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[Bluehotdog5]

So I'm fairly new to the game, and this is my second serious attempt at playing Fortress Mode. So far I have about 12 Dwarves, and I'm trying to figure on the Smelting process, I pretty much have everything crafted out of rock and wood, and I want to eventually build everything out of metal. Though I'm not sure where to find any Ore to smelt with. Do I have to dig deeper or something? Also I have several large stockrooms filled with chert, what am I suppose to do with all of this stuff? It doesn't seem particularly useful at this point. Should I just dump it all outside? (filling the caverns with the same rocks you mine out of it seems a bit counter-intuitive)

[Dr.Propz]

Here's a few links to the wiki that might help you out
http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Dumping#Garbage_Dump
For your Chert problems

http://df.magmawiki.com/index.php/Exploratory_mining
For finding ore

[the woods]

You can use chert for all kinds of neat stuff.

-Beautiful brown walls all over the outside to route ambushers
-Beautiful brown bridges and roads
-Pots at a craftsdwarf's shop, saving you some wood to make beautiful brown floors

If you think it's cool you can extend this to profession-based colored neighborhoods, so farmers live in chertville, miners and stoneworkers live in marbletown, the craftsdwarves live in the cobaltite quarters, &c.

[NecroRebel]

Basic stones, like chert, are useful for making furniture and most of your defenses out of, but you'll probably produce vastly more than you ever need. Making crafts out of it helps get rid of it, albeit slowly. If you really want to move it out of the way, a so-called quantum stockpile (a garbage dump zone, where items that are marked to be dumped are taken, and then reclaimed, allows any number of items to be put on 1 tile) is probably the best option. However, there's not too much penalty for just leaving them in place; they block loose items from being put on stockpile tiles, but not bins or barrels, and for the most part you want everything that can be in a bin or barrel in a bin or barrel for storage anyway.

Ore can be most anywhere. The best ores, oddly enough, are typically fairly shallow on the map if they're present at all; the iron ores limonite and magnetite are found only in sedimentary layers and hematite is found only in sedimentary and igneous extrusive layers, and sedimentary and igneous extrusive layers are only found near the surface. Similarly, both forms of coal are sedimentary-only, and all but one form of flux is sedimentary, too. Chert is sedimentary, so focus your exploratory mining in it.

[IamanElfCollaborator]

Hm. Use it for catapults. Lob it at filthy elves. PROFIT.

[imperium3]

In my fort I set up half a dozen mason's workshops continually turning all waste stone into blocks. The advantage of this is that blocks can be stored in bins so they take up much less space than raw stone (10 blocks to a bin, compared to one stone to a tile otherwise). Also blocks are higher value so they make nice walls etc, as well as better looking bridges and roads. Also, you are guaranteed a steady supply of well-trained masons The downsides are that half a dozen masons plus associated haulers are making blocks instead of helping out with other projects, and you may have bin shortages unless you have abundant wood/cheap metal on your map. Also blocks can't be made into furniture/workshops so you will have problems if you turn ALL your stone into blocks, but my fort's twenty years old and we always have spare stone even with all of this, so it's not much of a problem.

[612DwarfAvenue]

Next time the traders come, tell them you'll give 'em the chert off your back.

[ancistrus]

I have said it before: exploratory mining is an outdated thing. In the previous version, it was not uncommon for a 3x3 embark to only contain a few veins. But in 31.25, if your embark map has an ore, it will have tons of it.

To explain a bit more, for a newbie, your map might have more than one biome. Different biomes are likely to contain different materials, both on the surface and in depths. If you haven't found an ore in the chert by now, then there probably isn't any. To get an ore now you should try:
1.Digging deeper. Once you hit a different layer stone than chert, you might find some minerals in there. However, you probably won't find any iron, see above post about hematite.
2.Examining the surface. Maybe a part of your map has a different geological structure.

[schismatise]

Next time the traders come, tell them you'll give 'em the chert off your back.

HAHAHA

Brilliant.

Also, i suggest dumping all your stone into a sort of "quarry" - like, say, maybe a 4x8 garbage dump zone. I find this ever so slightly more "roleplay" than the quantum-stockpile thing. That's what i do, anyway. So you should do it too.

(Don't forget to reclaim it afterwards - "d", "b", "c", "enter", draw rectangle, "enter" - dumped items are automatically forbidden upon dumping.)

[proxn_punkd]

I want to say "mod in flintknapping and fill your enemies with *chert bolts*", but that would likely be difficult.

[Loud Whispers]

Build an above ground fortress. Say goodbye to abundance of stone.

[Jimmy T. Malice]

In my fort I set up half a dozen mason's workshops continually turning all waste stone into blocks. The advantage of this is that blocks can be stored in bins so they take up much less space than raw stone (10 blocks to a bin, compared to one stone to a tile otherwise). Also blocks are higher value so they make nice walls etc, as well as better looking bridges and roads. Also, you are guaranteed a steady supply of well-trained masons The downsides are that half a dozen masons plus associated haulers are making blocks instead of helping out with other projects, and you may have bin shortages unless you have abundant wood/cheap metal on your map. Also blocks can't be made into furniture/workshops so you will have problems if you turn ALL your stone into blocks, but my fort's twenty years old and we always have spare stone even with all of this, so it's not much of a problem.

Thanks for that advice; I keep having to extend my stone stockpile room for all of the stone my dwarves mine out.

On topic: Just keep digging if you want to find ore. I find that tetrahedrite (80% copper/20% silver ore) is the most common.