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[Elvin]

I used the site finder to find me a place with both a magma pipe and an underground river- after genning about 4 worlds, might I add.

This is great, until I realise that the pipe is actually sticking out above the surface. About 20 seconds after I realised this, an imp came out and fried 2 of my starting dwarfs, and badly burned three more. This wouldn't be so bad on it's own, the problem was that the wounded were immediately dragged off to the barracks to rest, and the fire had evaporated all of the water aboveground.

So those three also died to the fire imp, who now has his very own name, and is the reason there is now a solid wall around said pipe.

Now what I want to do is to find the river so this won't happen again, as this area appears to have no rain at all.

I have dug corridors out on two levels, 3 and 4 levels down, and haven't found anything. Do I go deeper, shallower, mine out every piece of this goshforsaken mountain, what?

Thanks

[Name Lips]

Next time you create a world, change minimum and maximum volcanism to 100, and set volcanism x-variance and y-variance to 0. You will have more magma pipes than you know what to do with and your search will go a lot faster.

At any rate, I've never been good at finding underground rivers. I'm currently looking for one. I'm starting at the highest underground z-level, and searching down in an organized grid. I don't like using reveal.

[Derakon]

Cave rivers are tricky to find, as they tend to be narrow (as narrow as 4-5 tiles wide), only occupy 1 z-level at a time, and can be at almost any depth. Generally the best way to find them is:

1) Note down their rough location when you embark (are they at the top of your embark region? In the middle? Etc.). This corresponds to one 48x48 square of your region when you arrive.

2) Navigate to the center of that region and designate a shaft of up/down staircases. Go down at least 10 z-levels to have good odds of finding the river.

3) Designate a grid of similar shafts around that center shaft.

There's two big advantages to this method: first, staircase shafts efficiently cover multiple z-levels, and second, when you do pierce the river, you won't flood your fortress with suddenly-released water.

Once you do find the river, and this is important, floor over the shaft. Otherwise your underground river creatures will climb the shaft and start running around on the surface, and most of them are hostile and dangerous to civilians.

[Elvin]

Thanks- looks like ill take a copy of this region and try to refind this location.

[alway]

Be SURE to have a few well trained marksdwarves watching as you unviel the river... I lost a fort after finding a river early on (7 dwarfs still) and getting owned by the stuff in it... Especially that nasty Giant Olmman.

[Puck]

Can you not use the depot-accessibility "exploit" to find out where that river is?

[Albedo]

Puck - that shows what area block it's in, not the exact location. (Also, if any single tile in that block is exposed, it won't work.)

Elvin - there is a good and detailed article in the wiki under "Exploratory mining" - give it a read. There are easier methods than described above.

[Neruz]

Be very very careful when tapping cave rivers; the other day i discovered (to my dismay) that they can be highly pressurised and flood your fortress in minutes.