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OswaldZeid

Digging Up Safely

12 posts in this topic

This might should go in the Support forum as a bug report, but I'm not sure if it's intended behavior or not, and it didn't fit the standard bug report format terribly well - posting it here instead, to see what the community thinks about the subject.

 

I haven't been playing TFC for very long, started just before the .79 update came out. In .78 mining was pretty trivial, and I don't think I ever really used support beams - for the most part, I just mined out the vein and dodged the occasional falling cobblestone. 

 

Since .79 my mining has become decidedly more orderly, and I've gone through several iterations while trying to refine my mining style. I've gotten to the point where I can mostly avoid cave-ins with proper mining techniques - but digging upwards has continued to be a point of frustration, so after the .79.7 update today I decided to take a look at the source, and see what had changed - and it appears that mining up safely is currently impossible.

 

For those following along at home: https://github.com/Deadrik/TFCraft/blob/49499c520f35adf9367fcb28a2d498f041ab27ff/src/Common/com/bioxx/tfc/Blocks/Terrain/BlockCollapsable.java#L159

 

This method gets called with the block's coordinates (i,j,k) randomly when blocks are mined nearby, to check if there are supports around that keep it from starting a cave-in. The first for loop iterates over the y-dimension, between -1 and 1, inclusive on both ends - so we're checking for supports on 3 y-levels, centered on the block we're checking. Inversely, for any given support, it'll potentially be able to support blocks on 3 layers. So, for a standard 3x3 mineshaft cross-section:

 

XXXXX

XXXXX

XVHVX

XV   VX

XV   VX

XXXXX

 

(x is stone, v is vertical support, h is horizontal support)
 

The green stone is supported, and red isn't. If we want to dig upwards to either mine out minerals, or build a shaft upwards, we start to mine out the blocks above the arch to make room for another layer of supports, causing the blocks above them to fail both the canFallBelow and the !isNearSupport part - so we get a cave-in, if the RNG picks one of the unsupported blocks. And since these blocks are going to fall on the supports and break them, things can get worse - every dropped piece of cobblestone needs to be cleared to replace the supports, and can potentially fire the RNG shotgun when mined. 

 

While in general the mining mechanics are an improvement over .78, I think they need some tweaking. A commit a few days ago changed the original < to <= increasing the range a stone looks in upwards, which extended the support's range downward - so unless I'm missing something, mining upwards safely has never been really possible. 

 

Not sure of the solution, gameplay-wise. Logically, the old range makes the most sense: [-1, 1) means a horizontal support will provide support on its layer and the one above it - or those layers that are in contact with the support. The range [-1, 1] gives us support on the layer below, which means you can safely do 3x3 mines and mine ore in the walls without cave-ins - which is handy. However, the lack of a safe way to dig upwards is a real pain. Realistically, digging upwards without supports should be really hazardous - but there should be a way to do it with supports, I'd think. Perhaps buff the supports vertically, and to balance it out and further encourage supports, make mining a block from the bottom even more likely to cause a cave-in?

 

Thoughts?

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I have noticed this post, and made note of it to come back to and read through in the future when I'm less busy. If you don't hear a response back from me or one of the devs in the next week, please PM me.

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I've been reading through that class file too, trying to find out a way to effectively mine. I think starting at the top of a vein and digging down is still the best option, although you'll have to be more careful now than in build 78. I have no idea what's the best way to inch upwards, so I'll be watching this thread.

 

Mining upwards should be dangerous when not done very carefully, but should not be impossible. If nobody can find a safe way to dig upwards, I feel like IsNearSupport should be tweaked to extend somewhat higher in the Y axis when very near the beam, perhaps creating a pyramid shaped area of support, instead of the short box it currently resembles.

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Thats pretty cool that you can support every block in that diagram!

 

Sincerely,

The Colorblind :D

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I wondered if the support should support 1 block higher.

So in your diagram the lowest green X's become red, and you are able to dig up 1 block.

 

It's definitely awkward at the moment, there is no way of digging up safely at all.

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I might be missing something here as I haven't read through the entire post, but what exactly is stopping you from mining the block directly above the beam (which is supported), and then adding more vertical support beams to make the whole arch taller and therefore support higher?

 

Edit: Just did some more testing, and it's perfectly possible to dig a staircase up safely. I did cheat to clear out the area next to it so that you could easily see, but that whole staircase was dug out in survival mode with a pickaxe starting from the bottom and I just used different supports for color.

