A flying forgotten beast of poisonous fun went right by my defenses and rampaged through my fortress :/ The resulting mess killed just about everyone...
I'm trying to generate a world that doesn't go from +28 to -157, how would I do this? Would setting cavern layer to 1, Z levels above ground to 5, maximum openness to 40, and levels above layer 1 mean my worlds would be (mountains excluded) +5 to -40? 100 Z level pumpstacks are rather tiring to build, and 100 spaces is too far for a dwarf to make regular hikes.
I need help with learning custom embark, I just generated a world and I have 6 different biomes cut and pasted in 6 nice little squares. Or close to squares. My ocean is yellow.
Or is there a way to just generate a world with 1 cavern layer without using custom parameters?
Go to Design New World with Advanced Parameters
Scroll to the base parameters you want to edit and press 'e' (I prefer to use Medium Regions myself)
Page down to Cavern Layer Number and set that to 1.
Back out and save the parameters- I recommend also hitting 't' to change the name of the parameters so you remember which ones you've altered.
I play those settings myself for similar reasons as you. Default z's above ground level is 15, and the very bottom of the map (not counting mountains) is at -33 on my current fort. I've hit the first cavern layer at -8 and the magma sea at -18.
Having only one cavern layer means that that cavern will have creatures/plants that appear in any cavern layer, so its a rather dangerous place in there. I also set my Cavern Openness Min to 90 and Passage Density Max to 10 to create big, open, flatter caverns.