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[bcd1024]

I used to play DF way back in the day, before Z levels; back when it was easy to flood the world with magma or win by mining adamantine.

I picked it up again and it's a lot more fun now, but I don't know how to do some basic things. I remember depending upon the chasm and river a lot before, since the outside is dangerous.

I started digging down looking for the first cavern I read about on the wiki. I started on z-level 146. I have now dug down to z-level 129, but still no cavern. I'm digging all the way on the left side of the map. Is this the problem, are caverns only in the center?

I even remember an invisible cave collapse on start-up, so I'm assuming there has to be something down there.

Also, if someone has the patience to explain up/down stairs to me, I would love it. The normal ones I understand. From a higher floor you dig a 'down' stair, and then complete it by digging the 'up' portion of it on the lower floor. The up/down stairway seems to only be able to be built in rock wall. Do the stairs go up and down, or just up from the z-level they're built?

[gtmattz]

For the caverns keep digging down, you will eventually hit them unless you get really lucky and happen to put your exploratory shaft through a column of rock.

up/down stairs can be dug out of solid rock or constructed below down stairs or above up stairs (or other up/down stairs of course) so that you can create a column of stairs.  Nothing really complex about it, they work like a combo of up stairs and down stairs.  Check out the wiki, and if all else fails, refer to the quote in my sig 

[JAFANZ]

Up/Down Stairs are just that, Up & Down stairs.

Specifically they will connect to Down or Up/Down stairs above, & to Up or Up/Down stairs below them.

Think of them as the 'middle' portions of a multi-level stairwell.

As for the caverns, positioning, shape, & size are generally all random, but I'd say that digging down near the side of the map gives you a better chance of missing one or more of them than digging more centrally (but that's just my impression & not the result of a mathematical analysis or Dwarven !!SCIENCE!!).

[iceball3]

And also, try to make a few random tunnels branching here and there to decrease the chances of your dwarves digging straight down a randomly placed column in the caverns.

[Zaik]

#1: You have to actually dig into an open area of the cavern to reveal it. It's entirely possible to miss all the caverns  and go straight down to the Semi-Molten Rock at the bottom, which cannot be mined through. They are totally randomized, and connect to the border of the embark area at different places. I recommend going down 7-12 z-levels and just digging randomly from there, you should hit it sooner or later. Unless you messed with the worldgen file a lot before generating your world, there's at least two caverns, and the first should definitely be no lower than 15 floors down outside of some freak occurrence like a 2200 zlevel adamantine spire or artifact with the entire history of it's world on it or other craziness.

#2: Your cave-in was most likely a small bit of water directly hitting magma and making obsidian, then having nothing but magma or water below it, hit the bottom of whatever it was in(most likely magma, but you never know).

#3: up/down stairs go both up and down at the same time. You can just keep digging out up/down stairs on top of each other and they work just fine for going either way.

[Hans Lemurson]

...I started digging down looking for the first cavern I read about on the wiki. I started on z-level 146. I have now dug down to z-level 129, but still no cavern. I'm digging all the way on the left side of the map. Is this the problem, are caverns only in the center?

I even remember an invisible cave collapse on start-up, so I'm assuming there has to be something down there.

Excellent luck!  That means that you'll have a magma-pipe at the bottom of your first cavern.  Easily accessible magma.

If you're digging down really far and not finding anything, then its possible that you're actually carving a shaft right down the middle of a column in the cavern.  Try digging sideways.

I always dig exploratory tunnels out every 10 Z-levels to test to see it there are any interesting features.

[iceball3]

Or he could have it in the second or third cavern. Or just maybe, he encountered the bug where caverns will have muddy open space and have trees growing on said space that would collapse when matured. Did you have the cave in message repeatedly? Or did it only happen once at unpause and occaisionally later?

[jei]

Tip of the day: dig sideways every now and then and put the corridor full of cage traps to avoid nasty surprises.
Also other more advanced defences are highly recommended.

Caves can be no higher than the lowest point on the above ground map. Depends on world gen how deep they're calculated from that level.

[bcd1024]

Thanks for the help. I was a little delayed by a siege (which only reinforced my need for lumber). I'm digging exploratory shafts looking for the cavern.

How tall are caverns, are they one more more z-levels?

Or he could have it in the second or third cavern. Or just maybe, he encountered the bug where caverns will have muddy open space and have trees growing on said space that would collapse when matured. Did you have the cave in message repeatedly? Or did it only happen once at unpause and occaisionally later?

The message only occurred once, at startup.

[JAFANZ]

How tall are caverns, are they one more more z-levels?

I've seen as few as 1z, & in another thread someone's b***hing about a 90z one... (there's also a stonesense image in a couple of threads with what I estimate to be a 30+z cavern on one edge).

[Hans Lemurson]

How tall are caverns, are they one more more z-levels?

I've seen as few as 1z, & in another thread someone's b***hing about a 90z one... (there's also a stonesense image in a couple of threads with what I estimate to be a 30+z cavern on one edge).

That was me.  The cavern was 94 z-levels tall and contained the only really usable water on the map (that I knew of at the time) at level -1.  I've also seen a picture from stonesense which showed a quite tall cavern system on a volcano map.  My map was also had a volcano on it.  Perhaps volcanoes lead to tall caverns?

[gtmattz]

Perhaps volcanoes lead to tall caverns?

Now, there is no !!SCIENCE!! behind this, but my experience with volcanoes and caverns appears to match your findings somewhat.  It seems that, even on a perfectly flat embark with a volcano, the caverns tend to have more Z levels to them (most of my flat areas have 3-5 levels in a cavern, and the last flat embark with a volcano I found had something around 9 or 10 iirc).

[bcd1024]

Finally found a cavern. It starts 30 levels lower than my initial location, and is at least 26 levels deep. =/
It seems to only have tower-cap and fungiwood trees. The wiki says this should be the first level cavern.

Is this normal? I thought it should be much closer to the surface.

I also started getting "Urist cancels Store Item in Bin: Item Inaccessible" about 3 times a second as soon as I breached the cavern. Are there goodies they're automatically trying to grab down there?

[JAFANZ]

The World Gen Params specify the Minimum number of levels between the surface & the 1st cavern, & between the bottom of each cavern & the top of the one below.

I believe that nature of the location you choose to embark on has a significant effect on the actual depth of the map, insofar as determining how much space exists between caverns & how deep each cavern is in & of itself (29? I've yet to exceed single digits, lucky b*****d), specifically Mountains & Volcanos are suspected of enhancing depth whilst Rivers & Coasts are suspected of reducing it.

As for the stuff they might be trying to collect from the caverns, I believe Giant/Cave Spider Silk Webs are collected by default, but may be mistaken. There may also be other candidates for stuff your dwarves are trying to loot.

[Laurin]

Collect webs is per default on. You can either suspend the job in the workshop menu or change defaults in the orders menu (o) if you don't want your harmless little weaver stumble into Crundles or FBs or such.