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[C-X]

Hi!

I digged down to Z-Level -26 and didn't find any caverns. As far as I remember I usually hit the first level much earlier. Is is possible that the world generator didn't create any caverns?

And if I would finally hit a cavern at Z-30 or Z-40, would it still be the first cavern level or could it be the 2nd or even 3rd level with all the horrors I've only heard of.

I'm playing pretty much standard DW 43.05, large world, short history, everything else medium / sparse.

[WaffleEggnog]

I do not beleive a world can gen with no caverns. It may be possible that your embark just has a smaller cavern and you have therefore not found it yet. It's also very possible even with a normal sized cavern, if you just dig a stairway straight down, that you just missed breaking into any of the caverns and just avoided them all.

Keep digging tunnels around that level and you should find it eventually.

[Fleeting Frames]

Not possible, but if you dig down along the corners of local map tiles (48x48 squares) you're likely to be able to bypass caverns.

[Thisfox]

The corners of map tiles can be cavern-free pillars. Presumably so the whole place doesn't collapse into the caverns. Dig sideways, and towards the middle of a map tile, at a likely level and cross your fingers.

I wish there was less in the way of caverns, myself. I hate that I have to go down 200+, even 300 z-levels to get to the magma sea. I wish it was only 50 z-levels somewhere, just for convenience. Haulers take so bloody long to get stuff down to, and up from, the magma levels.

[Fleeting Frames]

Why not gen thin worlds, then? You can have as little as 12 steps to magma with 1 cavern and low embark point without needing any magma pipes or volcanoes.

[PatrikLundell]

Embark depth varies greatly, and there are some advice for how to generate thin worlds (but they don't work on pocket worlds, in my experience). It's also common to dig down and miss one or all caverns. The safest was to locate caverns is to dig straight probing staircases that start just below the last know feature (the aquifer if you have one, the first and second cavern in turn after that), as a hole in a cavern roof is much less likely to let dangerous critters into the fortress than sideways ones are.
If your vertical staircase building hits Semi Molten Rock (and thus the digging is cancelled silently) you should inspect the bottom to see if there's hot rock beside the bottom. If there is, build an Up staircase as close to the bottom as possible to block any potential invisible Magma Sea critter upwards diagonal entry into the fortress.

Nowadays I get reasonably thin worlds by setting the advanced world gen parameters to 15 levels above the top cavern (to give me enough space for a fortress below the aquifer [unless it's a conglomerate one reaching down into the first cavern]), two levels between caverns (to allow me to dig tunnels under any cavern lakes without constant cancellation spam), and 3 levels below the 3:rd cavern (to allow me to dig tunnels without cancellation spam from either water above or magma below). Setting these parameters to values other than the default seem to reduce the embark thickness variation considerably and usually be close to what's specified.

I believe it's possible to generate cavern free worlds, but that this requires you to mod dwarves to use surface crops, as no subsurface plants are generated, so vanilla dwarves cannot exist. I've never heard of a case where the number of caverns is different from what the world gen parameters dictate, however.

[Melting Sky]

There are two possibilities. You either dug down in a spot where there is no cavern on that part of the map and you have already reached or passed the depth where the first cavern is located or you have embarked on an area of great thickness and you haven't yet dug deep enough to reach the first cavern layer. I've had embarks where the first cavern layer was 25+ levels deep.

If you keep going down you could breach the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or none of the cavern layers depending on your luck and map lay out. Scroll down to the bottom Z level of your map. That will give you an idea of how thick your embark is. If you have like 200Z levels before you bottom out then the odds are you may still be above where the first cavern starts. If your entire embarks is like 60Z levels deep then you almost certainly have already passed the first cavern already.

Happy hunting and may your stairway not breach a cavern where flying FBs wander.

[JimmyAgent007]

The mine in the corner of my map is -30z deep.  I suppose I could start digging sideways now.  I just didnt want my fort to have the mine inside where the evil could erupt inside my fort.

[anewaname]

The mine in the corner of my map is -30z deep.  I suppose I could start digging sideways now.  I just didnt want my fort to have the mine inside where the evil could erupt inside my fort.

Building a wall or floor is all you need to do to block cavern critters. When you breach the caverns, the game will pause and you can go to the location.

If you built stairs straight down (see 1), dig an Up stairs and Down stairs to the side (see 2), then build a Floor over the Up/Down stairs (see 3):
1        2        3
X        X        X
X      DX      DX
X      UX      UF
X        X        X
If you tunnelled on the same z-level then just seal the hallway with a wall.
Usually I dig straight down in the center of the map and build the floor to block entry, then plan where to sent the next stairs down in search of magma.

[PatrikLundell]

The mine in the corner of my map is -30z deep.  I suppose I could start digging sideways now.  I just didnt want my fort to have the mine inside where the evil could erupt inside my fort.

Building a wall or floor is all you need to do to block cavern critters. When you breach the caverns, the game will pause and you can go to the location.

If you built stairs straight down (see 1), dig an Up stairs and Down stairs to the side (see 2), then build a Floor over the Up/Down stairs (see 3):
1        2        3
X        X        X
X      DX      DX
X      UX      UF
X        X        X
If you tunnelled on the same z-level then just seal the hallway with a wall.
Usually I dig straight down in the center of the map and build the floor to block entry, then plan where to sent the next stairs down in search of magma.

It's actually easier than that when you've built a stair: It's possible to build and Up stair on top of a dug Up/Down while standing in the same tile. For some strange reason it cannot be done at the lowermost level (the one with open air under), but it can be done on the one above that. It took quite a while before the forum told me the dig up stair/down stair/build floor was needlessly complicated.

[anewaname]

Sure, that is easier. Dig stairs, then build Up stair.
1     2
X     X
X     X
X     U
X     X

[C-X]

I finally hit a cavern at level -41. The bottom layer is at -166.