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[whale_biologist]

Sorry if this has been asked to death, but - what do I need to look for to make sure I'll have access to iron ores when I embark? My first fort with an aquifer looked like it had alot of potential, then I breach the aquifer and my reward is... ZINC, infinite zinc woo...

so now I'm trying a location, it's in a jungle, and I've hit obsidian and natural gold in the first few layers, but nothing really hinting at the presence of iron ores, or lignite for that matter.

Am I doing something wrong? It seems like other DF players don't have this problem.

[guitarxe]

I'm having trouble finding iron, too. Two things that helped me:

1). User "create new world with advanced parameters" and change the mineral scarcity to a lower number. Something like 100 pretty much guarantees iron, I think?

2). Get DFHack (it's a tool) from the modding forums and use it's "prospect all" command before you embark and it'll tell, approximately, what kind of minerals are on the embark site. This tremendously speeds up finding sites with iron.

[whale_biologist]

Thanks, Im currently generating a world with the scarcity at 2,000 (instead of 2500) going to see how that goes.

I'm using .11 so the latest release of DFhack is incompatible with the version im using, which is a shame because I could use it to fix a glitch on my zinc fort.

I haven't embarked on the sides of any mountains yet, all of my embarks have been in open forests, or swamps so far, does the biome have any impact on the ores?

[guitarxe]

2,000 down from 2,500 isn't going to give you any noticeable difference. Set it to 1,000 at least if you don't want to overdo it.

You can patch DFHack to work with .11 by copying over a simple .xml file. You can find info on that in the DFHack thread.

Biomes do play an important role because iron usually only appears in sedimentary layers. I think those happen most often in zones with high drainage and with flux stone. So searching for those two in your world might give you better chances.

But to be honest, personally I gave up not only simply finding iron but also in spots that I like, so I modded iron to appear in every kind of stone and now I have iron everywhere 

[helmacon]

Yes, I have this problem to. my first four forts i only had nickle, copper in two of them, and some silver once. And every single one had Zinc.

I am so sick of zinc.

My last fort i got lucky with ten shiz loads of iron, and flux, and coal.

[orius]

so now I'm trying a location, it's in a jungle, and I've hit obsidian and natural gold in the first few layers, but nothing really hinting at the presence of iron ores, or lignite for that matter.

Likely you've got an embark with layers of igneous rock if you've got obsidian and gold.  You might be lucky and have hematite, but if your mineral scarcity is at 2000-2500 I wouldn't count on it.

[GhostDwemer]

Some ideas:

1.) Play without iron ore, get your iron from trade and invaders. Copper, glass or even wooden weapon traps will protect you. You don't need iron.
2.) Set mineral scarcity to 100. If getting iron is crucial to you, why would you not do this?
3.) Lower volcanism. Hematite is the only iron ore that will appear in igneous (i.e. volcanic) rock.
4.) DFHack "prospect all" at the embark screen.

Soldier skill, rather than equipment, impacts combat outcomes the most. A stark naked legendary wrestler with no weapons will DEMOLISH a squad of untrained steel clad dwarves nine times out of ten. Sure, having steel is cool and all, but it is totally unnecessary.

[Sutremaine]

Bronze is a pretty good material if your civ has access to copper ore, cassiterite, and either lignite or coal. Six lumps of ore will get you 24 bars, which is enough for two sets of equipment. You need 22 fuel to smelt the ore and forge all the pieces, which translates into either 3 lumps of coal or 6 lumps of lignite. There's also the starter fuel (get charcoal; it's only 7 dorfbucks more expensive and saves having to mess around with wood burning). Unfortunately, I've found cassiterite to be one of the first things to go as mineral scarcity rises.

There's also the issue of slowdown from armour. The average dwarf (ie. one created in the Arena) will be down to about 80% speed if they're Proficient with armour and wearing full bronze. Leaving the bronze shield, breastplate, and greaves off the list and using leather or wood equivalents will halve the weight of a dwarf's equipment (leaving them at 95% speed). Don't forget the cloaks, you'll need the extra layering.

[whale_biologist]

I don't want to mess with the mineral scarcity too much, It feels like cheating to me. 2000 from 2500 is 2% scarcity down from the default 2.5% scarcity, which doesn't sound like much - but is still 20% more minerals in a given embark location over the default.

I generated a small world with 1.5% scarcity, and saw gems in the sides of small cliffs on one embark. This kind of turned me off to the idea of lowering the scarcity value.

So given how unpredictable it is, do any of you embark with dwarves that have more than novice skills in the blacksmithing skills?
I'm having a hard time coming up with different embarking strategies. Is Obsidian your go-to material for dwarf-land defense when you try to embark on a mountain/glacier with no trees and potentially just zinc ore?

<<edit: didn't move a decimal properly>>

[ashton1993]

I'm using .11 so the latest release of DFhack is incompatible with the version im using, which is a shame because I could use it to fix a glitch on my zinc fort.

I've managed to get it working perfect with this.

[whale_biologist]

thanks for linking the .xml file, The good dwarves of Birdknives, the zinc empire may yet be rid of permanently falling elkbird cages

[HiEv]

I never used to find iron, but since I started embarking in areas that have both rivers and ocean biomes so I could have plenty of stuff for my dwarves to fish, I've been swimming in iron.  I always look for both shallow and deep metals (plural!) in the site finder as well.

I've since found out that the reason why is that the ores of iron (hematite, magnetite, and limonite) are almost exclusively found in sedimentary layers, and rivers and oceans produce sediments, if you get my drift. 

So, try looking for areas like that and you'll probably solve your iron woes.

[Uggh]

I never used to find iron, but since I started embarking in areas that have both rivers and ocean biomes so I could have plenty of stuff for my dwarves to fish, I've been swimming in iron.

Maybe there is something to it. I just started my very first fort in 34.?? (34.10) in a river/ocean biome and iron ore is already visible at the surface.

[TSTwizby]

I never really use iron much somehow. I refuse to use normal forges, so I generally dig down to magma whenever I need to smelt anything, which sort of renders iron obsolete usually. I generally get huge amounts of it from invading goblins though, which I make chains out of since I've had a disproportionate amount of chain-loving nobility lately.

[King of Blades]

I never really use iron much somehow. I refuse to use normal forges, so I generally dig down to magma whenever I need to smelt anything, which sort of renders iron obsolete usually. I generally get huge amounts of it from invading goblins though, which I make chains out of since I've had a disproportionate amount of chain-loving nobility lately.

What does using magma forges have to do with iron becoming obsolete?  The only thing that makes iron obsolete is steel or candy.