40d Talk:Exploratory mining

This is a guide on how to search for valuable materials by mining.
...why is there any use for it? --Savok 18:52, 13 March 2008 (EDT)

I think it's useful. The need for more resources, unless you're extremely lucky in the beginning, is not satisfied by the fort's initial digging efforts or its natural expansion. This usually leads to the need to dig in order to reveal large areas, and more often not, the most intuitive method the player thinks up is not the most efficient for their situation. Mining labor, being pretty scarce even for a medium sized fortress, shouldn't be squandered by using an inefficient method, especially if you want fast results.

--AlienChickenPie 04:13, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

Mining labor? Scarce? O.o.

Grab a few peasant immigrants (or miner immigrants if you get any - they come with picks), get picks for them, and start them mining. If you mine out a significant area (like, "enough that you want more than two miners") you'll have legendary miners within a year.

But alright. I do agree that efficiency in exploratory mining is useful, since without it you ruin the area and get lots of useless stone. However, I argue that this article states things that should not be in a manual of any sort: We don't tell you how to make your fortress. We tell you what happens when X happens and we tell you what to do to get Y.

But you still disagree, I assume? Alright. If it really is bad, the article will get deleted/shrunk/merged. If it isn't, we should do it right.

*brings out the umkey*

--Savok 10:18, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

Proposal

Would it be useful to add this pattern?

▒▒.▒▒▒▒.▒▒ ▒.▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒ .▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒ ▒▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒. ▒▒▒.▒▒▒▒.▒

• Labor: 20% of the tiles are excavated.
• Scarcity: Any scarcity. Clusters as small as a single tile are revealed.
• Visibility: 100%.
• Reusability: With a bit of imagination you can build nice 3x3 rooms

I usually dig a diagonal squares with the sides 25 tiles long. And use this pattern later. (See Minepoint at map archive). It shows (almost) every vein...Dorten 09:16, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

I fixed the formatting. Hope you don't mind. --Savok 10:18, 14 March 2008 (EDT)

I see what you're getting at, it would definitely be wrong to state design tips as facts or tell people how to build their fortress. However, this article is intended to be a technical guide to mining methods, not a style guide. I'd like to make it as neutral and factual as possible. Going over it again, I noticed that parts of it are written inappropriately for a technical article. For example, the usability part definitely steps quite a bit over the line, and I wouldn't mind seeing it removed or altered to contain only necessary facts. --AlienChickenPie 14:10, 14 March 2008 (EDT)