Dwarf Fortress has many materials in the game. While some are common and used frequently, other materials are only there for serving a specific purpose. flux stones rarely used, but play a significant role in the game.
Flux stones are essentially stones classified under the flux materials. They have a material value of two instead of the usual one of normal stone. You can use flux stones to create pig iron and steel at a smelter. However, getting hands on this material is relatively tricky.
How to Get Flux Stones in Dwarf Fortress
To get flux stones in Dwarf Fortress, you can mine them out like most other resources. However, there is a trick to identifying the right place when mining.
Flux stones are present in layers, which is shown on the embark screen. You can determine if a site has Flux Stone or not by looking at the pre-embark screen. Chalk, Dolomite and Limestone are all flux stones. They form in the sedimentary layer, which is also filled with small chunks of Calcite, another Flux Stone.
Apart from the above materials, Marble is also a Flux Stone found after you dig deep. Since Marble is part of the metamorphic layer, you can find it in almost all biomes.
Related: How Dwarf Fortress Inspired Minecraft and Other Imitators
Sometimes mining can become tedious and time taking. Fortunately, you can also trade and collect Flux Stone, if you don’t fancy mining. We recommend trading other materials to buy stones and not blocks, because blocks can’t make pig iron and steel.
How to Use Flux Stones in Dwarf Fortress
You can use flux stones to make steel at a smelter. To make steel, you need to make pig iron first. It takes one iron bar, one unit of fuel, and one flux stone to create pig iron. While you can use pig iron in construction work, we will try to make steel out of it. To make steel, we need one bar of pig iron, one iron bar, one flux stone, and one unit of fuel.
When you are bored with all the mining, check out How to Grow Plants in Dwarf Fortress.
