Bay 12 Games Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

Author Topic: Shallow Metals and Deserts  (Read 804 times)

JCsuper

  • Escaped Lunatic
    • View Profile
Shallow Metals and Deserts
« on: June 22, 2020, 12:02:16 am »
According to the wiki, “Metals appear to be classified as "shallow" if they occur within the first 2 stone layers, except for Sand Deserts and Shallow Oceans which count the first 5 stone layers.”
Why the desert exception? I’m currently playing an above-ground fort and wishing my shallow metals were actually shallow!
Logged

DwarfComic

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Shallow Metals and Deserts
« Reply #1 on: June 22, 2020, 06:49:22 pm »
Ground water leaches ore minerals and redeposits them in zones near the water table. This leaching process concentrates these minerals as ore that can be mined. Besides there's not much metal in a desert, more disco is heard there I believe.
Logged

kaijyuu

  • Bay Watcher
  • Hrm...
    • View Profile
Re: Shallow Metals and Deserts
« Reply #2 on: June 23, 2020, 12:57:31 am »
My guess is that deserts/oceans have an additional sand layer on top of the normal layers, which is why it counts further down. I'm no expert on world generation though so.
Logged
Quote from: Chesterton
For, in order that men should resist injustice, something more is necessary than that they should think injustice unpleasant. They must think injustice absurd; above all, they must think it startling. They must retain the violence of a virgin astonishment. When the pessimist looks at any infamy, it is to him, after all, only a repetition of the infamy of existence. But the optimist sees injustice as something discordant and unexpected, and it stings him into action.

PatrikLundell

  • Bay Watcher
    • View Profile
Re: Shallow Metals and Deserts
« Reply #3 on: June 23, 2020, 03:10:00 am »
Quote from: kaijyuu on June 23, 2020, 12:57:31 am
My guess is that deserts/oceans have an additional sand layer on top of the normal layers, which is why it counts further down. I'm no expert on world generation though so.
No, deserts occasionally have 3 levels of soil (before elevation erosion) while other biomes seem to always have 4, so it may be shallower, not deeper (and aquifers always appear at a depth of 3 and greater if the material supports it, with uneven terrain messing things up a bit). I have no idea why metals would be deeper under deserts.
Logged