Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[malkmus]

i've built a neatly 3.5 million fortress, with great trap defense mechanisms and a small but well trained army. however, i did not find any flux stone. the map is full of magnetite, platinum and gold, but without flux i'm not able to produce any steel.
i read in the wiki, that flux mainly appears in sedimentary layers. i have stone layers full of mudstone (but no flux so far), layers full of gabbro (no flux), and there are layers full of granite (which i didn't explore by now).
i'm considering abandoning my fortress if i don't find any flux, as i do not have magma either (and about half of my 120 dwarves are occupied hauling logs to keep my smelters and forges running).
So, could anybody tell me where to dig for flux. or is it impossible to find flux on this map?

[Mlittle]

As the last resort you could use the reveal utility.

[malkmus]

well i don't want to cheat. i did not cheat, and don't want to start now.

[DJ]

Next time make sure that there's flux in your biomes before embarking. All the flux I've found so far has been in major rock layers, not clusters embedded in other stone.

[Name Lips]

Yeah, it seems like you either have TONS of flux, more than you could ever need, or you have NONE.

[coelocanth]

Flux stones occur in layers, so I think if you don't see them at the embark screen then they aren't going to be there.
Limestone, chalk, dolomite and marble are the ones to look for.
Calcite appears in clusters like a gem, but only in marble and limestone layers.

I haven't found a cave river in the new version yet, so its possible for that to be still lined with limestone.  (Geologically, that would only happen if the river had flowed through limestone/chalk before reaching your area).

You can buy limestone blocks from the caravan, but currently you can't use blocks at the smelter without modding (look for the "deblocker mod" in modding forum).
Thats not really a cheat, because smelting uses rock chips or powder anyway which is smaller than either blocks or boulders.

If you want to play a pure game, you have to start in an area with flux layers to have a steel industry.  Having searched a whole world, I couldn't find an area with both flux and exposed magma.

[malkmus]

it's a hard decision between magma and flux. i thought i could get along without magma, but setting up a metal industry is quite a pain without it. but playing without flux is also problematic - traders usually only bring a few items with them, propably not enough to produce steel large scale.
i started a new fort, with magma, running water, sand, but without flux again. however i will have to abandon it again. i had to dig 27 (!) levels down to get to the magma and the only forest - oh yes they are on the same level. and the result is that firemen are killing my dwarves. but as the forest is around the magma i had to make a connection to this level.

[DJ]

I'm playing a fort with magma, flux and plenty of iron. As a bonus, I also have a layer of yellow sand above the chalk. There's also copper, silver, aluminium and a bit of gems. There may be other stuff, too, but I haven't used reveal.exe so I don't know. All biomes are forest with no dangerous animals (well, I had a migrating cougar in the winter), and there's a brook too, but no aquifer. I don't think there's hidden fun stuff because it's in plains.

My fort is in the world number 321144460, random name, generated on Windows XP. I don't remember the exact location, but I think it's west of the big southeastern sea.

[coelocanth]

After you've done with that fort, find it in reclaim mode and take a screenshot - that would fit well in the pregenerated worlds page of the wiki.

[Jreengus]

quote:Originally posted by coelocanth:
<STRONG>

If you want to play a pure game, you have to start in an area with flux layers to have a steel industry.  Having searched a whole world, I couldn't find an area with both flux and exposed magma.</STRONG>

Seed 666 bottom right there is 2 volcanoes the one on the left has magnitite platinum and malachite, a magma vent (although top is frozen over just strip mine first few layers) theres also plenty of sand. and if you place it right you can get it 50/50 aquifer wise half with half without. only sparse trees though (although they are enough for me)

[Zurai]

quote:Originally posted by coelocanth:
<STRONG>Flux stones occur in layers, so I think if you don't see them at the embark screen then they aren't going to be there.</STRONG>

The layers only show the first couple non-soil layers. It's quite possible to have layers of flux underneath the ones shown on the embark screen. My current fort has red sand followed by several layers of felsite then a layer of gabbro; that's all that was shown on the embark screen. The next four layers after the gabbro, however, were marble. Which was awesome since it's a map with an open volcanic vent and tons of magnetite pockets.

[malkmus]

thank you very much for all the usefull comments. actually i generated dj's map and found a great place to build my fortress there. on the first level there is forest, then sand, clayloam, and finally the rock layers. there is a lot of marble, a magma vent, and running water (i really need it, as all the lakes dried up, didn't fill up during winter and spring - then i turned weather off to increase speed). there are also lots of elephants and hippos on the map, but by now only one of my dwarves got killed. it is very easy to make glass here - i have magma kilns, and magma glass furnaces, directely  above plenty of sand, two more levels above lots of wood. Compared to my old region, this region only has advantages - not as much magnetite, but propably enough for my planned steel industry.

[mLegion]

What i do is start in a magma area, use up your starting resources and seal up the fort then abandon it, when you reclaim you start with a whole load of dwarves wearing steel armor, make them all swordsdwarves except for the 1-2 groups you intend to stay as military, after retaking the fort deactivate the groups and melt down their stuff, use the obsidian in the area to make obsidian swords which are equivalent to steel swords and use some of the steel to make a steel anvil for your magma smelter.

Personally i find the 'no bauxite near volcanos' to be a far greater problem.

[Derakon]

Man, that's a heck of a bump there.

[gtmattz]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)