I'm looking just as much forward to keeping the same seed number but changing the parameters very slightly, say increasing sea level by a point, and seeing how much the world changes.
That, and designing worlds with parameters. See if I can make one whole continent by having oceans surrounding the whole world. Or set Vulcanism to max, temperature to minimum, add lots of moisture, and mess with the whole thing to create weird nigh-inhospitable worlds.
Toady One mentioned that special biomes might be needed to make realistic "superterrain" where the terrain is Io-an or Europa-an. Perhaps a world where the coldest parts are the poles, where the climate is much like our sahara, and on the equator, the stones begin to soften in the sun; the biome could be "semi-magmatic". a "magmatic" biome would be one where there is a surface ocean of lava. Ohh... a magmatic/glacier coastline would be incredible.
Other ultrabiomes... Regolithic- that is a cold, dry, airless area, lunar surface. Crystaline trees grow over millenia from the wastes, and unearthly, unliving creatures stalk the silent void. there is hardly any air as such gases condense to a liquid or even a solid in tiny puddles.
Semi-regolithic: a border area to places almost sane in terms of cold, where the odd flake of snow drifts on nearly dead winds perhaps once in a lifetime. Ice sculptures endure like the hardest stone.
Hydraulic: At this temperature, water is no different than any other mineral in the geologic cycle, and so mountains and structures do not erode via any process other than wind. This just barely is "Terran" as it could be what the surface of the south pole was like during the last ice age. There is still a minuscule amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, and clouds of ice might even form.
Glacial-
Temporate-
Desert-
Anhydraulic Desert- a currently forming new biome on earth's surface, the next step up from the hottest of current deserts. there can be no life as we know it- water is all but entirely vaporized here. at noon, paper will brown in a few minutes, and if you shine a mirror on it, it will fully combust.
semi-magmatic: most stones will be close to melting in these areas- there is no sand as such small particles stick together into new sandstone as they form. this is only rocky wasteland, and almost all organic materials will burst into flames instantly.
magmatic: almost all minerals will melt at surface pressure at this temperature. There is only magma, and tiny outcroppings of those few resilient stones that can survive. There is not water in this environment- the heat causes such light gases to vaporise into space. This is where one might find Spirits of Fire lounging in the heat, crafting with the only few metals that survive the heat- steel and some specialized form of bronzes.
Well, how's that? That should be enough to model any earth-sized planetary body of any temperature. On both extremes, not only would one suffocate from lack of oxygen (in one the O2 is frozen, in the other oxidation is explosively rapid), but you would "burn" not only from heat but also from stellar radiation. These "climates" might be a little tough on your dwarves, seeing as an unprotected human would die in seconds.
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Topic: What will be your first costum world once the next relea (Read 4583 times)