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[Canadark]

Not that its really that important, but I've built four fortresses or so and I am yet to discover anything called "rock crystals" "quartz" or what have you. Am I doing something wrong?

[AncientEnemy]

i've built dozens of fortresses and still never encountered rock crystals. i think they're just rare

[Opirian]

My current fort has several veins of rock crystals and I have over 10 sitting in my stockpile as I type this... I need to dig out additional space for gem storage.

[Guy Montag]

There is a bewilderding assortment of different gems in the game. They seem to show up at random, and you are about as likely to get Rock Crystals as you are to get Red Spindals or Tiger Irons or any other obscure semi-precious gem the game has in it.

I seem to only mine up Rock Crystals on maps without sand...

[Derakon]

If I recall correctly, rock crystals can show up in any layer, but they're very rare.

You get the most variety of gems from metamorphic rock, incidentally. That doesn't say anything about the availability of rock crystal though.

[InsanityPrelude]

Look up the "mineral mod" on DFFD if you really need more- you'll have single rock crystals showing up here and there on just about any map.

I've never seen it in vein form yet. 

[Awayfarer]

I've only had luck finding rock crystals in gabbro for some reason, and not every time. Seems to me that if you have a rock type that can have gem type "A" through "Q", only a few of those will actually be present.

LIke, say you have a stone called "Todd". The gems "Doritonium", "Dr. Pepper Opal" and "Marijuanite" can all be found in "Todd". If you start a map with several layers of "Todd", there's no guarantee that all of those will be present. What is likely is that you'll only find, say, clusters of "Marijuanite", and the other varieties will be absent. If you start a fortress in another area full of "Todd" you might only find "Doritonium".

Basically of all the varieties of gemstones that can be found in an area, only a few will actually be present. Also, Todd is a deadbeat who needs to cough up his back rent.

[soup_alex]

I once had a fort where I was up to the eyeballs in rock crystals (my volcano-glacier one). I got royally sick of trying to manage the ash, lye, potash and glass-making (yes, I know you can make potash directly from ash. I was trying to get some levels for this useless sodding craftsmigrant), and pretty much gave up on the whole scheme. Without having some rubbish glass to practice on first, it seemed like a waste to start making duff crafts with that nice glass, anyway.

Now I'm playing a fortress set into a mountain with no rock crystals, but lots of nice-looking mineral veins. Oh, what's that: cobaltite? Must be ore of... no. Or cassiterite! ore of... nope.

[Walliard]

I once had a fort where I was up to the eyeballs in rock crystals (my volcano-glacier one). I got royally sick of trying to manage the ash, lye, potash and glass-making (yes, I know you can make potash directly from ash. I was trying to get some levels for this useless sodding craftsmigrant), and pretty much gave up on the whole scheme. Without having some rubbish glass to practice on first, it seemed like a waste to start making duff crafts with that nice glass, anyway.

Now I'm playing a fortress set into a mountain with no rock crystals, but lots of nice-looking mineral veins. Oh, what's that: cobaltite? Must be ore of... no. Or cassiterite! ore of... nope.

Cassiterite is an ore of tin. (But yes, cobaltite is annoying.)

[soup_alex]

Cassiterite is an ore of tin. (But yes, cobaltite is annoying.)

You're right; I was thinking of cinnabar, sorry.

[Hydra]

You're right; I was thinking of cinnabar, sorry.

Isn't there a mod that renamed all the non-economic stones to Gray / White / Blue / Green / Red useless rock? Keeps getting me confused whenever I get the "You found Cinnabar!!!" notification and go "Yay iron!" only to find out I confused it with an actual Iron ore AGAIN

[Cheshire Cat]

i have far more luck getting my rock crystals and other gems i want from the dwarven traders. if their civ has access to something you can ask for it. its great, you can order in nearly unlimited amounts of super valuable stuff like yellow diamonds to encrust everything with. if you are ever lucky enough to find yellow diamonds or the like while digging you only tend to end up with one or two in your entire area. but the dwarf traders will have an unlimited supply, but only if they exist in the biome of their home city. its just the luck of the draw. for instance, everyone in my fort is wearing carp leather and giant cave spider chitin, as the caravan brings a wagonful of both every year, as my parent civ is on a river with a cave near it.

[InsanityPrelude]

But you can't make crystal glass from cut rock crystal, can you?

[soup_alex]

IIRC, crystal glass is rock crystals + pearlash (not potash as I said before, ugh) + ...I think that's it. The wiki would be able to tell you, but I'm too stubborn to check, myself.

Hydra: I've never been confused about ores of iron, having once played on a map that had ALL OF THEM and pretty much no other ores (oh, and there was loads of flux... sounds like a good map? There was bugger all fuel to be had, though). My problem is with identifying stones that are ores of other metals (okay, "native copper" is fairly straightforward), and stones that look (and sound!) like they could be valuable ores or gems (BLOODY COBALTITE).

[LegacyCWAL]

IIRC, crystal glass is rock crystals + pearlash (not potash as I said before, ugh) + ...I think that's it. The wiki would be able to tell you, but I'm too stubborn to check, myself.

I think you make pearlash out of potash, so you need potash anyways.

BLOODY COBALTITE.

But yes, cobaltite is annoying.

I like cobaltite.  It's the only way to make stuff that's that color of blue.