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Author Topic: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?  (Read 2959 times)

Tokeli

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Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« on: January 27, 2012, 11:50:30 am »

Hey everyone! I'm trying to generate an extremely shallow world to force myself to build everything on one or two z-levels, but try as I might I usually end up with a world that's 40+ layers deep before it hits magma, usually with the caverns 30 layers down. I've got all of the z-level settings in world gen set to their minimum, is that all I can do?
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Minnakht

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #1 on: January 27, 2012, 12:53:34 pm »

Set cavern passage density as low as you can, and set openness pretty high. That makes caverns which are essentially huge flat swathes - and when they're flat, they take up less z-levels.

Aside from that, set between-layer levels as low as you can. That's pretty much all you can do.
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Armeleon

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #2 on: January 27, 2012, 01:00:36 pm »

Don't quote me on this, but I've noticed that the closer I get to sea-level the closer the magma sea gets. I believe the magma sea pretty much at the same level throughout the world. If so, the higher you get into the mountains the farther down it will be, and the closer you embark to sea level the closer it will be. I had a magma sea 6 levels down embarking on the coast
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Wannazzaki

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #3 on: January 27, 2012, 01:29:52 pm »

You need to go into adv perams and start futzing with the z levels between the cavern layers and from there between the bottom cavern layer to the magma sea.
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rephikul

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #4 on: January 27, 2012, 01:48:56 pm »

zero to one cavern layer
minimum z distance between layers
lots of rain shadow and smoothing
You'd be looking at 40z TOP with 1 cavern layer.
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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #5 on: January 27, 2012, 01:52:32 pm »

You need to go into adv perams and start futzing with the z levels between the cavern layers and from there between the bottom cavern layer to the magma sea.

This, plus reducing the max elevation variance

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #6 on: January 27, 2012, 06:52:17 pm »

Also generate a region rather than an island. From what I've seen forests always tend to be pretty low to sea level as well. It's worthy to note that with such a shallow world you'll be getting a much higher FPS than normal, why Toady thought we need hundreds of z-levels to the magma sea is beyond me.

I also don't think you'll be able to find a world where the world is that shallow, 40ish is pretty good. Remember that you need both a cavern (so Dwarves can farm and not die) and a magma sea (for HFS in worldgen to rise) for the world/history to generate correctly.
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Vicid

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #7 on: January 27, 2012, 07:50:44 pm »

What do I do to get big flat open caverns?
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Putnam

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Re: Any way to consistently generate a very shallow world?
« Reply #8 on: January 27, 2012, 08:23:57 pm »

What do I do to get big flat open caverns?

Set cavern passage density as low as you can, and set openness pretty high.