Editing 40d:Mining

 

'''Mining''' is an essential part of building a fort in Dwarf Fortress. There are several reasons you might want to mine, such as [[exploratory mining|searching]] for various [[stone types]], or simply to create the basic tunnels and [[room]]s in your fort. Mining a tile preserves both the floor and ceiling of that tile.

A [[miner]] also requires an available [[pick]].  A dwarf's [[Attribute#Agility|Agility]] affects the speed at which material is mined, but the quality or material of a pick has no effect on any aspect of mining - a [[quality|no-quality]] [[copper]] pick is the same as a [[quality|masterwork]] [[steel]] or [[adamantine]] one.  (The same is not true for picks in [[weapon|combat]].)

# Press {{K|d}}esignate to bring up the [[Designations]] menu.

When a tile has been mined, the surrounding walls and floor will most likely be some kind of rough stone. To make these surfaces look less primitive, you can [[smooth]] and [[engrave]] them. [[Soil]]s, such as loam, clay, or sand, cannot be smoothed or engraved.

{{Main|40d:Stone management}}

Any useful material such as rock or [[ore]] is deposited on the ground excavated by the tile, and while loose stone will not impede movement, it can prop open [[door]]s, slow construction, and prevent open space from being used as a [[stockpile]]; therefore it is often desirable to haul stones away. You can assign stone hauling duties to specific dwarves just like you assigned them to be a miner. Make sure you have stockpiles where all the different [[stone]] types can be stored, too. Be careful which dwarves you assign to hauling if you have a massive dig going, or they might drop whatever other important stuff they were doing just to clear the paths. Typically miners will mine out stone far faster than haulers can properly clear it, particularly if the stockpile is a distance away. It is usually more sensible to designate stone to be [[dump]]ed, as a 1x1 garbage dump can hold an infinite number of items.

There are alternatives to hauling. [[Mason]]s or [[Stone crafter]]s can build their respective [[workshop]]s next to or on top of a large pile of stone for clearing, and then create items out of the stone to clear it. Masons can create [[furniture]] (which takes as much space as the original stone itself, but is at least useful); they can also create [[block]]s, which unlike stone and furniture can be stacked in [[bin]]s. Craftdwarves can create various smaller items which can also be stacked in bins. Assuming you have sufficient bins, place a stockpile right next to the worksite and your haulers will only have to take the items a very short distance to place them neatly in stacks. This is a huge timesaver on large projects. Just be careful about what you make. Stone blocks are useful, but a bin completely full of stone blocks is extremely heavy and hard to move around. [[Craft]]s of all sorts are usually very light, but certain job types make multiple products out of single stones, which will multiply your hauling problem - mugs are always produced in groups of 3, toys and instruments are always made 1 at a time, and a single "make stone crafts" job can produce 1-3 items.

Before digging, you might want to make sure you understand how the [[z-level]]s work.

The most basic dig action is {{K|d}} '''mine'''. When this option is selected you can mark areas to be hollowed out from the current layer. Mining a tile preserves both the floor and the ceiling of that tile. [[Channel]]ing, by contrast, removes the current floor and mines out the level below, while [[stairs]] and [[ramp]]s enable creatures to move between levels.

Indiscriminate digging may cause [[Cave-in]]s.

To pick a vein (which is to say, a tile designated for some kind of dig job), dwarves seem to use a strategy similar to the one used for chopping [[tree]]s or selecting [[plant]]s to gather. Generally, they seem to pick the deepest, northwestern-most vein. Notably, dwarves <i>do not</i> pick the closest vein.

The Top Views try to show how digging into the mountain (on Layer 2) leaves a ceiling (floor) on the layer above. This is represented on the Side View by a thin line. Try to think of the [[mountain]] as a series of boxes where with a thin lid ontop of each. At any place the box can be filled or empty, and the lid above be there or not there. For example, imagine building a [[wall]], and then building a [[floor]] on top of the wall. (Building a wall creates a floor on the next level by default, but this doesn't stop you building another floor construction on top of it!)

''Revised theory'': Imagine the 3D world as a grid of boxes. Each box can have one of three states; [[Wall]]ed, [[Open space]], [[Floor]].

*If it is [[Open space]], then it has no Floor and may be accessible.

* Mining into damp walls usually leads to [[flood]]ing. Be especially careful near large [[river]]s and [[aquifer]]s. The game will warn you before this actually occurs, unless it happens to be a dry season when water has temporarily dried up.  Note that damp walls still occur below rivers and murky pools but will not flood unless the above floor is removed (digging [[ramp]]s, etc).

* Mining into warm walls usually leads to [[magma]] flooding. The game will warn you before this occurs.  Like damp walls, mining warm walls will not flood magma if you are 1 z-level below the magma unless the floor above is also removed. '''Digging upwards, especially with ramps, will NOT warn you.'''

* Building [[channel]]s will not only remove the floors, ramps or walls on the current level, but also mine out the walls on the z-level below. Digging a channel will ALWAYS remove a wall, if there is a wall to remove.

* [[Map tile]]s &ndash; Different types of walled, floor and open spaces

* [[Exploratory mining]] &ndash; Mining focused on finding valuable [[stone]]

* [[Stone]] &ndash; A list of different types of stones and ores left behind from mining.<br>

* [[Soil]] &ndash; A list of soil types.

* [[Ramp]]

* [[Stairs]]

* [[Channel]]