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[GreatWyrmGold]

Wait, what?
It stays in one place and digs a shaft down?

How?

[zubb2]

It has a structure at the surface that is powerd by a mill of either the water or wind variety.

That structure twists a shaft with a drill bit on (hopefully) the dirt end.

It wouldnt get very far if you didn't add shafts at the top.

It would be very slow as a dwarf would have to haul shafts or already implimented pipe sections from a stockpile after every mining.

The z level mining speed would depend on the drill bit.

An artifact bit might be able to dig to the "stuff".

You know what stuff.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1. How would it be able to dig deep?
2. Except in cases of boring into magma deposits, how would this be better in any way than picks?

[zubb2]

1. Very good aim

2.It will work without designations.

If you auto designate and dont watch the miner he probly will fall off of somthing.
Or somthing on to him.

The drill could be made wider and taller like bridges so I could drill my giant pit of death without haveing to use macros (i dont know how anyway) or many many many designations.

many many many many

If your worried about it being overpowerd it could be slow as a noob miner.

Or slower even.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1. Very good aim

...You do want to be treated seriously, right?

2.It will work without designations.

If you auto designate and dont watch the miner he probly will fall off of somthing.
Or somthing on to him.

I have almost never run into the problem of dwarves falling into something unless I was trying to, and I've only had cavein issues when digging near the surface. Those are rookie mistakes which would not be fixed with drills.

The drill could be made wider and taller like bridges so I could drill my giant pit of death without haveing to use macros (i dont know how anyway) or many many many designations.

many many many many

You know you can designate a cube at a time right? It's not one tile or even one rectangle at a time.

If your worried about it being overpowerd it could be slow as a noob miner.

Or slower even.

I'm worried about the situation where a many-part, power-guzzling machine would be better than a dwarf with a pick.

[zubb2]

Go try and designate a pit to be channeled down mulitiple z levels without managing each and every z level.

A windmill can be better than a dwarf with a lever for "certain things".

By aim I mean youd be very lucky to hit the right place in a spire from placing a drill on the surface.

Last thing fore I have to go eat. Why is there a millstone when there is a quern? Tell me John Henry.

[10ebbor10]

Go try and designate a pit to be channeled down mulitiple z levels without managing each and every z level.

A windmill can be better than a dwarf with a lever for "certain things".

By aim I mean youd be very lucky to hit the right place in a spire from placing a drill on the surface.

Last thing fore I have to go eat. Why is there a millstone when there is a quern? Tell me John Henry.

Multi z level designations were implemented several releases back.

Just move the z level while you have your designation selected till you get to where you want.

[zubb2]

If you try to channel very many z levels down in anything other than a 1x1 pit the dwaves eventualy turn it into a 1x1 pit, as they are not aware of the Master Plan.

[GreatWyrmGold]

If you try to channel very many z levels down in anything other than a 1x1 pit the dwaves eventualy turn it into a 1x1 pit, as they are not aware of the Master Plan.

Not aware of this happening...I could see some things where dwarves sometimes screw up, but A. those have been reduced recently, and B. a drill like you described would take forever, being built and deconstructed, to actually dig anything wider than a 1×1 pit.

[AutomataKittay]

I'll note here for someone that said that drilling might be a bit post 1400's, that China's done drilling with bamboo and there are some primitive methods to drill wells, though only really useful for water and involves a lot of muscle power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptist_well_drilling Relatively modern, but same concept
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sludging

Something I can see being done with a one or two tile workshop being fed power, water and pipe sections, with one section per level. Though not suitable for drilling into rock, picks don't currently discriminate and lever mechanisms nor axel don't care how far apart things are if there're enough power to drive the latter. Each lever should take at least as much power as one pump to run.

The idea don't seems to be useful outside of geosampling or drilling into aquifier for water wells. If it does get to drill into rock, I'd rather no boulders with occasional rock 'gems' being gotten at the origin  rather than boulder. A dwarf with cheap pick would still be more useful for geosampling if you don't mind leaving the corpse where it lies.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Could they drill through stone, or more than 10 feet?

And again, unless digging into a fluid do those have any use?

[AutomataKittay]

Could they drill through stone, or more than 10 feet?

And again, unless digging into a fluid do those have any use?

I did said they were unsuitable for drilling into rock ( though specificly hard rock ), but I don't see a way to mechanically disallow it with pick being able to efficiently dig through everything. And more than ten feet's doable in soil, some existing rigs apparently have done 10 to 30 meters as far up as almost 100 meters in unusual cases ( easy soil all the way down ).

I did said I thought it don't seems to be a useful idea

[GreatWyrmGold]

Picks won't always be equally easy to dig through all rock...

[Noobazzah]

In DF they are.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Not DF 1.0.