Bay 12 Games Forum
Dwarf Fortress => DF Gameplay Questions => Topic started by: janamdo on March 20, 2020, 07:00:58 am
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In the status screen: STONE , this screen lists all economic stones found within the game ( IN GENERAL OR IN MY GAME? )
I looked at goblinite ore, but is not listed here ?
So its not clear what the purpose of this screen is
I try to find some iron ore ( hematite, magnetite , limonite ) , but there is a soil layer and further deeper granite , gabbo and more to rock to at least - lv 44
How deep are the iron ores be found ? .. in sedimentary layer..
Note: did not pay attention to this during embark setup for finding iron
ores ( what was my initial embark setup ? )
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Stone lists everything in the raws, I believe. So that's everything in the game world and should update with mods as well. It is not what is on your map.
Goblinite is a joke term we use here. It means the metal weapons and armor that goblins wear. Remember, you can melt that.
If you have ores on your map, they can be pretty much anywhere under soil. Mountains usually have ore visible on the sides of cliffs and walls. Dig some horizontal tunnels to reveal more tiles if you don't have any ores.
Your embark might have no metal, or no iron. That's sort of luck. I think DFHack can tell you before embarking, but I don't know.
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Generally speaking, if on the embark location screen you see "Shallow metals" (plural "metals" - it's important) and "Flux" there's very likely gonna be iron.
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Iron ores, if they exist on your map, will be in the top few stone layers, generally the first 6-10 z levels of stone (sedimentary). Hematite and Limonite are both found in veins whereas Magnetite is found in larger patches.
The stone status screen allows permiting the use of stone for general stonecrafting/masonry/building or forbidding such use. The default settings reserve 'economic' stones for better uses, say smelting iron for Hematite or making steel/pig iron from Marble. Each stone on the economic tab has potential uses that are not general. It is your choice to allow/forbid and that can be informed by your embark - for example when I have a lot of flux stone I often permit it for general use because it is more valuable but if I have only a little it will be used for nothing but steel.
Non-economic (other) stone can similarly be forbidden. This might be useful if you only have a couple of boulders of a type which a dwarf has a preference for, so that later you can make nice items for them out of it. Or if you want to reserve a uniquely coloured stone for a particular use.
When embarking it is worth paying attention to the summary of likely ores for each biome. If you want a lot then best chances are given with shallow metals (for iron) and deep metals, or specifying multiple as the setting in the find desired location options.
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DFHack provides several ways to find out what you've got on your embark. "prospect" pre embark will tell you what's likely to be found (using estimates), while using the same command after embark will tell you exactly what you've got. The Embark Assistant allows you to search for embarks with various profiles, including specific metals (using the logic taken from prospect[or] to determine what's present).
But yes, goblinite can save embarks completely without metal, and you can also trade for it from dwarven and human caravans. There's also the "visitite" you can "mine" from visitors (with or without killing them first).
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DFHack provides several ways to find out what you've got on your embark. "prospect" pre embark will tell you what's likely to be found (using estimates), while using the same command after embark will tell you exactly what you've got. The Embark Assistant allows you to search for embarks with various profiles, including specific metals (using the logic taken from prospect[or] to determine what's present).
But yes, goblinite can save embarks completely without metal, and you can also trade for it from dwarven and human caravans. There's also the "visitite" you can "mine" from visitors (with or without killing them first).
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Yes, that's for a new fort then.
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Thanks all
Its a lot to know about how to get iron ore
I am now in a present fortress and did not pay attention to the ores when i choose a world embark
So i must now analyse the present biome ? ..what's to find underground.
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Well, either you use the DFHack command "prospect" to see what's available, or you just play and see what you encounter and adapt accordingly.
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Well, either you use the DFHack command "prospect" to see what's available, or you just play and see what you encounter and adapt accordingly.
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Automining is also possible in DF... don't know how to do this.
I am not really enthousiastic if it not follows a natural game playing
Ofcourse i am curious to see what is available.
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Well, either you use the DFHack command "prospect" to see what's available, or you just play and see what you encounter and adapt accordingly.
