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[runlvlzero]

I've got prospect, I know how to use it. But I'm curious what biomes people have noticed allot of zinc (sphalerite) and copper ores? I am lookin to make that brass/bronze city and filling the streets with magma channels for the elves to wonder at.

So far I have found sphalerite mostly in heavily wooded area's. Copper seems to be pretty prevalent in wastelands.

Yeah, I know about metamorphic, igneous extrusive and all that (in game terms, I'm no geologist).

I'm thinking of going with a sphalerite only embark (which I found a few of easily), and just collecting the rest of the metal out of goblinite, and caravans. But sphalerite + malachite, native copper nuggets, or tetrahedrite would be ideal because of the bonus bars from reacting two raw ores together.

[Quietust]

There is no connection between the type of biome and the minerals present within it - after all, you could delete those ores from the raws (or add new ones) and the game would still work.

[kaijyuu]

Sphalerite is found in metamorphic layers. Tetrahedrite is goddamn everywhere.

So, look for metamorphic. Don't know much DF geology but I believe that's possible everywhere but volcanoes.

[runlvlzero]

There is no connection between the type of biome and the minerals present within it - after all, you could delete those ores from the raws (or add new ones) and the game would still work.

This assumes, there is no preference or schema in the engine for placing ores, layers, and minerals. Civs have preferential biomes... why can't other things? Removing something from  system like this won't break it, just the next preferred items will fill in the places. It also leaves room for exceptions due to noise in how the stuff gets placed. Either way allot of assumptions are made about how this stuff gets done. I haven't seen any !!SCIENCE!! to make me believe either way.

Sphalerite is found in metamorphic layers. Tetrahedrite is goddamn everywhere.

So, look for metamorphic. Don't know much DF geology but I believe that's possible everywhere but volcanoes.

This makes sense with my observations so far, Volcano's are a bad place to look, as it reduces the chances of the ores I want.

[NecroRebel]

Marble is probably the best layer stone to look for. Not only can it hold sphalerite and tetrahedrite like the other metamorphic stones, it also can contain malachite. Phyllite, schist, and slate are other options; while they can't have malachite, they only have the vein stones common to all metamorphic rocks, of which there are 3 (sphalerite, tetrahedrite, and cobaltite), 2 of which are useful for you. If you get 2 vein types in a metamorphic strata, if it's marble you might get duplicate copper ores, but in those 3 you'd be more likely to get both of the vein types you're interested in.

Also, you should note that reacting two ores together does not produce extra bars. Reacting a sphalerite and a malachite to bars, then reacting the two bars together, produces two brass. Reacting a sphalerite and a malachite to brass directly produces two brass. You in fact lose bars if you use tetrahedrite, as reacting a sphalerite and a tetrahedrite to bars and then the bars to brass produces 2 brass and 20% of the time also 1 silver, while reacting the sphalerite and tetrahedrite to brass directly produces only 2 brass.

This assumes, there is no preference or schema in the engine for placing ores, layers, and minerals. Civs have preferential biomes... why can't other things? Removing something from  system like this won't break it, just the next preferred items will fill in the places. It also leaves room for exceptions due to noise in how the stuff gets placed. Either way allot of assumptions are made about how this stuff gets done. I haven't seen any !!SCIENCE!! to make me believe either way.

It's not that other things can't have biome preferences (except that minerals are generated before biomes), it's that they don't in this case. World generation order goes elevation - temperature - rivers - lakes - minerals (rock strata) - vegetation (biomes) - wildlife - history. Some things do happen to coincide more often (such as sedimentary layers and swampy areas) but that's not "intentional" so to speak (in that case, it's because sedimentary layers happen where rivers are predicted to have run, rivers lower the land, and low lands are more likely to be swampy).

[runlvlzero]

Thanks for clarifying NecroRebel. And your totally right on ore vs bars reaction that, it saves fuel, not produces extra bars, I got confused from embarking with allot of bronze lately, having to burn less tree's to get the same number of bars.

Marble, Check,
Phyllite, and Schist, and slate, check =)

I appreciate the help. This is great. I found two regions with some decent embarks so far, but they all prospected with sphalerite only, I'm guessing there is still a small chance for the other ores, as prospect is not 100% accurate.

