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Author Topic: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen  (Read 2950 times)

uncool

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Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« on: March 20, 2012, 03:53:06 am »

I've been working on glacial/volcanic worldgens in order to get a specific embark site recently. However, I've noticed that there never are diamonds, star rubies, or star sapphires available for trade (or embark). Is there a reason why this would be? I've seen a few gabbro layers, but I'd think they'd be more common as igneous layers, not less common, and therefore kimberlite and diamonds would be more common. Does changing associated civilizations change the allowed trading items, and if so, should I switch to the civilizations in less glacial/volcanic areas in order to get them?

This seems to be a new thing since 31.18, since I used to be able to get nearly all of the rare gems in 31.18 with nearly the same worldgen. If I remember correctly that was after mineral densities were nerfed, unless another nerfing happened.
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« Last Edit: March 20, 2012, 03:57:32 am by uncool »
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wierd

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #1 on: March 20, 2012, 03:57:17 am »

Just a guess, but they are probably a special subtype for just this reason.

Diamonds appear randomly in kimberlite, if I recall correctly.

Ruby, saphire and their star variants appear as random inclusions in bauxite formations, and some other sedimentary layers.

To maximize chances of getting rubies and saphires, embark on deep soil. You will mostly get fire opals, zircons, and the like though. 

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uncool

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #2 on: March 20, 2012, 03:59:31 am »

Just a guess, but they are probably a special subtype for just this reason.

Diamonds appear randomly in kimberlite, if I recall correctly.

Ruby, saphire and their star variants appear as random inclusions in bauxite formations, and some other sedimentary layers.

To maximize chances of getting rubies and saphires, embark on deep soil. You will mostly get fire opals, zircons, and the like though.
Well, I'm specifically embarking in no-soil places. However, I'm not referring to finding stuff - I'm referring to being able to ask the liaison for the rare gems. They're not available at all, which is a large change from what I'm used to.

ETA: It seems that they don't appear in my normal worldgen (medium region) as items that can be taken on embark either. Are they pretty much no longer tradeable?
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« Last Edit: March 20, 2012, 04:41:29 am by uncool »
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arzzult

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #3 on: March 20, 2012, 04:45:41 am »

The high volcanism is probably what's causing this. Your volcanism affects why types of layers there are. Excessively high volcanism leads to many/most of those layers being igneous extrusive to the point of blocking out even igneous intrusive layers. My personal suggestion would to be to fiddle with your world gen parameters. The volcanism mesh in particular, so you can still have a high volcanism world with a few "cold" spot of low volcanism to make a wider variety of resources available.
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rampagingfrodo

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #4 on: March 20, 2012, 04:58:56 am »

I haven't found any of the rare colored diamonds or star gems at all since .34, I guess they're a lot rarer now. Used to be most diamond clusters had a colored gem tucked in there.
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kaijyuu

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #5 on: March 20, 2012, 05:07:29 am »

Looking at my current fort's prospect right now. 34.05.

6 star sapphires
5 lavender jades
4 star rubies
1 clear diamond
1 blue diamond
8 "DIAMOND_LY"s, whatever those are. Guessing cheaper diamonds.
7 "DIAMOND_FY"


Fiddle with world gen settings. If you want lots of volcanoes and still have plenty of other biome types, set volcanism variance to max with lowest mesh size. Should get a lot of variety in stone that way. I regularly get volcanoes next to sedimentary.
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uncool

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #6 on: March 20, 2012, 05:10:54 am »

Looking at my current fort's prospect right now. 34.05.

6 star sapphires
5 lavender jades
4 star rubies
1 clear diamond
1 blue diamond
8 "DIAMOND_LY"s, whatever those are. Guessing cheaper diamonds.
Yeah, light yellow diamonds; they're worth 2/3 the "true" diamond, and are the clusters in which the "true" diamonds are found.
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7 "DIAMOND_FY"
Faint yellow diamonds, worth half a "true" diamond.
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Fiddle with world gen settings. If you want lots of volcanoes and still have plenty of other biome types, set volcanism variance to max with lowest mesh size. Should get a lot of variety in stone that way. I regularly get volcanoes next to sedimentary.
Well, I'm trying for volcanoes on glaciers, but there are still plenty of other areas, so the civilization should still have the rare gems available for trade sometimes. I'm not referring to being able to dig them up; I'm referring to being able to trade for them and ask for them from the liaison.
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Anathema

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #7 on: March 20, 2012, 08:28:04 am »

Changing which Dwarven civ you embark as will change resources available to embark with or trade for (the two should be the same). So if you can't embark with it, you won't be able to trade for it, try embarking as each civ and see what they'll let you take with you.
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uncool

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #8 on: March 20, 2012, 09:21:19 am »

Changing which Dwarven civ you embark as will change resources available to embark with or trade for (the two should be the same). So if you can't embark with it, you won't be able to trade for it, try embarking as each civ and see what they'll let you take with you.
I just tried that in a medium region world; all 5 dwarf civs in the world didn't have any rare gems.
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ancistrus

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #9 on: March 20, 2012, 10:01:05 am »

Well, I don't know exactly what you mean by glacial world, but dwarves can't embark on glaciers, so if too big a portion of the world is glacial, then it is logical that civilizations don't have access to more materials.

Alternatively, how long do you let your worldgen run? Should you stop it in year 2, then civilizations will be small, again having access to less materials. Give them at least a century or two.
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uncool

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #10 on: March 20, 2012, 10:11:46 am »

Well, I don't know exactly what you mean by glacial world, but dwarves can't embark on glaciers, so if too big a portion of the world is glacial, then it is logical that civilizations don't have access to more materials.
Do you mean they can't make mountain homes on glaciers? Because embarking on glaciers is quite easy once you know what you're doing. Further, the world I have is full of mountains and volcanoes, so there are plenty of places for the dwarves; I usually get a full miniscreen on the embark screen of dwarf civilizations. Also, the problem extends to normal worldgen apparently; I genned a medium region and got no rare gems.
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Alternatively, how long do you let your worldgen run? Should you stop it in year 2, then civilizations will be small, again having access to less materials. Give them at least a century or two.
I've been letting it run for a century and a bit; the gen kicks me out after that because of the 100 levels above ground that I like to do.
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uncool

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Re: Rare gems in a glacial worldgen
« Reply #11 on: March 22, 2012, 07:44:47 am »

Bumping the thread for successful resolution.

I genned out the same world to 200 years, and tried several civilizations. So far, one has found light yellow diamonds, one has found one type of actual diamond, and two have found three (as well as faint yellow and light yellow), while seven still have no interaction with diamonds at all. None have seen any star rubies or star sapphires.

As a bonus, one of the two that found three also has giraffes!
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