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Automining is also possible in DF... don't know how to do this.
I am not really enthousiastic if it not follows a natural game playing
Ofcourse i am curious to see what is available.
Automated tools are for those who want to use automated tools. They're not necessary to play the game.
Don't have iron? Kill goblins, take theirs. Accidentally drown the visitors, take theirs. Make valuable goods, buy iron. Dig way, way down and see if there's anything better than iron down there (there is, but be careful...).
Oh, and if you want to cheat, but don't want to use tools, there's a way to strip your visiting mercenaries and monster hunters of their weapons and armour without upsetting or killing them (natural gameplay bug exploitation...).
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Several undead will come with steel these days. If you can kill them, catch them, or otherwise dispose of them, you can get quite good gear.
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Several undead will come with steel these days. If you can kill them, catch them, or otherwise dispose of them, you can get quite good gear.
Right at this very moment steel clad zombies are advancing on my fortress, so I can say this is definitely true.
Of course, I have no military, no traps and the steel itself is attached to 75 undead minotaurs, so I might have to give this delivery a pass. :)
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*knock knock* Delivery!
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Also remember that while steel is undoubtedly the best weapon/armour material there is also bronze (and bismuth bronze) which are pretty much equal to iron overall. This is assuming that you can get cassiterite*/tin - but the relevance is that copper ores and cassiterite can (and usually are) found as deep metals. So all is not lost if you do not have iron! I've had several successful forts where the military predominantly used bronze.
* Cassiterite is rarer than iron in my experience.
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Thanks
I do want to try automining, but must click with mouse on a starttile, but clicking now with mouse gives not the desired result thtathe tile is selected.
Maybe it is a LNP option for DF hack ..mouse controls
No … Automating Ore/Gems: Once this tile has been processed, all neighboring tiles will be marked for mining, if they contain the same ore or gems. Can only be designated on revealed ores/gems. Will appear green.
The starttile must contain a ore/gema and then has a green color
The embark is not close to a mountainous area and probably there are no fluxlayers here ( not realized then during embark), but it doesn't matter because embark everywhere can be challence.
Caravans can bring fluxstones ?
So i think there wil be no iron ore here : it is yellow sand and sandy clay and then rocky..that is no sedimentary layer
Just for curosity i enter prospect in DFhack : Base material, liquids, layer materials, Ores= 0 , gems , and so on
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Sedimentary means sedimentary rock, i.e. rock formed from sediments, not "raw" sediments. Unless you happen to have a lot of knowledge of geology (or extensive DF game play...), you'll have to check the wiki to see what type different rocks belong to.
The dwarven caravans can indeed bring some flux.
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Thanks
Its clear that mining is useless here, so other sources are needed for getting weapons .
Perhaps i can do something with bows, but don't know the strength of archery against melee weapons.
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Thanks
Its clear that mining is useless here, so other sources are needed for getting weapons .
Perhaps i can do something with bows, but don't know the strength of archery against melee weapons.
Grind up the bad guys with weapon traps or catch them in cage traps. 10 cages, 10 trapped goblins, 10 cages full of goblinite. Enough to equip a military squad (if you don't mind them looking like goblins).
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Grind up the bad guys with weapon traps or catch them in cage traps. 10 cages, 10 trapped goblins, 10 cages full of goblinite. Enough to equip a military squad (if you don't mind them looking like goblins).
The fortress i now in year 2 and there is no enemy showing up so far
Perhaps the goblins are sneaking around ?
Don't know if the squad with Goblin equipment their appearance in the fortress gives a unpleasant feeling for the dwarves?
Or when the squad is visiting a neighbouring settlement ( that's not possible in DF)
Good idea for setting up traps for Goblins.
