Lift & Pulley Excavation

[Archiplex]

Mining is a mindless task that has been made more and more frustrating over time, but in ways I can see acceptable. However, arguably one of the WORST parts of finding the mother lode comes after mining everything one by one, dodging cave slimes and dying pillars, and stockpiling everything together.

The worst part is transporting all of it to the surface, because the best method you can use is carts filled with wheelbarrows. You can build a wagon, but wagons can't go up and down mineholes, so eventually you'll be stuck with a cart anyways (even if just used to bring the wheelbarrows up to another wagon)

Thus, I propose another addition to the "machinery" system: A rope and pulley excavation structure. The structure should be built inside a building OR as an expansion to the mine hole structure. It should be able to hold a large amount of objects (that is, wheelbarrows), or just serve as a VERY LARGE stockpile. You can only function with it while the 'lift' is on your level, and you can right click the structure to 'pull' the lift up/down to the level you're on.

This would serve as single structure that can reach down to as many connected mineholes/connected floors (if its a building, presumably it would create additional 'holes' in the ground in the layers beneath), of which you could bring ore and stones to for faster transport to the surface.

[Vigilance]

good concept but proposed execution wouldnt be that much easier than current cart-of-6-plus system because you've still ultimately gotta load and unload at the lift. in fact, would objectively be worse because i can't hearth back to the lift. would be a lot more aesthetic than a mountain of ore stockpiles i guess? but then you've eliminated the ability to sort...

unless you're proposing that i can build the lift container anywhere within a radius of the original lift structure, in which case maybe it could be kind of useful in an incredibly ore dense area? but from my experiences this world across three separate regions across every cave level i had to travel many many minimaps between actually fruitful nodes.

not sure if i completely understand the proposed execution so correct me if i dont get something, but i do agree that the logistics of mining are the least enjoyable part of it.

[Archiplex]

No you've got a good idea of it, you're right in that it definitely might not be all too much of an improvement- it cuts out the 'cart' from the equation and lowers it down to just the wagon (and eliminates the mountain of stockpiles- which i think is a lot too since right now there's a LOT of clicking and moving and time being spent on that). The main idea was essentially that; letting wagons sort of be able to be used more efficiently and to make moving ore from layer 9 to surface faster and easier.

It probably wouldn't make the entire ordeal completely painless, although perhaps in tandem a new animal-powered vehicle that acts as a sort of 'mega' wheelbarrow could be implemented too. Should be big enough so that most of the use for it is the mass-transport of similar goods across long distances rather than the wheelbarrow being a 'small scale' movement thing.

Also picture for what i was imagining as the ore lift system:

[Vigilance]

see i just can't imagine that suggested implementation actually being useful unless its virtually free to build (It won't be.) and that's from the turbo-sperg miner perspective. i've tried every way under the sun to move ore and the problem is actually handling the wheelbarrows and moving the now-full wheelbarrows places. in an ideal world i could just empty my inventory in to a container that brought my ore where it needed to go, like a minecart i could just send down the rails to the minehole and accumulate a big ass pile there, which at that point would work pretty fucking cool with this idea?

[Archiplex]

see i just can't imagine that suggested implementation actually being useful unless its virtually free to build (It won't be.) and that's from the turbo-sperg miner perspective. i've tried every way under the sun to move ore and the problem is actually handling the wheelbarrows and moving the now-full wheelbarrows places. in an ideal world i could just empty my inventory in to a container that brought my ore where it needed to go, like a minecart i could just send down the rails to the minehole and accumulate a big ass pile there, which at that point would work pretty fucking cool with this idea?

A mine cart, at the very least, would be pretty neat. Not sure if a rail system is entirely setting appropriate (as in, i actually have no idea if they were around, but i mean we have brick houses and windmill milling machines so probably?), but i'd definitely love to see something like that. The lift could be semi expensive, but laying down rails should be fairly cheap- and from there its just pushing around minecarts loaded with ore.

[Vigilance]

man what year even is this game supposed to represent any more

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reisszug

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_re_metallica

[MagicManICT]

man what year even is this game supposed to represent any more

Good question.

A mine cart, at the very least, would be pretty neat. Not sure if a rail system is entirely setting appropriate

Been a while since this has come up. Mine carts that were mule or donkey drawn were the thing (small enough, strong enough to haul ore through mine shafts). Rails didn't show up until late middle ages, maybe Renaissance if memory serves, but might have been a bit earlier or later.

Nifty idea. I'd love a bit more automation. And to answer Vigilance's "thought," I'd be sitting with a second client to unload ore at the top. If there's some way to minimize the clicky clicky, it'd be great.

[boreial]

Would also Like to see large ore/coal bins, 1k cap. rather than a dozen piles of 70 per stack or 100 in the case of coal. But I guess that would fall in the catagory of "infinite stockpiles for everything" trope.