Posted October 21, 2018 Question about lava tiles... I'm running a custom world I drew up on a tablet, of which has 3 volcanoes. When I drew up the world I explicitly placed lava tiles to form volcanic craters and a few lava flows. However the lava flows regularly cool down into rock, so I regularly have to enable GM on myself and paint them back. Ideally I'd like the lava to be there for a significantly long time, as I consider them geographical features players and alike should have to work around. I'm wondering what in the game influences how lava spreads, and why mine all cools down to rock too quickly? (And whether a mod could reduce this.) So far I've only seen lava tiles spread north and south, mostly north. (Never west or east.) Also if you wall in a lava tile, the lava will always damage and destroy the wall to the north within a few minutes leaving all other directions unharmed, which leads me to believe lava has a bias to flow northward regardless of slope. That being said one of the volcanoes on my world has a northward flowing river by design, though the rate of cooling into rock significantly outpaces the spread. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 22, 2018 (edited) Lava has two layers. The surface and underground. I think painting the surface as GM, does not do the underground. May be thats why its cool too quick. Edited October 22, 2018 by bigsteve Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 22, 2018 Would that also apply to using the erupt option? Erupt causes lava to layer on top of the rock a bit, you visibly see the surface rise, though it cools down just as quick becoming rock at the higher height. (I use erupt for the craters as I like how this causes lava tiles to appear underground like a shaft.) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 22, 2018 From my experience with errupt, (the path of power ability), it does do the surface layer and the underground shaft. It may be a game mechanic that cooling of lava occures quicker at higher heights. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 22, 2018 Hm possibly. I've not noticed any difference between sea level and high up, though I only use erupt at the very top. I'll try a few erupts down by the sea and see (hur hur) what happens. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 23, 2018 I took a look at the code... Normal lava tiles have 1/30 chance to freeze and 1/40 chance to spread downhill... so ultimately they will all freeze over time You can set lava tile data to -1 (with ebony wand Special->Set data) - tiles like that won't ever freeze and can spread uphill as well. Tiles that spread from them will be "normal" tiles that can still freeze. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Posted October 23, 2018 Thanks bdew, that's very useful feedback. It'll take a while but good to know that data -1 will prevent lava from freezing. This makes me wish I had a Java development environment prepared. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