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When the outpost liaison comes around, ask them for iron ore (if they have any): hematite, magnetite, and limonite (they'll be listed under "Stone" in the trade-deal screen). Bump the demand slider all the way up - this will ensure that the next dwarven caravan to visit your fortress will bring four of each ore, i.e. 12 boulders of iron ore total. Since each one gives 4 bars of iron when smelted, that's potentially 48 iron bars per year, which is probably enough to outfit ~4 dwarves in full armor + weapon. It's slow going, sure, but it's better than nothing. You can supplement that iron supply with bronze as well (ask for cassiterite + some copper ore - malachite, tetrahedrite, native copper).
You can also, by the same method, ask caravans for flux stone, though you'll only ever get four boulders, which is only enough for 4 bars of steel - which, again, is better than nothing.
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Remember that melting is also an option. Caravan anvils will get you some bars if you don't mind spending a bit extra for it.
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You can also, by the same method, ask caravans for flux stone, though you'll only ever get four boulders, which is only enough for 4 bars of steel - which, again, is better than nothing.
Only four? There's up to six five types of flux, depending on what's available. Is there some kind of hardcoded limit?
Also, human caravans can send trade officials now.
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Only four? There's up to six types of flux, depending on what's available. Is there some kind of hardcoded limit?
Oh yeah, sorry, you're right - I forgot to include the different types in my calculations.
And didn't know that about humans (haven't played a .47 fort yet) - that could potentially double your iron production. Also worth noting that, if I remember correctly, you can initiate trade with distant civilizations by sending a mission demanding tribute - they'll refuse, but start sending you caravans anyway. So you could have several civilizations bringing you ores if need be.
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And didn't know that about humans (haven't played a .47 fort yet) - that could potentially double your iron production. Also worth noting that, if I remember correctly, you can initiate trade with distant civilizations by sending a mission demanding tribute - they'll refuse, but start sending you caravans anyway. So you could have several civilizations bringing you ores if need be.
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Fantastic, can try to go further with the militairy
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Also, human caravans can send trade officials now.
Thanks
At the moment i am busy with the trading in and outs.
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Remember that melting is also an option. Caravan anvils will get you some bars if you don't mind spending a bit extra for it.
Yes, melting useful too.
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If you don't mind exploits, some items (https://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2014:Melt_item#Yield) yield more metal when melted than are used to craft them.
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I actually have an interesting suggestion, if you're particular to iron ore in future forts. Turn marble into non-flux. It's just removing the reaction class from it.
Why would you do that, you ask? It's simple: All other flux stones are sedimentary. By making marble not a flux stone, you do miss out on any extra flux you might have gotten deep underground, but you can the clear ability to see sedimentary stone layers on the embark menu, no DFhack needed! It's a rather workaround way because of that; if you don't like "cheating" that helps you without handicapping you (which is a fine line, using embark-assistant is hardly cheating), or just don't have DFhack (like if you're on the new version), this is the trick I use to get my precious iron.
Or just bring a bunch of bronze making metal at embark and use the tried and tested combo of bronze armor and steel weapons from imported iron. That's what I normally do.
Of course, neither of these are of particular use to somebody with an established fort, but I think everything else has been touched on already.
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Also remember that while steel is undoubtedly the best weapon/armour material there is also bronze (and bismuth bronze) which are pretty much equal to iron overall. This is assuming that you can get cassiterite*/tin - but the relevance is that copper ores and cassiterite can (and usually are) found as deep metals. So all is not lost if you do not have iron! I've had several successful forts where the military predominantly used bronze.
* Cassiterite is rarer than iron in my experience.
I like to embark with a bunch of cassiterite. Cassiterite + any copper ore or native copper = 8 bronze. You can either embark with the copper too or almost any embark with metal is going to have tetrahedrite.
You can use bronze to make anything made of metal from weapons to furniture. Unfortunately, cassiterite is pretty rare and you may only have a couple veins of it which you won't find for quite a while.
If you want to get fancy you can also bring another relatively rare ore, bismuthinite, to make bismuth bronze instead which is basically bronze but slightly more valuable.
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I actually have an interesting suggestion, if you're particular to iron ore in future forts. Turn marble into non-flux. It's just removing the reaction class from it.