 

post-3005-0-39286000-1413324039_thumb.pn

post-3005-0-47554900-1413324043_thumb.pn

post-3005-0-24688100-1413324046_thumb.pn

 

Edit Number 2: My first assumption was correct. It is entirely possible to mine the block directly above the beam, and then add more beams. In this way, you can pillar directly straight up using just ladders and support beams. The only time you'll have an issue is once you hit the gravel/dirt layer. Once again, both of these tests were mined out entirely in survival mode, with a red steel pickaxe, and not a single cave in occurred.

 

post-3005-0-20108300-1413327542_thumb.pn

post-3005-0-11602100-1413327548_thumb.pn

 

Edit Number 3: After cranking up the config value so that it was a 50% chance for cave ins to happen, the second method I did indeed get lucky to not be squished. However, the first staircase method can still be done relatively safely as long as you stand underneath the lower beam.

 

You can see with my third test that some cave ins did happen, but none of them squished me:

 

post-3005-0-80185500-1413328438_thumb.pn

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What about placing a plank?

 

if you place it over you head can you now just dig straight up? the cobble won't be able to hit you.

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What about placing a plank?

 

if you place it over you head can you now just dig straight up? the cobble won't be able to hit you.

not in 79.8 :P

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Digging up is tricky, that is for sure. But it took me about 5 minutes to figure out a way to go down to a vein from a surface nugget, mine 90% of the ore in the vein and return to surface without any risk at all of taking damage from cave-ins. I mine about 50% slower than in b78 but even with more than 15 of cave-ins per vein I never worry about taking damage. 

 

95% of my support beam use has always been and (I hope) will always be for aesthetic reasons. When I'm building a mine for the sake of creating an attractive "build" out of it I will use them, but not on the daily ore grind. in b78 they made a great addition to the structure of most homes, castles, barns, sheds, windmills and many other buildings as well. I'm curious why the restrictions on placing the horizontal beams was added, they are so much less versatile and a construction material now. Using them as an attractive building block is much more difficult, however, I do like the shift click option to switch from placing 1 to 3/many beams at once.

 

Because not everyone wants to play the exact same way, on behalf of people who like to focus on building in TFC I would request that the current beam texture use plank blocks in the recipe and the old beams be re-added with the old texture using the current recipe of logs. I would also propose a slight tweak to the placing mechanic. Please allow us to place beams horizontally without needing both ends to attach to a vertical beams. (Perhaps shift clicking would add a solitary beam and clicking without shift would place a long row between any vertical beams that are present. This would nicely reflect the way you can place a single vertical beam with a shift click.)

 

If there is a way to make horizontal beams only support weight if both ends are attached to a vertical beam then it would allow for attractive and versatile building without compromising the great new addition that support beams now need to be structurally sound to bear a load. 

 

Sorry if that is too much of the word "beam", I hope it makes sense. I will happily elaborate with a few pictures if it would help. I really do love the new requirements for functional usage but I feel like something valuable was lost when you got rid of the old placing mechanics. I think it would be fantastic if the old and new textures/placing/structural functionality were combined.

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From reading Kitty's post, I'm not quite sure what the conclusion was.

Digging up 1 block did produce some cave ins after all?

 

Wish I could test it but I'm on lunch at work :)

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From reading Kitty's post, I'm not quite sure what the conclusion was.

Digging up 1 block did produce some cave ins after all?

 

Wish I could test it but I'm on lunch at work :)

 

The staircase method is essentially safe. With the default config value, you aren't going to get very many cave ins unless the RNG just hates your guts. And when the cave in does happen, if you are standing in the right spot it will not squish you. Edit: This is because from what I recall, cave ins only propagate sideways and up, they do not propagate down, so the lower parts of your stairway are safe.

 

The straight up ladder method is possible, and if you get lucky you can do it without anything caving in. There is still the small risk of a cave in though, so you might get squished.

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I was doing the same thing in my world, by digging a passage up from the inside of a mountain to the top using supports in a similar fashion. I survived but some cave ins did occur. The adjacent rooms at the bottom of the stairs were completely caved in. Looked kinda interesting as if no one ever set foot in those rooms in quite some time. 

 

Btw. should probably be in a bug report but it's a little late for me now. When a cave in occurs and blocks fall down on top of chiseled stairs, they replace the chiseled stair blocks but i can pick up the invisible chiseled stair blocks. Now, I can basically build an invisible stairway to heaven with these xD

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