Editing Mining

{{Quality|Exceptional|23:24, 14 March 2024 (CST)}}

[[File:mining_anim_v50.gif|thumb|189px|right|A designated area being mined.]]'''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|stone types]], [[ore]]s and [[gem]]s, or simply to create the basic tunnels and [[room]]s in your fort. Mining refers to either the [[skill]] that performs mining, the [[labor]] associated with it, or simply the task or job of performing said labor. Military dwarves equipped with picks will use mining as their "[[Combat skill|weapon skill]]." Mining through softer materials such as [[sand]] or [[soil]] is much faster than mining through stone.

* '''Digging''' removes the section of the wall while preserving both the ceiling (which is the floor of the level above) and the floor.

Gray/black areas represent un-mined rock, cyan/black represents mined-out areas. Solid green represents existing floor "tiles", cyan represents mined-out floor tiles. Up stairs, down stairs, and ramps are red, blue, and mustard (yellow) respectively.

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Each layer in the three-dimensional ''Dwarf Fortress'' map consists of two parts: a wall-part, and a floor-part.  Mining a tunnel removes the wall-part but leaves the floor-part in place. Channeling removes the floor-part as well, leaving open space above, and if a wall-part exists below, it becomes an upward ramp. Digging an upward ramp removes the wall-part of the designated tile and both parts of the tile above it. Up stairs only modify the wall-part of the designated tile (and are unusable without Down stairs in the tile above), the Down stairs designation will remove the wall-part of the tile (if present) and place a stair connection in the floor-part of the designated tile. Up/down stairs modify both parts of the designated tile (but remain unusable until the tile above/below has the proper stair connection).

# Go to the {{Menu icon|y}} labor menu, then work details tab

# Select the "Miners" work detail on the left side of the screen

# Find the dwarf you would like to make a miner, and click the rightmost box, a green check mark should appear

# If you would like this dwarf to ''only'' mine, and ignore all other labors (they will still eat, sleep, take breaks, etc. ) you can toggle the dwarf's "Specialize" button (the hammer and lock icon) to be red.

To start mining, a [[miner]] requires an available [[pick]]. A dwarf's agility and mining skill affect how quickly they mine.

Giving a dwarf the miner work detail will effectively disable the "wood cutter" and "hunter" work details, as their associated labors all involve the usage of different tools.{{verify}}

# Press {{Menu icon|m}} to bring up the digging orders menu.

#* {{K|m}} for mining

#* {{K|u}} for channeling

#* {{K|t}} for stairs, set a start and an end point in a different elevation to determine if it leads upwards or downwards

# (Optional) Set the priority by pressing {{k|n}} to open the advanced options, and clicking a number to set the priority. Tiles with first/lowest numbered priority value will be mined first.

# Draw a rectangle using the mouse. An area should now be highlighted, indicating the area to be mined. The opposite corner can also be placed on a different z-level with {{k|c}}/{{k|e}}, designating areas across z-levels for mining.

==Mineral production (profit!)==

When the wall-part is removed from a stone tile, there is a 25% chance that a single [[stone]] (also known as a boulder) will be left behind.  Minerals which are found in [[vein]]s have a 33% chance of leaving ore, and minerals found in [[vein|small clusters]] (or individual tiles) have a 100% chance of leaving a stone or rough gem behind. Finally, any "deep" material (i.e. [[adamantine]] or [[slade]]) has a 100% chance of leaving a usable stone (though the latter is normally undiggable). Mining skill only influences the amount of time it takes to mine each tile; it does not affect drop rate.

Carving a channel down or ramp up needs special care to provide the full 25%/33%/100% mineral production: in the case that both the bottom tile (where the new ramp up is) and the top tile (new open-space above the newly carved ramp) are both dug out together as part of the same designation, there is only a single chance of mineral production, even though two tiles had their wall-part removed, effectively halving the mineral production chance to 12.5%/16.5%/50% in that case. But if special care is taken to ensure the top open-space tile is dug out first before carving the ramp below it, the full chance from both tiles can be achieved.

The [[stoneworker's workshop]] can create four [[block]]s from each boulder, so on average you can create one stone block for each tile of stone mined. Each ore stone also produces 4 metal bars at a [[smelter]], so, on average, you will produce 1⅓ bars of the basic metal* for every tile of ore mined, or 4/ for small clusters of rare ore.  

: (* Two ores, [[tetrahedrite]] or [[galena]], have a chance to produce additional bars of [[silver]] as well as producing the 4 bars of their basic metal ([[copper]] and [[lead]], respectively). As a footnote, while [[iron]] ores produce 4 bars of iron, and that is all the metal required for 1 bar of steel, [[steel]] production additionally consumes 1 [[flux]] stone and 1 bar of [[fuel]] per single bar of steel produced.)

When tunnels are dug in [[soil]], nothing is left from the material, there is no soil equivalent of a "[[stone]]" to be further used. The floor-part will remain (if it wasn't channeled), and is suitable for [[farming]], or, if the right kind of soil, for sand or [[clay]] collection.

After pressing {{K|m}} and opening the advanced optio{{k|n}}s menu, you can set the designation type to switch between designating all materials ({{k|v}}), designating just {{k|g}}ems, designating just gems and {{k|o}}res, or designating ore/gem clusters or veins to be mined automatically with {{k|V}}.  Switching the designation type to automining will allow you to quickly assign mining tasks to entire veins.

Wall tiles ''above'' magma will flash "warm", and designations will be cancelled even if an entirely safe tunnel is being dug. This is rather annoying when carving out rooms above the magma sea, although there is a way around it. Designating a channel two levels above the magma will mine out the warm wall immediately above the magma, and the designation won't be cancelled because it's not in the area of the warm stone.

If you placed a designated area for mining but want to cancel the mining (for example if you approached [[Main:Digging designation canceled|damp stone]]) open the eraser tool with {{k|x}} and select an area you want to cancel.

To create a channel with no ramps, you have to mine out the area underneath the channel first, or manually designate the ramps created for removal afterwards {{K-|m|x}}. If you wish for these channels to be completely inaccessible from the outside, channel out the access-point (downward staircase). Another (more complicated) way of removing any access to the moat is to replace the dug out ramps with constructed ones and creating a cave-in with constructed floors. Rampless channels are an effective substitute for walls against melee enemies that cannot fly, and they can be dug out far faster than a wall can be built. However, channels offer no defense against archers or dragonbreath.