Why would you do that, you ask? It's simple: All other flux stones are sedimentary. By making marble not a flux stone, you do miss out on any extra flux you might have gotten deep underground, but you can the clear ability to see sedimentary stone layers on the embark menu, no DFhack needed! It's a rather workaround way because of that; if you don't like "cheating" that helps you without handicapping you (which is a fine line, using embark-assistant is hardly cheating), or just don't have DFhack (like if you're on the new version), this is the trick I use to get my precious iron.
Thanks
It is by embark that Marble can be bypassed (how?)as a flux stone ?
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NordicNoob is talking about modding the raws.
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Thanks
Hmm .. changing some sofware as it in the intended use is written.
Seems to me not a real challence then to enjoy DFif , if you are not consider the flux layers at embark ( in my case as unexperienced ), because there are some creative alternatives and who knows what this brings ?
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It depends on what you're doing. If you had a particular type of embark in mind, you may want to tweak things to allow it, rather than change directions and adapt. Early on, in particular, it may be useful to concentrate on a few things in a fortress in order to learn them, rather than trying to run in all directions at once.
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It depends on what you're doing. If you had a particular type of embark in mind, you may want to tweak things to allow it, rather than change directions and adapt. Early on, in particular, it may be useful to concentrate on a few things in a fortress in order to learn them, rather than trying to run in all directions at once.
It is a sort of "easy mode" then.
I am totally agree that this learning strategy can be useful, but at the other hand if there is no iron at embark at all ,then other sources of iron can be sort out as you can read here in this thread.
It is not complete yet understood by me ( has to do with the language issues) for how this tweak exactly works, but it revolves i think about Marble treated as a iron ore in not sedimentary layers and this is easily found by mining.. marble ore.
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Thanks
It is by embark that Marble can be bypassed (how?)as a flux stone ?
He's talking about editing the raws, but if your interest is just actually having flux, you can "bypass" the need to be overly concerned with whether your embark location has it by actually just bringing marble (or any other flux) with you when you embark.
If you want to have steel components, though, make sure your embark has a flux layer and plural "metals." This almost guarantees iron ore and flux. Flux is fairly easily obtained from the dwarven caravan, though, by making sure to request it at high priority from the outpost liaison, but you'll only get it in the second year when the caravan comes around again.
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Thanks
It is by embark that Marble can be bypassed (how?)as a flux stone ?
He's talking about editing the raws, but if your interest is just actually having flux, you can "bypass" the need to be overly concerned with whether your embark location has it by actually just bringing marble (or any other flux) with you when you embark.
Thanks
I noticed in other posts about the editing "the raws",
Did not get into yet and give it attention,but it is for modding
I did not understand all of the post of @NordicNooob anout making marble a not- flux stone ( first i thought the other way around )
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When choosing a location to embark - if the screen tells you flux stone is present, it can be any of the 4 types. Marble is found deeper, while the other three are found higher in sedimentary layers.
If you remove marble, then whenever the embark screen says flux stone, you know there is a sedimentary layer. It's a useful bit of information, but not at all necessary.
Keep focusing on little things for each fort. That's how I learned. Food production fort, trap fort, fun with water, cavern fort, etc.
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When choosing a location to embark - if the screen tells you flux stone is present, it can be any of the 4 types. Marble is found deeper, while the other three are found higher in sedimentary layers.
If you remove marble, then whenever the embark screen says flux stone, you know there is a sedimentary layer. It's a useful bit of information, but not at all necessary.
Keep focusing on little things for each fort. That's how I learned. Food production fort, trap fort, fun with water, cavern fort, etc.
Thanks
I think i undestand it now : Marble can bypassed by altering the raw offf it and it is no longer a flux stone anymore.
Seems to be easier to have the 3 sedimentary iron ores in the embark screen.
Could be that marble in the embark the only ore is ( if not bypassed in the pre embark screen) and perhaps difficult to mine if "the raw"was not altered.
Yes, the little things ..little by little ;)
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When choosing a location to embark - if the screen tells you flux stone is present, it can be any of the 4 types. Marble is found deeper, while the other three are found higher in sedimentary layers.
