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[Lav]

With the arrival of .34 version Mining skill has become less important. Now the only thing it affects is the mining speed.

I suggest to return some of it's former glory to the skill. Namely, allow higher-level miners to prospect the area around them. Essentially, give them "stone vision", allowing them to see through stone and reveal hidden cells within a limited radius.

Lvl 5: miner can reveal stone within 2 cells around him, as well as the cells directly above and below (without digging staircase/channels/ramps).
Lvl 10: miner can reveal stone within 2 cells around him in all directions.
Lvl 15: miner can reveal stone within 3 cells horizontally.
Lvl 20: miner can reveal stone within 3 cells in all directions.

Stone vision reveals cell contents (air/water/magma/stone) and status (warm/damp). It does not reveal vegetation, creatures, and does not discover underground features (i.e. after player discovered an empty cell behind a wall, he still must tunnel to that cell in order to discover the caverns).

Stone vision does not work through soil or constructions.

Vein or small cluster deposits are revealed as if the miner was 5 levels higher (for Legendary +5 miner vein and small cluster cells are revealed within 4 cells radius).

Essentially, this abstracts the geological prospecting mechanism, where a geologist would look for mineral traces indicating presence of certain minerals, look for drafty cracks to find possible openings etc.

[Loud Whispers]

How would this work? As it stands now stone that gets revealed stays revealed. Do you mean a specific prospect command or a passive vision radius?

[Lav]

A passive skill definitely. A true dwarven miner never stops looking for minerals.

[King Mir]

I don't like it, because it goes back to encouraging two classes of miners: the ones mining for ore, and the ones digging rooms. Without some way to make mining jobs be limited by skill, this is hard to manage, and even with such an option, I don't think I'd want to manage the distinction.

If we have prospecting, I think I'd be better as a separate labor. But it's not something I'd consider important to add.

[Waparius]

Yeah not so much of a fan here either; prospecting as a separate skill, maybe under a "mining" submenu, would work better.

Do miners still get to use their skill to fight with picks, incidentally? Because if so then there's also that at least.

Honestly when it comes to mining I'm just waiting on the "mine-out-the-vein" designation. Would love to dig forts where the main passageways are widened-out mineshafts.

[Deboche]

maybe more experienced miners could tell if a cave-in is about to happen the same way they now know the wall is damp

and maybe a less experienced miner can't even tell whether a wall is damp

[DwarfOfTheLand]

I don't think 'Stone Vision' would really work in Fortress mode, mainly because..well, you can't take control of a dwarf and see what s/he sees. Unless there was a way to control a dwarf, it wouldn't really work.

[Bumber]

I think rather than actually revealing the tiles, you could just be given damp/warm style indicators. Higher skills in mining would grant: the ability to detect that the stone is adjacent to unrevealed open space (a white indicator,) a chance to detect the actual location of an adjacent lava/water/open space tile (corresponding color, different icon; probability of detection increases proportionally with skill,) and the ability to detect the continuation of an exposed ore vein (green indicator, detection radius increases with skill.) The checks are performed upon the excavation of a tile and cannot be re-attempted.

[darknessofthenight]

It seems that an unskilled miner should also incorrectly identify things, thus adding a chance of danger from over reliance in the system.

[Gargomaxthalus]

As part of my only self made thread here on this forum, (likely dismissed because of the thread starting with me griping about how time works in the game and/or stuff already being brought up in the past)  I suggested the addition of "geologist" Dwarfs who have honed there innate "stonesense" such that they can survey areas and get a good grasp of exactly what is in an area and how best to attack it. When it comes to mining skill, Toady needs to either drop it, or decide how he's going to have cave-ins, seismic activity and other elements evolve over time. Anyone can dig a whole, it takes skill, talent, and experience to stop the ceiling from filling the new void.

What this ends up meaning will assuage some fears about full AI tunnelers while creating new, connected ones. In order for mining skill to be relevant mining must be inherently dangerous as it very well should be. This means chances of cave-ins, running into things that are already living there, having miners not now better than to dig into damp/warm stone initially, ect. Mining would need to be broken into multiple skills and even labors with some Dwarfs digging while other shore-up the walls and ceiling. Supports, and space for them, would be mandatory, no more simply using then for traps and what not. The use a single tile to hold up a massive structure trick? Dead. Building mega projects without regard for the full range of physics? Dead. Of course this means that it will take those Goblin hordes a while to tunnel to your fort's interior since they are only slightly smarter than Gully Dwarves(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_creatures), and Goblin sappers have always been a fantasy genre running gag more than anything.

It's a tough pill I know, but this is the future of DF.

[Jheral]

Of course this means that it will take those Goblin hordes a while to tunnel to your fort's interior since they are only slightly smarter than Gully Dwarves(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dragonlance_creatures)

I wouldn't say that - goblins(http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Goblin/raw) are about on par with dwarves(http://dwarffortresswiki.org/index.php/DF2012:Dwarf/raw) as far as intelligence goes. They might lack a bit of creativity and intuition, but they also have superior memory. Nothing in there about intelligence aside from that. Unlike dwarves, they also live forever, so one assumes they have more than enough time to get good at what they do (and sieges are no doubt part of that, given their aggressive nature).

Anyway, tunnel stability and such might be a good place for mining to go, but one wonders how much it would be possible to affect that while digging it out. I imagine most of that would come from stuff like building supports, avoiding too wide tunnels and so on, which would all be player decisions rather than dwarf decisions. I tend to think it should be left where it is, and only affect dig speed, though.