0004034: Metal is scarce - Dwarf Fortress Bug Tracker

Notes
(0015360) Footkerchief (manager) 2011-02-21 08:33	Does this mean that literally all of the rock on your map is gems?

(0015362) Artfunkel (reporter) 2011-02-21 11:32	No, it means that there are no mineral veins but lots of gems. I get this: OPAL_PINFIRE : 257 HELIODOR : 316 OPAL_CRYSTAL : 323 CLEAR ZIRCON : 789 QUARTZ_ROSE : 816 OPAL_PFIRE : 923 MORION : 973 YELLOW ZIRCON : 1338 BROWN ZIRCON : 1577 SPINEL_PURPLE : 2018 CRYSTAL_ROCK : 2727 WOOD OPAL : 3290 SCHORL : 4464 PRASE : 4653 ALEXANDRITE : 4759 RAW_ADAMANTINE : 10335 TETRAHEDRITE : 12160 SLADE : 210244 Adamantine is unaffected, it would seem.

(0015364) Dwarfu (manager) 2011-02-21 11:52	Tetrahedrite may cover both shallow and deep, or it is the shallow and adamantine is the deep one.

(0015365) Knight Otu (manager) 2011-02-21 12:00	If adamantine were the deep one, shouldn't it show up on every tile profile? As I understand it, adamantine pillars should show up at least once in a given area (2x2?), and potentially more often. In any case, the output linked in the original issue shows no metal ore of any kind apart from adamantine.

(0015366) Dwarfu (manager) 2011-02-21 12:29	Yeah, the adamantine makes sense. I thought the readout Artfunkel posted was from the OP's save, which shows tetrahedrite, but I see now that the OP's readout is in the DFFD link.

(0015380) dravus (reporter) 2011-02-21 18:19 edited on: 2011-02-21 18:24	I just got this myself used create world now and after finding a viable location to start I ran prospector and found this CHERRY OPAL : 19 SCHORL : 82 YELLOW SPESSARTINE : 207 MOSS OPAL : 230 ONYX OPAL : 231 GREEN ZIRCON : 306 LAPIS LAZULI : 323 MILK OPAL : 337 INDIGO TOURMALINE : 368 EMERALD : 463 RHODOLITE : 764 HORNBLENDE : 824 SMOKY QUARTZ : 977 RED ZIRCON : 1093 PRASE OPAL : 1284 OPAL_REDFLASH : 1780 BLACK ZIRCON : 2390 WOOD OPAL : 2553 RAW_ADAMANTINE : 6492 BROWN ZIRCON : 30020 OPAL_HARLEQUIN : 35897 NATIVE_GOLD : 217340 SLADE : 239083 I then ran Reveal and confirmed for the most part what Prospector was telling me.....only it didn't report the waste stones like chert and such there is something heavily wrong with the generation code

(0015414) afftor (reporter) 2011-02-23 05:47 edited on: 2011-02-23 05:51	Yes, it seems new map generator put veins extremely rare. I often discover layers made entirely from rock and haven't seen a single map where I could make at least bronze (steel is possible tho). Either this is a bug or new (unnamed?) feature.

(0015418) AbuDhabi (reporter) 2011-02-23 06:21	I think I have the same problem on my map. After drilling through to the magma sea, the only metals I've found are malachite and tetrahedrite (one vein each). In the previous versions, there were loads of ores in the caverns, and here there are none.

(0015424) Kipi (reporter) 2011-02-23 08:56	Not sure about this, but could it be that the texts "shadow metals" and "deep metals" refer to the whole layer of that specific biome in local area? I mean that the text doesn't seem to change when moving in same biome, so perhaps the game shows those text if somewhere in that specific biome there are ore veins? That the correct locations of those veins must be found by trial and error method. Only Toady is able to confirm this, though it would explain why the text is shown when clearly there are no veins in the embark area.

(0015434) Rhenaya (reporter) 2011-02-23 17:50	it was intended as far i saw, as the devblog stated that metals are really scarce now, and even if you have metals on a site it could be its only the really small patchs of aluminium. it should maybe state a little more than just "deep/shallow" metal as most forts are now hard to run without armor/weapon metals :/ and hard to plan anything at all

(0015449) Infiltrator (reporter) 2011-02-24 10:12	The fort I just started (so haven't been playing that long) on the embark screen said it had deep metals and shallow metals, as well as flux. So far all I've found is schist, gabbro, granite, diorite, a whole heap of gems and a small vein of tin and a small one of silver. I haven't been able to find any flux. I've discovered a few caverns, but they all just have junk rocks like granite and diorite. No real metal or a single stone of flux to be found.

(0015453) dravus (reporter) 2011-02-24 10:24 edited on: 2011-02-24 10:25	I think it's safe to say that even if intentional......nobody really enjoys the change should toady see this......he should revert the metal generation back to 31.18 standards

(0015473) Silophant (reporter) 2011-02-24 13:35	I don't think it's safe to say that at all. While I think metals are a bit too rare in this version, previous .31 versions had it much too common. Being able to make every piece of furniture in a fortress out of solid gold, on every single map? That was unenjoyable. We don't play DF because it's easy. It's supposed to be hard.

(0015474) dravus (reporter) 2011-02-24 14:08	I think that's too much of personal opinion see that prospector output of mine......there was nothing on the map at all other than gold and all of that gold was situated 2-5 z levels from HFS.....thanks to Reveal I found that out and there was at least 50 z levels to reach it there was nothing else on the map.......how do you think I'd of done anything?

