Bay 12 Games Forum

This sort of frustration is why I always up my metal frequency in world gen. But, I have been learning to be happy with cassiterite and tetrahedrite. As far as armor goes, bronze is -almost- as good as iron.

I'd easily settle for bronze. In fact I think bronze is just a more interesting metal than iron and it feels more dwarfy to me. Problem is I never find a site with both cassiterite and tetrahedrite. I've seen one or the other, but never both at once. It is quite frustrating indeed.

Have you modified your world gen parameters at all?  The variable controlling mineral frequency (MINERAL_SCARCITY) is sort of inverse:  Larger numbers make minerals more scarce.  Default is 2500, I believe.  Try setting it to 1000 or 1500, and you might like the results more.  Or if you've already raised it, try lowering it back to the default 2500.

I tried genning a world with frequency set as low as 850 I think. Still no iron in 5 different embark sites. Other ore, but never more than 2-3 types per map., and one of the is virtually always galena. I'm seriously tempted to set it all the way to 100 just so I know for sure whether or not iron is generating.

The very first map I embarked on with 34.05 had tons of iron and other ores right away. Magnetite, hematite, platinum, gold. Also bituminous coal and whatnot. Sadly no flux at all, but itīs just to disprove that there is something wrong with iron distribution in 34.05. I revealed the map and went down to the magma sea, looked pretty normal to me.

Good to know. I must just be getting extremely unlucky then. Still, this strikes me as something being wrong with the way minerals form in v34.05. It should not take me 20+ embarks to find iron ore, especially when there is a sedimentary flux layer virtually every embark.

Okay, is it just me, or is something seriously messed up with the way stone forms in v34.05? First we have the flux stone site finder bug, and then when I actually get to a site, it just gets weirder from there.

Firstly, I can't find iron ore.

Anywhere.

I mean literally, anywhere. I have created about 5 worlds so far, and every single one of them I have embarked in 3-5 distinct locations looking for iron ore. Give or take, we're talking about at least 15 seperate fortress, probably more. In none of them, have I ever found any iron ores after a quick series of prospecting digs.

Furthermore, something is seriously up with how the game decides to distribute things in each layer. There is often an extremely limited amount of different stone types per layer. One time, I surveyed a layer of marble (which was 11 layers underground for some reason), and there was NOTHING in that layer in like a 200x200 dig survey but Marble and rough Golden Beryls. And by that I mean literally nothing but those two things. That was it. And it was like that for not ONE layer as I soon discovered, but for the next FOUR, LAYERS. Four layers of nothing but marble and golden beryls.

Whats up with that, huh? And that was just one example of the weirdness. I have many other similar cases in EVERY v34.05 site I have gone to in which there are only 2-3 types of stone per layer. And oh yes Galena. I would say, 75% of the time, Galena is the most prevalent ore on these sites. It's absolutely EVERYWHERE and there's not one single type of iron oe to be found. I am beginning to truly despise galena.

Point is, I want to at least start with iron ore. And I can't find iron ore. Anywhere. I haven't seen this posted as a bug anywhere, so I'm going to assume it's not considered a bug. Then what am I doing wrong? In previous versions, Iron used to be common enough that there would be iron ore on the map of virtually every other fortress. Now I can't find it at all and I am getting increasingly frustrated in that I can't start a fortress in my most minimal desired conditions.