about mining (World7)

[asval]

I mined a a cave tile and about 4 boulders came down on the cave tiles, not the mined ones.

I survived but that's sorta shaken my confidence sine I thought cave tiles where always safe and only the mined ones could get boulders.

[Belizan4321]

For what it's worth, I've mined three tiles in total past the initial cave floor (in different locations, before I realized snake mining didn't work anymore . I've gotten two cave-ins. But one missed! 8D. So, YMMV of course, but cave-ins seem very, very common.

I haven't found any accessible metal yet, despite having access to a rather large tunnel network with soft stone :/. Personally, I think 75% effective support would not be my preference. I'd rather see either a non-metal support that would either give warning time before the cave-in (so I could run!) or reduced the damage caused by the cave-in (yes I know about miner's helms, but chickens and eggs, it would be great in this pre-metal stage).

BTW, a different historical option would be surface mining/panning. Such a mechanic could be set up to produce enough metal to build supports but be far too labor/time intensive for any real metal industry (not to mention quality limitations). This process was, btw, one of the classic methods of prospecting as well, iir.
A nice thought for W8! (If we're allowed to have nice thoughts?)

[wagado]

When you build a mine hole you have to mine a first tile without mine support.
Is the first tile safe or not ?
I've heard it's not and I'm a bit afraid

[krikke93]

When you build a mine hole you have to mine a first tile without mine support.
Is the first tile safe or not ?
I've heard it's not and I'm a bit afraid

I think it's not 100% safe, but from my experience, you can hardly get a cave-in from the first tile. It is possible, but seems very rare.
either you just think "the chances are very low, I'll just mine and hope nothing happens" or you bring your constitution high enough to be safe (depending on which floor you are on).

[DDDsDD999]

I thought cave tiles where always safe and only the mined ones could get boulders.

You thought wrong.

[mrkittens]

Finally got the minehole down today, got a cave in before I even mined one tile.



So I came to read this thread and realised I needed a support, luckily we had one bar of metal from a trade. And then...



There is way too much Catch-22 about this. I agree snake mining was an exploit that needed fixing, but this seems like an impossible situation. you need metals to get metals and you need to mine to build a mine support so that you can mine.

[borka]

you need to pave - 2 tiles away from wall - and build a support

also it's not a good idea to mine in a corner of minehole without supports...you might try in the middle of the wall to dig out one tile for a support to have it cover a bigger range (as in above)

[mrkittens]

you need to pave

You can't pave cave floor, it's not necessary anyway. It just won't let me build within a radius of the minehole. Can't even build a crate or whatever. So you HAVE to mine without supports, whether you have the metal for them or not.

[borka]

you need to pave

You can't pave cave floor, it's not necessary anyway. It just won't let me build within a radius of the minehole. Can't even build a crate or whatever. So you HAVE to mine without supports, whether you have the metal for them or not.

since when can't you pave on cavefloor? How do you think i build houses, kilns, smelters... in caves? The first thing i do in caves is pave a minimum square of 4 tiles to build crates on it, mostly i pave even more for storage signs. And for sure you can pave in mineholes aswell ...

I don't think it was ninjachanged in the last 3 days

you can't pave digged out tiles in caves / mines where you can build on straight away

[mrkittens]

And for sure you can pave in mineholes aswell ...

You can't do anything around the minehole ladder (besides drop things), trust me I've just spent a while trying to. I mined in the middle of a wall like you suggested and built the support on that tile, luckily no cave in this time.