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[exoleet]

I'm trying to make huge open underground caverns. More like a whole different world under the surface, not just some small cracks and tiny clearings, or sponge like water filled caverns. Huge open areas, with trees and life.

Now, I've modified the world generation files, but the most I've ever gotten is a slight increase in size and openness. What I want is more along the lines of that old game, Exile. That's the best example I can really give, an underworld. Not hell.

How exactly do I modify the world generation files to give me this result?

[Pheonix_RE]

To get rid of the passages, set openness to 100/100 (I think - it may be the other way around). To get less water in the caverns, set the water to lower levels - but don't set it to 0, because then your caves will be bone-dry and devoid of plant life, which I doubt would exactly be a good thing.

[Djohaal]

I don't advise lowering max water coverage at all. whenever it is not 100% there's a risk of finding empty sections with no plants at all.

[Retro]

[CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MIN:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_OPENNESS_MAX:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MIN:0]
[CAVERN_LAYER_PASSAGE_DENSITY_MAX:0]

Ta-daaa. I play with these parameters. Quite nice. Generally for water I go 50-75% but that's up to you (that much makes caverns impassable w/o swimming anyhow).

[Hyndis]

Openness set to 100/100
Density 0/0
Water, probably around 25/50


You can play with the water a little bit. You don't want it completely dry, but if you go with 100/100 you just end up with an underground ocean and almost no cavern floorspace. 25/50 gets you some lakes but most of the floorspace is delicious cavern mud with piles of tower caps and shrubs.

[nil]

Openness set to 100/100
Density 0/0
Water, probably around 25/50


You can play with the water a little bit. You don't want it completely dry, but if you go with 100/100 you just end up with an underground ocean and almost no cavern floorspace. 25/50 gets you some lakes but most of the floorspace is delicious cavern mud with piles of tower caps and shrubs.

In my experience this is best, although I'm still not entirely sure how the openness thing works.

For cavern height, it seems the best way is to start high.  If I dig down from a flat site where the surface is around sea level, I consistently see caverns that have about half a dozen z-levels total.  But when I start from the mountains, where the surface is well above sea level, the cavern systems seem to be a lot more vertically impressive.

[Shiv]

When you set openness to 100/100, do you get only huge open spaces?  Or some of the twisting corridors too?

I kind of like the twisting corridors really, especially when they connect larger rooms, but I don't like when it's ONLY winding passages.

[Daetrin]

The twisty corridors are under passage density.  If you set passage density to 1/1 you get a few open spaces connected by one or two passages, but it's a pretty significant drop in total open space from 0 passage density.  You could try 0/1 passage density I suppose.

[Caldfir]

My first embark in the current version had these massive open areas (like 15 z-level deep grand spanning underground fields) connected to eachother by narrow passageways, and I assumed they would all be like that.  Had no idea how lucky that was

[Kogan Loloklam]

My first embark in the current version had these massive open areas (like 15 z-level deep grand spanning underground fields) connected to eachother by narrow passageways, and I assumed they would all be like that.  Had no idea how lucky that was

The solution is to explore the cave systems in the vicinity of where you want to embark in adventure mode before you embark.

[Retro]

My first embark in the current version had these massive open areas (like 15 z-level deep grand spanning underground fields) connected to eachother by narrow passageways, and I assumed they would all be like that.  Had no idea how lucky that was

The solution is to explore the cave systems in the vicinity of where you want to embark in adventure mode before you embark.

That's a bit complicated for me. I usually duplicate the save immediately, embark in one of them, and dig straight down until I hit it (which is usually pretty quickly). Take a look-see, then decide whether or not to move one. Easy.

[Djohaal]

reveal.exe is your friend. DFhack even includes a reversible reveal that unreveals the whole map after you peek, so you don't have to nuke DF's process and savescum.