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[Phreck]

So I've been digging everywhere looking for bituminous coal or lignite on my map somewhere to make coke with.  Also been looking for flux stones to make pig iron, but can't find any of those either.  Are Calcite, Chalk, Dolomite, Limestone, and Marble the only stones that we can use for flux?  I just used dfprospector from dfhack to check the map and it doesn't come up with any of those.  What am I suppose to do to make steel?  Am I just going to have to go straight for adamantine?

[Patchy]

Import it probably, as the coal and all of the flux except marble is sedimentary rock. And it sounds like you might have embarked on an area with no sedimentary layers. Look around a bit though, you might have some magma underground somewhere... then again might not. But if you do it'll negate some of the coal fuel costs for you.

[slothen]

can flux be imported in 31?

Dig for magma.  Check map for sand to make glass.  Possibly build tree farm for clear glass production, although wood can be imported in bulk.  Do you have any iron on your map?  The other thing that worked quite well for some people in 40d was to buy and melt any trade good of the metal you need from traders, as well as melt invader armor.

[Niveras]

Flux was always able to be imported, since it's just a stone. Of course your parent civ needs to have access to it as well, but usually they do.

Look for Calcite, Dolomite, Marble, Limestone, Chalk in the Stones submenu when making a request from your parent civ. The list is pretty random so it is easy to skip over it. You can also important bituminous coal and lignite as stone, as well as coal and charcoal bars, for fuel.

[DarthCloakedDwarf]

Be careful to not ask for blocks-- they must be in raw form to work.

[Marconius]

You can get coal from burning trees, so that's not a problem. (Note that magma can only be used for fueling the smelters, you'll still need coke to make steel!)

Flux is a problem, yeah... if you can't find any, you'll have to rely on trade.

Though on a happy note, bronze slashing/pointed weapons are about the same as steel ones (maybe even better). And you can probably just use iron for armor.

[Hyperturtle]

I agree with the tip about trade--buy those steel puzzleboxes and melt them down.

My map has iron galore and no flux.  I import pig iron and chalk (along with steel, the bronzes, tin and copper) and make steel bars and bronze bars.  I am training my armorsmith by having him make loads of armor and then selling it to the next caravan that shows up.

The humans often have pretty good bronze weapons and shields, and they do work better than iron.  So if you can trade with the humans and dwarfs, you should be pretty well set in getting good weaponry.  High quality iron armor should be effective in defense--since you require so many pieces of armor, you're best concentrating on getting steel and bronze weapons, and train your armorer.  Once he's high enough level to reliably churn out quality armor, then task him to use the steel and bronze to make what you need.

[Psieye]

Counter question: OP are you on 40d or DF2010?

Anyway, iron for armour in DF2010 is a bad idea as it loses to Bronze weapons. In 40d, it would have been a good idea, but not in DF2010.

[Phreck]

Counter question: OP are you on 40d or DF2010?

Anyway, iron for armour in DF2010 is a bad idea as it loses to Bronze weapons. In 40d, it would have been a good idea, but not in DF2010.

DF2010.  I'm working on creating a massive pump stack to bring magma up.  And I've also found some adamantine, so I'll probably mine some of it too.  We'll see though, don't have a military at all yet, but I'm trying to be careful and not break into any caverns.

[Hyndis]

Import flux from traders. For coal you can just make it out of wood and you can dig down to a cavern to get an unlimited supply of wood.

For iron you can either mine iron or you can use goblinite. You can rig up elaborate traps, such as a good old fashioned pit or drowning trap, to collect the goblinite safely and efficiently.

[Lord Darkstar]

Goblinite isn't available to all embark sites. If your don't have a goblin civilization nearby, you won't be able to "import" goblinite.

And melting items in 31.03 is reported to cause serious crashes.

[Hyndis]

Almost every embark will have goblins though. Its quite rare that there are no goblins unless you embark on an island or isolated mountain valley.

[Niveras]

Or they were wiped out. It's happened to my worlds a couple times, though they were pocked worlds where I increased the number of titans. Not by much, but apparently 5 versus 3 makes a huge difference in what civs survive.

[o_O[WTFace]]

Make bronze if you can find cassiterite.  Its worse then steel but works fine against iron.  And of course import steel bars, pig iron and flux.  Don't melt down steel stuff because it causes crashes (31.03)

[Grumman]

Don't give up hope. For a while I thought my latest fortress was entirely without flux, only to discover a four z-level deep vein of marble 30-odd levels below the surface.