(0015802) dree12 (reporter) 2011-03-06 08:00	This bug report has nothing to do with how scarce metal is, it's the misleading "Shallow Metal"/"Deep Metal" message. Could we get a change in summary?

(0015845) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2011-03-06 13:43 edited on: 2011-03-06 13:56	TETRAHEDRITE : 12160 is metal. 100% copper / 20% silver in fact. So the title of this report is misleading. Now... I do agree that I HATE HATE HATE the shallow metal(s)/deep metal(s) system. Here is what it seems to mean from my personal testing. I did all my testing on 2x2 embark areas. "Metal" means ONE type of metal. This is roughly 4000 units of metal in a 2x2 embark with default settings. "Metals" means TWO (or more?) types of metal. This is roughly 1300 units each of metal in a 2x2 embark with default settings. In my testing I never saw more than two types of metal. Shallow and Deep metal appear to draw from different material lists. Shallow metal is much more likely to produce copper. Deep metal is most often Iron. The obvious problem with this is you really have no clue what metal you're going to get. You could get iron, or you could get something truly worthless like lead. Even if you carefully select the most choice sites of shallow metals/deep metals than you have at MOST four different types of metals. In most cases you'll have duplicates. The best I have personally seen was copper/gold/iron with access to flux. Although you are more likely to get something truly worthless like copper/copper/copper/gold. The lack of variety in metals is truly aggravating. With this system a map that can produce bronze from local resources is even more rare than steel.

(0015847) thvaz (reporter) 2011-03-06 13:47	The fact is, in the real world one of the reasons for the rising of commerce through the mediterranean in the ancient age was the need for tin or copper to make bronze, as usually a site doesn't have both.

(0015848) DoctorZuber (reporter) 2011-03-06 13:52	That might be a valid argument if it was actually possible to trade for more than 4 bars of tin per YEAR. Even assuming you buy/melt everything you can get your grubby hands on trade is a tactic of desperation really. You'll end up with plenty of iron weapons and armor simply from surviving sieges long before you ever have any usable quantities of bronze from trade.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2011-02-20 09:12	Root Infinity	New Issue
2011-02-21 08:33	Footkerchief	Note Added: 0015360
2011-02-21 11:32	Artfunkel	Note Added: 0015362
2011-02-21 11:52	Dwarfu	Note Added: 0015364
2011-02-21 12:00	Knight Otu	Note Added: 0015365
2011-02-21 12:29	Dwarfu	Note Added: 0015366
2011-02-21 12:31	Dwarfu	Tag Attached: Save Included
2011-02-21 12:31	Dwarfu	Tag Attached: Save Needs Testing
2011-02-21 18:19	dravus	Note Added: 0015380
2011-02-21 18:24	dravus	Note Edited: 0015380	View Revisions
2011-02-21 18:24	dravus	Note Edited: 0015380	View Revisions
2011-02-23 05:47	afftor	Note Added: 0015414
2011-02-23 05:51	afftor	Note Edited: 0015414	View Revisions
2011-02-23 05:52	afftor	Issue Monitored: afftor
2011-02-23 06:21	AbuDhabi	Note Added: 0015418
2011-02-23 07:16	Footkerchief	Summary	No minerals present on embark => Metal is scarce
2011-02-23 07:17	Footkerchief	Tag Attached: Fixed in 0.31.20?
2011-02-23 08:04	afftor	Tag Attached: CLT
2011-02-23 08:05	afftor	Tag Detached: CLT
2011-02-23 08:56	Kipi	Note Added: 0015424
2011-02-23 12:48	Khym Chanur	Issue Monitored: Khym Chanur
2011-02-23 13:04	Kogut	Note Added: 0015431
2011-02-23 13:05	Kogut	Note Deleted: 0015431
2011-02-23 17:50	Rhenaya	Note Added: 0015434
2011-02-24 10:12	Infiltrator	Note Added: 0015449
2011-02-24 10:24	dravus	Note Added: 0015453
2011-02-24 10:25	dravus	Note Edited: 0015453	View Revisions
2011-02-24 13:35	Silophant	Note Added: 0015473
2011-02-24 14:08	dravus	Note Added: 0015474
2011-03-05 10:16	Footkerchief	Relationship added	related to 0001111
2011-03-06 08:00	dree12	Note Added: 0015802
2011-03-06 13:43	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0015845
2011-03-06 13:46	DoctorZuber	Note Edited: 0015845	View Revisions
2011-03-06 13:47	thvaz	Note Added: 0015847
2011-03-06 13:47	DoctorZuber	Note Edited: 0015845	View Revisions
2011-03-06 13:52	DoctorZuber	Note Added: 0015848
2011-03-06 13:56	DoctorZuber	Note Edited: 0015845	View Revisions
2011-03-06 14:05	Footkerchief	Status	new => resolved
2011-03-06 14:05	Footkerchief	Fixed in Version	=> 0.31.20
2011-03-06 14:05	Footkerchief	Resolution	open => fixed
2011-03-06 14:05	Footkerchief	Assigned To	=> Toady One
2011-03-06 14:57	Khym Chanur	Issue End Monitor: Khym Chanur
2011-03-17 09:53	afftor	Issue End Monitor: afftor
2011-10-29 05:45	Dwarfu	Tag Detached: Fixed in 0.31.20?
2012-03-02 17:40	Dwarfu	Tag Detached: Save Needs Testing