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Author Topic: Auto-mine  (Read 7826 times)

Cedwyn

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Auto-mine
« on: November 16, 2010, 04:46:40 pm »

Perhaps this has been suggested (but looking through 34+ pages of 'mining' isn't fun).  So here goes...

Basically a command to tell your miners to continuously mine a specific type of rock/gem/whatever.  The player would select a rock to mine and all adjacent tiles of the same type are mined until there are no same-type rock adjacent to the vein.  The purpose is to be able to mine out veins of precious rock/gems/whatever.  Currently the only system in place is some sort of strip mining combined with exploratory mining which is very micromanagement intense and very not fun.

The algorithm is simple:
1) Player designates a rock tile to be mined, the type of rock is recorded.
2) Two processing options:
a) Mark out all the same-type rocks adjacent/mine-able to the starting rock.  This is however unshown to the player, but in the unreveal portion of the map.
b) Find the tiles to be mined when they are discovered.  This option places less burden on the computer (versus option a) at the instant a tile is selected for auto-mining, thus distributing the load over time.
3) The tiles auto-highlight based on visibility and only when touching a previous same-type tile.
4) As for the detection algorithm, I imagine you can figure it out, but you 'search all touching tiles' --> 'add same-type tiles to array of tiles to be mined', process array with some sort of open/closed array (ie. a*) to avoid adding tiles that have already been added.

Imagine finding a some nice native gold or precious gem and only having to issue one command in order to mine out all the rock in the vein.
« Last Edit: November 16, 2010, 04:48:55 pm by Cedwyn »
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Hyndis

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #1 on: November 16, 2010, 05:11:25 pm »

Standing orders are an interesting take on the issue. Perhaps an option could be added under the stocks menu, like where you can select types of stone to be used for economic purposes or not. Possibly downsides to this is that while you're carving out rooms you will invariably run across gems or ore, and if its on autodig your miners will rush over there and turn your dorms into swiss cheese.


I'd like the ability to select a cluster of ore or gems and all rock of the same type (rocks containing the ore or gems) would then be selected to be mined out. This will let you ignore the ore in the walls of places like your dining hall so you can smooth and engrave it instead, but then in your mines where you want to get all valuable resources out you can designate entire veins or rock types for mining. If it was left generic where it could mine out all adjacent tiles of the same time you could even use it to create things like oval rooms by mining out patches of microcline. In that case it would not have to be used entirely on ore or gems, but could be used on other mundane sort of rock. It would give those caverns a very organic sort of shape.
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Cedwyn

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #3 on: November 16, 2010, 07:19:15 pm »

Great, let's hope it comes soon then :)
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b1gb0y2013

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #4 on: November 16, 2010, 08:13:03 pm »

The only problem is, if you are trying to dig a fortress underground, you will go down and suddenly find random holes everywhere, ruining your fortress. Especially since you might forget to shut it off... But I wish you could designate an area that you cant see, and then say what you want to dig out of there. That way its a sort of quarry and you dig out only what you need, instead of wasting time digging out everything.
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Hiiri

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #5 on: November 17, 2010, 12:08:18 am »

Great, let's hope it comes soon then :)

Already on the dev-page

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The only problem is, if you are trying to dig a fortress underground, you will go down and suddenly find random holes everywhere, ruining your fortress. Especially since you might forget to shut it off... But I wish you could designate an area that you cant see, and then say what you want to dig out of there. That way its a sort of quarry and you dig out only what you need, instead of wasting time digging out everything.

Construct a wall in the hole -> tadah, problem solved :) Unless you have some sort of special OCD. Besides, it's not like the rare valuable veins are whole layers. And if they are, then what's cooler than watching your whole friggin' fortress come crashing down with a surprise? :D
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Cedwyn

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #6 on: November 18, 2010, 01:09:39 am »

Discovered that dfhack has a vein-mining utility, yay.
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Dutchling

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #7 on: November 20, 2010, 05:30:52 pm »


''Construct a wall in the hole -> tadah, problem solved :) Unless you have some sort of special OCD. ''

We play Dwarf Fortress.
We all have at least 42 OCD's.
Building walls is NOT one of them.
Are you an elf or something?
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Hiiri

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Re: Auto-mine
« Reply #8 on: November 22, 2010, 12:03:08 pm »

We play Dwarf Fortress.
We all have at least 42 OCD's.
Building walls is NOT one of them.
Are you an elf or something?

Oh look, a three-headed monkey!
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