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[ImBocaire]

First off, I'm sorry if this is a perennial topic; I tried searching for similar topics, but I wasn't sure what terms to use.

Anyway, it's currently rather well-documented just how much of a drag it is to have stone lying around all over the place. Whenever you dig anything out of rock, you leave behind a vast array of regularly-sized boulders, which clogs your stocks screen, uglifies the fortress unless you hide it or dump it, takes up space you might want to use for stockpiles, etc.

I realize that this is an attempt to model real-world mining; however, unless you are actively quarrying a type of rock, you wouldn't typically end up with usable chunks. (I assume, at least. I know less about mining than I do about, well, almost anything else.)

So basically, what I'm proposing is that there be two different digging styles. One could be simple "digging," which would not leave behind boulders of usable rock, and which would leave a coating of waste rock and dust on the floor. Since waste rock isn't exactly easy to traverse, it would be important to clear the area of waste rock in a process similar to smoothing. This would *eliminate* the waste rock completely; no boulders, pebbles, or any sort of item would be left behind. Paths covered in waste rock might take more time to walk through; rooms that have uncleared waste rock on the floors may cause unhappy thoughts (He stubbed his toe on a jagged rock chunk lately), and floors that have uncleared waste rock on them would not be able to be smoothed and engraved until the rock was removed. The labor wouldn't be lengthy or time-consuming, though, and maybe could be on by default for all dwarves, like hauling. The "digging" style would take about as much time as the current mining labor, perhaps a bit faster.

The other would be "mining," which would pretty much be what we have now, except perhaps a little bit slower to show that care is being taken to extract usable chunks of stone, boulders, etc. Ore would be automatically "mined" rather than "dug," as would economic stone (except for flux if it makes up the whole layer) and gems. Perhaps certain rare clusters like petrified wood or pitchblende might be automatically mined as well (maybe the player could set mining preferences to always mine rather than dig certain types of stone?) Removal of waste rock would not be necessary in "mined" passages, but it would leave behind boulders, gems, etc.

I think this is potentially a solution to many problems; it would potentially raise FPS by having fewer items on the map, would allow large stockpile areas to be dug in stone layers without needing to haul stone out, would make stone a resource to be managed like wood or metal (unless you want to mine everything anyway), and would reduce the annoyance factor for digging new chambers in the stone significantly. It might also make stone stockpiles *practical* instead of completely unnecessary (although quantum stockpiling is probably still going to be the norm).

Anyway, that's my idea; feel free to mercilessly tear it to shreds, at your leisure.

[bp1986]

I like it. Any step to getting rid of the mass amounts of extra stone around my fort is a step in the right direction, in my opinion.

[Jeoshua]

It would be really nice if there were different levels of the [DIGGER] tag.  Humans could have [DIGGER:ITEM_SHOVEL], and in turn, [ITEM_WEAPON:ITEM_SHOVEL] could have the tag of [DIGGER:SOIL:5].

The format of this would roughly be:
[DIGGER:material type:efficiency]

The Pick, the digging tool for the Dwarves, would have different tags.

[DIGGER:SOIL:2]
[DIGGER:SAND:1]
[DIGGER:STONE:4]
[DIGGER:GEMS:1]
[DIGGER:ORE:4]
[DIGGER:DEEP_SPECIAL:3]

Theres alot one could do with these tags, as far as making different digging devices.  You could have a Gem-pick which was specially made to be able to dig out gems quickly and without damaging them.  You could even have a super-pick that would mine out DEEP_SURFACE stuff, albeit probably pretty slowly (and the bottom layer would always be disallowed).  Maybe have some kind of super-sledgehammer that mines out anything, but rarely leaves anything behind.

The upshot of this is that while the [DIGGER:ITEM_WHATEVER] tag in the Entity would control what kind of item the miners of that civ would use, it would not disallow Strange Moods from creating an artifact version of another kind of digging tool.  Imagine a Dwarf getting into a fell mood and creating a Mattock of the Heavens, which that pick would pierce.  It would mine everything, and fast.

