Mining - Supports and Snacking

[dariun]

Hi all

This has probably been asked before but I couldn't find anything that answers my question so here I go:

I have a support beam in my mine and can see the radius. I understand that to be counted as a supported tile the centre of the square has to be covered by the supports radius.

I am attempting to "snake" out of the supports radius and as I am aware a line of 4+ squares will cause cave ins so snaking sections are no longer than 3...I can see this ingame as my neighbour is snaking toward my area.

Problem is I have a 2 square section (1 square within radius and 1 square mostly out of radius) and while attempting to mine the 3rd square it caused a small cave in followed by a massive one. Is this normal? I haven't tried other places for fear of bringing the whole mine down on me and was wondering why I can't seem to snake out of the supports radius without causing massive cave ins.

Edit: I don't particularly want to build another support so close to the other (even though it would be on its edge it would overlap by around 50%) so if I am not able to "snake" away a little and then place another support would I HAVE to overlap several supports?

Many thanks for help in advance!

[_Gunnar]

Start your snake further in from the edge of the support radius - then you will have no problems i think. For this one you are just going to have to build another support though I think.

I may be getting it wrong, a screenshot would help enormously.

[Snk]

You can definitly snake out of mine support radius. You need to keep in mind thou that all tiles behind you, even if covered by support, count towards the straight line when you're starting to dig outside of radius. If you posted a screenshot we could see if there's something wrong with your attempt. Also cave-ins are more likely to happen if there are already some cave-in rocks around, so if you can reach them all destroy them to lower the chance of new cave-in.

[dariun]

Hi and thanks for your help!

Screenshot attached.

As you can see it's the BOTTOM left side of the screenie.

The 2 square section is actually outside of the supports radius and not 1 in and 1 out as previously thought, my bad. In either case if mining the 3rd square it would only create a 3x1 line and not a 4x1 so I am not sure why it caused multiple cave ins.

The cave in boulders were not present before, I am still clearing them up!

[Snk]

It's not a proper snake because you have a line of three mined tiles (one with cuppoard and two west of it) behind you that you're digging from. That's why it collapsed. It could've collapsed even on the tile that you successfully mined, you just were lucky it didn't. That part on a bottom right of ss would work as a snake if you continued it in that pattern.

[dariun]

Hello

Wouldn't the area with the cave in boulder work? The area going S (or pointing to the bottom left corner of the ss) as it's currently only a 2 square section? I was thinking it could go one more square S then I mine either W or E?

Edit: Ahh I think I get it...so basically it's not really a rule of "as long as there's not a straight line of 4 squares (inc the one being stood on) then you won't cause a cave in" but in the case of snake mining there has be an "L" shaped angle to begin the snaking and not a "T"??

[Snk]

The problem in this case is not the lenght of a straight line but the fact that you got tiles mined on the side of what your "snake" entry point was. If you started all that 2 tiles back then it would've been mitigated by mine support and would've worked but once you're mining outside then, for that purpose, you should consider it whole beeing unsupported and only continuation of properly started snake would work.

Edit: Ahh I think I get it...so basically it's not really a rule of "as long as there's not a straight line of 4 squares (inc the one being stood on) then you won't cause a cave in" but in the case of snake mining there has be an "L" shaped angle to begin the snaking and not a "T"??

Yes.

[dariun]

brilliant!

So it could have worked if I started it further back within the support radius.

Thank you both very much for your help and advice!