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[Girlinhat]

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/mantisbt/view.php?id=5077

This has interesting implications.  We've all dreamed of embarking on a good spire map - admit it, that blue gleam in the sun has drawn your attention.  It seems that the source of the issue has been found.  If you browse the map, it saves some data into the /current/ folder in saves.  When you embark, it loads up some of the data out of /current/ to form the map.  The issue is that it doesn't clear out the old data, so it's using files with a different context and this is triggering very strange formation of features - spires, caverns, HFS mainly.

Since it appears that the cause has been narrowed down, I believe we can no attempt hodge-podge embarks onto player-made spires and open hell pits.

Suggested method:
Begin embarking.
When a feature file appears in the /current/ folder, copy and save it into another folder.
Exit the game.
Begin embarking.
Before striking the earth, paste those feature files into /current/.
You should now have a bugged map.

Essentially, you're copying the raws, except you're doing it for the map itself.

[Michaelsoftman]

Which files do you have to copy, and does it only work if you use 2 worlds of the same size?  I'm guessing so, but just double checking.

[Girlinhat]

I have no idea.  As yet no tests have been done, it's only recently been discovered.

[KainInt]

As soon as these wings are carved, I'll do some tests.

[Michaelsoftman]

Hahaha oh geez this is awesome.

I genned a world, it created 9 feature files.  So I copied them, aborted embark.  Chose an embark that was 1/2 mountain, 1/2 plains.  Paste the files as I'm preparing for embark, and...

I have a crazy world here.  The mountain is gone, completely flattened and replaced with snow.  There's platinum in the sandy loam walls.

However other than the first few z levels, there's not much of a change beneath (looking at it with reveal).  I'm going to pick 2 sites of greatly varying height and see what I get.

Edit with test 2!

I embarked on a freezing glacier!  Pasted in the features from the first map, and guess what I got?

Half the map is sand and grass (not frozen or snow covered) and there's a flowing brook in exactly one of the 9 embark squares.  Rest of it is frozen.

But once again, underground features seem unchanged, cept for minerals in the dirt layer.

[Girlinhat]

Enlightening!  It seems that the soil type and any flowing water are registered as map features.  Thus, you're actually copying the local terrain details, and the game is loading a brook and sand instead of default.

You'll need to narrow down the spire feature somehow and copy that one to get good amounts of crazy.  Chances are you'll get extra crazy if you pull one feature file from one world and use it in other.

Either way, we have confirmation of theory!

[Michaelsoftman]

For tall spires, I'm thinking to gen a world with 0 cavern layers, and very few z layers between surface and magma, then copy those features to a world genned with caverns and normal z layers.  This is my next test.

Although it's weird, I don't always get feature files when embarking.  But if I paste them in, it gets accepted into the current world anyway.

And also, this seems to change the temperature.

I forgot to say that my first embark was in a Warm biome yet had snow on the ground in place of the mountain.

[Michaelsoftman]

Update here.

Genned a world with very few z levels between the top and HFS (also had a cave on it), copied those files into a different embark site.

No HFS at all!  And no cave, but I wasn't expecting one.

I had a giant giant deposit of native gold on the surface though haha.  I never expected to see that.

[tommy521]

I had a giant giant deposit of native gold on the surface though haha.  I never expected to see that.

Welcome to the Klondike. 

[Quietust]

Strictly speaking, the map feature data only consists of rivers, caves (presumably including downward passages), deep pits, magma pools, volcanoes, adamantine tubes, underworld portals (curious underground structures), caverns, the magma sea, and the underworld - everything else is part of geology and populations, though that might happen to be stored in the same feature-*.dat files.