[ImBocaire]

Huh, that's an interesting notion. Maybe even different kinds of mining jobs... gem-miners vs. ore-miners vs. rock-quarriers vs. simple diggers.

[Elone]

Hmm, I'm not sure. If you increase number of mining professions, you'll have to have a miner for each type. If you blind-designate a big rectangular area, and it had gems, you have to either watch the miner ALL the time, or look elsewhere and they will waste the gems that come in their path that a more skilled gem miner could have gotten. Or (if the game is hardcoded to use stone miners for stone and gem miners for gems), have an actual gem miner drop whatever he's doing, and come in to clear that 1 gem blocking your path down 100Z levels and then returning, and hopefully still remembering what he was doing beforehand. Speaking of which, how would you train a legendary gem miner?

Speaking of mining items, this would be fairly neat if the miners didnt drop their equips as soon as the job is done; or they go do something else. So a typical miner: Digs through stone with the stone pick. Finds a gem! Goes 100Z higher to get his gem pick. He returns thru these 100Zs and digs out that puny 10gp single gem! He drops the gem pick when he finishes the job. He climbs the 100Z levels to get his stone pick again, because someone came in and hauled it to the weapons bin in the meantime. He returns 100Z lower and continues something that should have been done long ago and that we can already do just fine in the current version. See the point?

[Jeoshua]

If the tools do different things, the job divisions would naturally fall into place.  Using a gem-miner with a gem-pick would be more of a matter of locking him into the gem mine - through door, gate, bridge, or burrow - rather than revamping the entire designation system to accept targeted types of miners.

[sockless]

I do like the idea about shovels, but I don't think that we should have and more digging tools than that, otherwise it's just getting silly.

That way, we can separate shoveling and mining. Humans could use shovels when building cities, making them somewhat flatter.

I actually think that gems should be mined through normal mining, as well as through mining gem clusters, since that's more like real life. This is where mass and volume would come in handy once again, as you'd mine a small amount from rocks, but lots from clusters.

[ImBocaire]

At any rate, the *main* thrust of my idea is the whole "digging without leaving rocks" vs. "mining usable stones" dichotomy. Personally, I'd like them to both train the mining skill, although maybe mining for usable stones might give more experience per square mined out than simple digging would, to make up for the lower speed.

[NW_Kohaku]

From the last one of these threads:

OK, I've seen several of these threads before, but you'll have to wait for Footkerchief for one of the really giant lists of previous examples...

THIS thread is demonstrative of a thread that recieved quite a lot of attention that argues for what you are asking for (So there should be plenty of arguments for and against it):
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3298.0

THIS thread is demonstrative of the sort of thing Cotes is talking about, where it is actually argued that Mining is too easy, and that there needs to be more "shoveling" involved in removing stone and mullock from fortresses:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=24932.0

And oh, hey, there's THIS thread, where I argue something similar to the last, where we actually have to deal with excess stone large enough to fill whole tiles as something that can block off entire tiles, and force dwarves to actually manage their stone:
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=61215.0

The aforementioned giant list of previous suggestions:

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=60362.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=55919.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=19612.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=3298.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=26389.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5824.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=5149.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4348.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=2865.0
http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=4034.0

Spoiler: tags (click to show/hide)

mine mining miner dig digging stone rock designation

[ImBocaire]

Thanks for that. I guess there really is nothing new under the sun, eh?

Anyway, I see that the problem has been argued ad infinitum from both angles, so I guess I'll just hope for continued discussion and deliberation of the topic in ways that might spur some actual changes.

[DanielLC]

What if you want to do exploratory mining, and dig until you find ore, then mine?

[ImBocaire]

Ore would be automatically "mined" rather than "dug," as would economic stone (except for flux if it makes up the whole layer) and gems. Perhaps certain rare clusters like petrified wood or pitchblende might be automatically mined as well (maybe the player could set mining preferences to always mine rather than dig certain types of stone?)