If you remove marble, then whenever the embark screen says flux stone, you know there is a sedimentary layer. It's a useful bit of information, but not at all necessary.
Keep focusing on little things for each fort. That's how I learned. Food production fort, trap fort, fun with water, cavern fort, etc.
Thanks
I think i undestand it now : Marble can bypassed by altering the raw if it and it is no longer a flux stone anymore
Seems to be easier to have the 3 sedimentary iron ores in the embark screen
Could be that marble in the embark the only ore is ( if not bypassed in the pre embark screen) and perhaps difficult to mine?
Yes, the little things ..little by little ;)
You also can, and probably should, supplement the coal and ore you find with more from trading. Even if it's just things that melt nicely. Cheap toys, weapons, and armor are the most common.
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I think i undestand it now : Marble can bypassed by altering the raw offf it and it is no longer a flux stone anymore.
Personally, I think any advantage to having marble not showing as flux is vastly outweighed by not having marble as flux. I'd rather have tons of marble.
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Personally, I think any advantage to having marble not showing as flux is vastly outweighed by not having marble as flux. I'd rather have tons of marble.
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Don't know yet what marble has to offer against the other 3 iron ores (flux stones) : hematite, magnitite and limonite
There are more applications of using marble probably?
When there is a pre-embark screen i try to predict at forehand where the chance is to find marble
The same fore the other iron ores in what biome or surrounding ?
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can, and probably should, supplement the coal and ore you find with more from trading. Even if it's just things that melt nicely. Cheap toys, weapons, and armor are the most common.
Thanks
In the first year of the existence of the fortress there is in autumn a dwarven caravan ( belonging to your civilization ?) visiting the fortress.
After this first year , caravans from friendly civilizations (dwarf, human and elven) will visit the fortress( the second year ,there 3 caravans to aspect..yearly)
To accelrate the trading you could send out "mission dwarfs" as soon as possible at the start of the fortress to get more caravans coming to the fortress.
Don't know how long it takes for these "mission caravans" to arrive at the fortress.
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Don't know yet what marble has to offer against the other 3 iron ores (flux stones) : hematite, magnitite and limonite
To be clear:
Iron ores are hematite, magnitite, and limonite.
Flux stones are marble, calcite, dolomite, chalk, and limestone.
Flux and iron are both needed to produce steel, alongside refined coal.
Marble has a nice value for the products it makes, so that might be part of it.
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I seem to recall that marble is a lot closer to the surface in the mountain biomes (because, you know, no sediment). The problem is often that it's the sedimentary layers (and I see igneous extrusive, marble isn't that) where the iron ores get generated, so often embarking in lower areas is more desirable (But that in turn gets you aquifers more easily).
But there was another thing marble was good for, I noticed recently what was it... *checks* Ah, quicklime. In case you want to start a parchment industry :)
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Don't know yet what marble has to offer against the other 3 iron ores (flux stones) : hematite, magnitite and limonite
To be clear:
Iron ores are hematite, magnitite, and limonite.
Flux stones are marble, calcite, dolomite, chalk, and limestone.
Flux and iron are both needed to produce steel, alongside refined coal.
Marble has a nice value for the products it makes, so that might be part of it.
Thanks
Good to clarify this from you , flux stones are not iron ores.
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Correct. Flux is used in the process to make steel out of iron (and flux and coal). Thus, flux is more valuable to me than iron, because with lots of flux I can create lots of steel out of goblinite (assuming they've got iron, which isn't always the case in my mineral poor worlds). With iron and no flux you'd be limited to the flux you can import, which is an extremely limited quantity (and there's no guarantee your civ even has flux to sell via caravans).
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But there was another thing marble was good for, I noticed recently what was it... *checks* Ah, quicklime. In case you want to start a parchment industry :)
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If it is lucrative the parchment industry, why not and its good for writing down accumelated knowledge for the dwarfs:
Writing down laws , and great stories like that :)
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delphonso listed the types of stones that can be used for flux...