40d Talk:Mineshaft stitching

Hi, thought I would put this script up here and see if it was useful. This perhaps should be moved to a user page or something, but I am not certain: feel free to suggest changes, moves, or a more appropriate way to present this. -- Seth Fogarty

Hi, I thought the whole point of mineshafts was to optimize the dig load on exploratory mining. Stitching them together doubles the amount of dug stone, doesn't it? 22% doesn't look so optimal. --Aykavil 09:51, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the example is confusing because it is only 3 layers? You can have as many layers as you like in the stitching.. just replicate the middle. More formally, you have to dig to one end or the other of a mineshaft. The traditional way is, I assume, to have a top-level grid that connects all the mineshafts. Stitching involves no more dug stone than the traditional method, you just alternate if the top-level or bottom-level gets the digging. Sfogarty 08:07, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

There's also the matter of time - doing mineshafts without stitching on either end is a bit slower than doing them with stitching on both ends, and I'm certain that it's possible to improve the overall speed without too much more digging. The culprit is how the dwarves choose what tile to mine - apparently, they prefer to try to mine out one floor at a time (not too much of an issue if you have a lot of mining dwarves, but with 5 or less dwarves you start to notice it). so, if you're not really pressed for time (I.E. no moody dwarf), leave the shafts unstitched, but if time is against you, stitch them at least on one side, if not both, and possibly in the middle of the shafts if they're really long. --Zeta 17:00, 29 July 2009 (UTC)