Normally I don't even care about what I embark on but I have been burning to give myself something to do once I get a functioning 80+ population fort =P and this seemed like a fun project.

From your explanation it could be stated some geological formations in the game have a correlation to certain biomes, but by no means are biomes an indicator of what is in the ground, I think this probably works about the same in reality lol.

[Garath]

I've had sphalerite, galena and tetrahedrite in quarztite layers, so that would be a good place to look too.

[Death123]

I often embark on some/little soil for more ores.

[EmperorJon]

There is no connection between the type of biome and the minerals present within it - after all, you could delete those ores from the raws (or add new ones) and the game would still work.

Incorrect. The ores are of course tied to types of layers, which link in to biomes. Mountains are biomes, for example, and will usually consist of a sedimentary layer, for example.

[NecroRebel]

Incorrect. The ores are of course tied to types of layers, which link in to biomes. Mountains are biomes, for example, and will usually consist of a sedimentary layer, for example.

Wrong. The ores are tied to layers, but the layers are not tied to regions. The biomes you can select with the function keys are a combination of a particular rock area and a particular region. The region defines the displayed biome, however, and is completely separate from the rock layers beneath it. A swamp region, for instance, may have half a dozen different rock types directly below it. As mentioned before, minerals are generated before biomes are, and the things that determine a biome are different from those that

Also, mountains are relatively unlikely to have sedimentary rock layers. Sedimentary layers are more likely in low-altitude areas, while mountains are, by definition, high-altitude areas. Mountains' top layers are usually metamorphic or igneous.

[runlvlzero]

I have also discovered turning off the flux (setting to no) in the search greatly increases your chance of NOT finding sedimentary  which... helps to find what I'm looking for =) Or at least I'm going to go with N/A for now, ruling out marble is not something I want to do yet =).

I tried a few embarks were marble was near the surface and to be honest I never had much luck with marble containing many ores for me. So I ended up CTRL-ALT-DLTing those embarks...

[EmperorJon]

Incorrect. The ores are of course tied to types of layers, which link in to biomes. Mountains are biomes, for example, and will usually consist of a sedimentary layer, for example.

Wrong. The ores are tied to layers, but the layers are not tied to regions. The biomes you can select with the function keys are a combination of a particular rock area and a particular region. The region defines the displayed biome, however, and is completely separate from the rock layers beneath it. A swamp region, for instance, may have half a dozen different rock types directly below it. As mentioned before, minerals are generated before biomes are, and the things that determine a biome are different from those that

Also, mountains are relatively unlikely to have sedimentary rock layers. Sedimentary layers are more likely in low-altitude areas, while mountains are, by definition, high-altitude areas. Mountains' top layers are usually metamorphic or igneous.

Hmm, not from my experience.

[runlvlzero]

I would say its been about 50/50 mountains that are either sedimentary, metamorphic, I use 1600 X Y elevation variance and allot of erosion 500+ so that puts allot of "metamorphic" in the plains right beside the mountains. I have volcanism set to be very sporadic so its a total random speckle of that. Very rare I get volcanic mountains. Although I sort of wish I had more piles of obsidian to dig into sometimes.

[greycat]

Thanks for clarifying NecroRebel. And your totally right on ore vs bars reaction that, it saves fuel, not produces extra bars, I got confused from embarking with allot of bronze lately, having to burn less tree's to get the same number of bars.

If you're going to build an entire city of brass, you really don't want to use charcoal-powered smelters.  You want magma smelters.

[runlvlzero]

Thanks for clarifying NecroRebel. And your totally right on ore vs bars reaction that, it saves fuel, not produces extra bars, I got confused from embarking with allot of bronze lately, having to burn less tree's to get the same number of bars.

If you're going to build an entire city of brass, you really don't want to use charcoal-powered smelters.  You want magma smelters.

For sure, I was just explaining why I previously had a delusion about getting extra bronze =) My normal embark profile calls for setting up bronze industry on the spot, with ores, and I have to make my picks usually before I can get to the red stuff =)