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[weegth]

Last region I've embarked on had very little ore diversity, despite wordgen mineral occurence being set to 'frequent'. Only ores were hematite (a lot of it), tetrahedrite (everywhere), some sphalerite and little galena. For some reason there was no gold, silver, bismuth, etc. though most layers were igneous (granite, basalt, gabbro). Biome - some temperate forest.
What should I do to get more mineral diversity?

Also, tried to play with the latest version of Masterwork mod and got a more severe problem - there was absolutely no gems or minerals on all leyers except in caverns (found some collapsed bricks in marble though). Official pre-installed version was used, most settings on default with all fortress defense options turned on. Worldgen - smaller region with mineral scarcity 1500 and increased number of megabeasts and titans. Biome - haunted plain.
What am I doing wrong?

[acetech09]

1) Are you embarking on a specific type of site? Normally people complain about diversity because they are always embarking on volcanoes - volcanic areas only have a few types of stone layers thus don't have a whole bunch of minerals in those layers. Same goes for oceans and swamps, mostly.

2) Talk to the mod developer. He can help you more than we can.

[weegth]

Site was a temperate forest.
Does it affect ores? I mean, wiki says that igneous layers contain gold, so shouldn't one get at least some if most layers are igneous?

[NW_Kohaku]

Since 31.19 or so, ores are not found globally.

The ore frequency does not determine how much of a given material will be there, it determines whether a material will be there at all.  The amounts of materials that are present are based purely upon their vein type. 

Unless you set ore frequency to the absolute minimum value, what it means is that those materials will not be found in a certain percentage of the world, and at default settings, there are wide swaths of the world with no metals at all.

Likewise, the game tries to use some realistic mineral frequencies - coal is only found in sedimentary layers, for example.  Pay attention to layer types when you are embarking.

[weegth]

I see, thank you.
So it is necessary to embark and launch prospector repeatedly until you find ore? Is there some faster/less tedious way?
Will setting scarcity to 0 give all ores that can possibly be on layers of appropriate type?

[NW_Kohaku]

Well, you already got the best ores, so I wouldn't complain about "just" having iron, copper, tin, and zinc in a forest for plenty of charcoal.  Provided you have flux, you already have basically everything it takes to make everything you need.

If you just aren't happy unless you have everything in your fort, though, then you should just take advantage of the worldgen parameters to make ores have the absolutely most common setting possible.

You should also try to embark on either sedimentary or a split sedimentary/igneous embark.

I prefer to make custom worldgens where I significantly up the x- and y-variance of things like vulcanism and most other things (try around 1000) in order to get worlds where there are much more smaller biomes, so that I can have an easier time finding a spot on the edge between two different types of biomes, and get igneous and sedimentary halves of my embark.

[NecroRebel]

I see, thank you.
So it is necessary to embark and launch prospector repeatedly until you find ore? Is there some faster/less tedious way?
Will setting scarcity to 0 give all ores that can possibly be on layers of appropriate type?

You can run prospect and prospect all before you embark, actually. It'll give an estimate about what minerals will be present in the biomes you're currently hovering over. I've found that it always seems to be accurate about what minerals will actually be present, though the numbers are off, it seems to always say there's 4 layers of soil no matter how many actually exist, and it cannot notice adamantine's presence or absence before embark.

Scarcity 100 is the minimum. At that level, you'll basically always have as many large clusters (1), veins (2-4), and small clusters (~20) as is possible in each local tile on every z-level. They're also usually of several different types. However, since a particular stratum's inclusions all are usually consistent and there's a larger number of minerals that could be included in a stratum than there are spaces for them, you won't be guaranteed every mineral that could possibly be found in that strata type. For instance, an igneous extrusive stratum might have 2 vein-size inclusions, and those may be cinnabar and cobaltite. In fact, it's completely impossible for every mineral that could be in igneous extrusive strata to be in a particular stratum; there's 8 vein-size possible, for instance, but again, only 2-4 will be chosen.

[weegth]

You can run prospect and prospect all before you embark, actually.

Tried it, works great. Thanks!

[NW_Kohaku]

I'd just like to point out for the record, though, that gold is freakin' useless.  Steel is almost the only metal you need, although copper, tin, and zinc can be useful in situations.

[TSTwizby]

Gold is not completely useless. One of my more recent forts is filled with it, and I have taken it upon myself to build a set of gold pillars reaching into the sky, on which shall be placed a golden disc covered with golden buildings which will house my dwarves. I imagine that most problems with happiness will vanish quickly once the dwarves ascend to heaven, though sadly it seems FPS death may ensue first.

[GetAssista]

Gold with its value 30 is great for building your everyday stuff from and skyrocket fort value. It's much more abundant than platinum or aluminum (both value 40), not to mention candy. Furniture, statues, buildings etc.

[Garath]

as a side note, galena and tetrahedrite means you also have a supply of silver

[kaijyuu]

I love gold! More abundant than anything more/equally valuable, so it's the perfect furniture material. I have nothing but gold and artifact ones once my forts get going. Good for studding too.

Worst comes to worst, nice for making bins.

[simonthedwarf]

Gold is good for crafts and room value. Whats the prob?

[melomel]

I prefer to make custom worldgens where I significantly up the x- and y-variance of things like vulcanism and most other things (try around 1000) in order to get worlds where there are much more smaller biomes, so that I can have an easier time finding a spot on the edge between two different types of biomes, and get igneous and sedimentary halves of my embark.

^ 1+ That.   Max out possible subregions as well as tweaking the mineral-occurance values, and you should be good.