Print

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

[sonerohi]

For all the vets out there, are there any tells to finding a magma pipe that isn't exposed? I'm in an area that has obsidian all over, but no pipe as of yet, which is odd considering the 'f'inder gaurenteed a pipe here.  Any help would be appreciated.

[inaluct]

Your sig is godly.

[Erom]

Unfortunately, you can usually tell a submerged pipe by the cap of obsidian on top of it, but since your entire area is obsidian...

There is always the old "lava tubes occur at the center of map tiles" effect. If your embark area is 3x3, dig a shaft down at the center of each of those 9 sections, and you should hit the pipe with one of them. Mind you don't drop the miner into the pipe.

[Fossaman]

Yeah, vertical shafts (up/down stairs work well) are the way to go. I try to remember which tile of the map the pipe was supposed to have been in, and aim for that. I think the most I've had to dig was three shafts, and it often works on the first try. It's far and away the best method, since you'll only have to dig out a few squares total for each shaft you make, instead of digging long exploratory tunnels.

That said, you can always dig down to the bottom of the map and create a grid. That'll guarantee you find it, although it takes more effort and you generally don't want to actually break into it down there.

[nirodragon]

Yeah, vertical shafts (up/down stairs work well) are the way to go. I try to remember which tile of the map the pipe was supposed to have been in, and aim for that. I think the most I've had to dig was three shafts, and it often works on the first try. It's far and away the best method, since you'll only have to dig out a few squares total for each shaft you make, instead of digging long exploratory tunnels.

That said, you can always dig down to the bottom of the map and create a grid. That'll guarantee you find it, although it takes more effort and you generally don't want to actually break into it down there.

I would celebrate having a map-wide grid of magma, personally.  This would mean that I could place my magma smelters and such just about anywhere I wanted to, though they would have to be at the second-to-bottom level.

[Mzbundifund]

Since the bottom level is not likely to be obsidian, you can probably find the magma vent without breaching it, and then confirm with a vertical shaft from above.

[sneakey pete]

. I try to remember which tile of the map the pipe was supposed to have been in, and aim for that. I think the most I've had to dig was three shafts, and it often works on the first try. It's far and away the best method, since you'll only have to dig out a few squares total for each shaft you make, instead of digging long exploratory tunnels.

Doesn't work to well when i forget where it is

Still, you can, say, eliminate looking on any brook tiles (tiles referring to regional tiles, their something like 30*30 local tiles), or on any tiles with other features (underground rivers, caves)

[HungryHobo]

Team of cheesemakers + picks + lots of doors make the grid on the bottom level a decent way of finding a magma vent.

[Kagus]

Warm stone.   It extends beyond the obsidian ring.  You don't even have to get close to breaching the pipe.

[Tanelorn]

Or Fire snakes, if you are very observant. They will spawn in the tunnels that are close to the pipe/pool, even if you haven't found it.

Fire snakes show up as yellow dots.

[Dogman]

Didn't the patch notes awhile back say that all magma pipes were supposed to be exposed to the surface? What ever happened to that 

[Osmosis Jones]

If you can find any sharp cliffs, thats a good sign.
A while back, I embarked on a map with a hidden pipe, which stopped about three z levels below the surface. There were no visible signs for it anywhere, except for a single patch of flat ground surrounded on 3 sides by 3 z-level cliffs. Only cliffs I've seen in the new versions, away from rivers.

[anomaly]

I have found a Super Secret technique to uncover the EXACT LOCATION of any hidden stuff without using any third party programs.  I'm going to spoiler it because it might be considered an exploit or glitch and I don't want to ruin anyone's game experience.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Build a Trade Depot anywhere on the map.  now hold Shift+D (Depot access display) while viewing a Z-level that has been completely untouched by miners.  All 'normal' stone areas will have big red D's all over them.  Any area with *any* sort of site feature will be blank (no D's).  Dig to the center of that area and you will invariably uncover your feature in question.  You can use this to bullseye vents, adamantine, pits, chasms, anything.  If you really feel ballsy you can drill down to adamantine in the first five minutes of the game and get a few blocks out for trade or some other nefarious purpose.

Note that there is a trick for this to work on features that don't exist on all Z-levels (underground rivers, pools, magma pools).  I have found that if you go all the way to the Z-level on the bottom of the world and shift+D you will find that the D's are persistent everywhere in this case.  What you can do is spot check each Z-level as you go up, and the first level where the D's don't appear is where the feature exists at the lowest Z-level.

[nirodragon]

I have found a Super Secret technique to uncover the EXACT LOCATION of any hidden stuff without using any third party programs.  I'm going to spoiler it because it might be considered an exploit or glitch and I don't want to ruin anyone's game experience.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Build a Trade Depot anywhere on the map.  now hold Shift+D (Depot access display) while viewing a Z-level that has been completely untouched by miners.  All 'normal' stone areas will have big red D's all over them.  Any area with *any* sort of site feature will be blank (no D's).  Dig to the center of that area and you will invariably uncover your feature in question.  You can use this to bullseye vents, adamantine, pits, chasms, anything.  If you really feel ballsy you can drill down to adamantine in the first five minutes of the game and get a few blocks out for trade or some other nefarious purpose.

Note that there is a trick for this to work on features that don't exist on all Z-levels (underground rivers, pools, magma pools).  I have found that if you go all the way to the Z-level on the bottom of the world and shift+D you will find that the D's are persistent everywhere in this case.  What you can do is spot check each Z-level as you go up, and the first level where the D's don't appear is where the feature exists at the lowest Z-level.

Interesting discovery.  That'll make it easier to remember what tiles have stuff in them if when I forget which tile has the HFS and which has the Bottomless Pit.

[Untelligent]

Didn't the patch notes awhile back say that all magma pipes were supposed to be exposed to the surface? What ever happened to that 

You might be thinking of: all magma pipes are exposed to the local map in the embark screen. In the past, underground magma couldn't be seen without a 3rd-party utility, Regional Prospector.