Hey, found out about this mod a few hours ago and just HAD to try it out. Going off of what little I read in the opening post, I decided to go into it mostly blind, only having read the non-spoiled parts of the first post and skimming a bit here and there. This is drastically different from how I approach new games; usually I read up as much as possible before stepping in. I must've spent weeks reading the wiki before I first downloaded Dwarf Fortress. Anyways, this has been lots of fun! I've mostly just been sticking to my generic start without delving too deep into the new features so far, but it's neat seeing the new minerals and plants and stuff.
I do have a few questions/problems, but I'd really like all answers to be a spoiler-free as possible! At least give me a vague summary followed by a [spoiler] block, please.
So, the caverns/magma sea seem a lot deeper than in vanilla. I'm at -69 so far and no sign of either. I am aware that it's possible to just slip by the cavern sections if you hit in the right area, but I've been sending out pretty regular offshoots to gather minerals and I haven't hit anything yet. Should I keep going down or have I probably just missed it and should go back and check again?
Also, my chef just fell unconscious for, as far as I can tell, no reason. I only became aware of it when one of my dwarves gave me a "cancels Give Water: no water source" warning. I'm on a tundra and, as I said, haven't found the caverns yet. About how long do I have before this unconscious dwarf dies without intervention? As far as the cause, only two things of note happened recently, the first caravan arrived and I concluded trading with them, and I just hit some sort of rock called Ancient Vanguard Rubble, including a Precious Artifact. Without revealing too much (it seems to me that there's something really cool involved with this stuff, I haven't mined any out yet for fear of some sort of hidden fun stuff, but I've been excavating around it to explore some) could this be the cause for my chef's illness? I kind of wished I'd embarked with a diagnostician. How good is dabbling doctor at getting information? Is it worth it to just give the task to one of my fishery workers?
A lot of questions, I know, but this seems like the sort of mod to engender this sort of mystery
thanks in advance for any help. I'm going to set up a savscum at this point, just in case things do go as poorly as I fear.