
I often find cool spots with great layers that only go down such a small amount of z-levels which I find very boring :-(

And then there's the stone layers at the embark location.
If, on embark, it says for example that at your location there's "Sandy Loam, Claystone, Diorite, Granite, Gabbro, Diorite, Gabbro, Phyllite", then what does that mean exactly?
Are those the 8 topmost layers and what's below that is left for you to find out? Are those just some random layers picked out from what you can find there?


Thanks,
          surray

[RCIX]

1. That would be (i'm guessing) the elevation of the chosen location. Press Tab on the embark screen till it mentions Elevations. The parts that are listed as high up should be able to go deeper.
2. I'm not sure about this, but i think it's just the main kinds of stone you can find there.

[assimilateur]

Those layers the embark screen names for you might be just the topmost ones, or it might be all of them; I'm not exactly sure. They should give you a good idea of what you're in for, geologically, because while it merely shows you the layers, there are other minerals (rock, ores, gems) included in them; for a comprehensive list, and what is found where, I refer you to the inorganic_stone_* files in the raw\objects (plus you will probably find info on this on the wiki).

Personally, I'd advise you to embark on top of a white (sedimentary) layer, since that generally includes the most iron and coal, and to make sure you've got flux (which is the sedimentary/white layers called limestone, chalk and dolomite, plus the metamorphic/light gray layer marble). This will allow you to make steel which is useful for producing both high-quality armor and weapons and, if you can spare it, high-value furniture.

To increase the number of z-levels, go to your world-gen parameters and look for entries called "z levels above (...)". Put in a high number under each of those parameters (excluding the "above ground" one, obviously) and you should get a lot more levels than normally. Note that going over the top with these settings might slow your game down.

[Dorten]

1 - I dunno. It depends on number of underground caves. These caves do not appear everywhere, apparently, but I have no idea of how to find them.

2 - It means, that you'll have one or several layers of Sandy Loam, one or several layers od Claystone, etc.

[Surray]

Ok cool, that helps.
Thanks guys :-)