Hi, you might know me from:
why is my food worth so much but everything else so little, and
room value calculations demystifiedWhich I would have posted here but was waiting for my account to be approved
In the second I incorrectly stated that engravings cannot be redone. They can, but how you need to do it depends on situation.
All these techniques require that the natural floor where you are trying to remove the engraving both still exists, and can be smoothed. so no removing engravings on soil layers, and no removing them on above ground constructed biuldings.
Removing floor engravingsFor removing natural floor engravings, you can convert them to rail tracks and then resmooth them, but this will cause them to be 'defaced', which gives bad thoughts to the engraver. to avoid this penalty instead place a wall on the engraving, remove the wall then resmooth the floor.
For placed floors, remove the placed floor, smooth the natural floor, place a wall, remove the wall, replace the placed floor.
Removing wall engravingsTo remove engravings from placed walls, simply remove the wall, smooth the underlying floor, then replace the wall.
Removing engravings from natural walls is to my knowledge impossible, while keeping the wall. if however you are just removing the wall and want to avoid the defacement penalty, convert the wall into a fortification before removing it.
Bonus: double side engraved wallsIn a previous post I noted that engraved walls only give their engraving value to a room if it owns both the wall, and the tile the engraver stood on when engraving it. this meant that a wall was effectively engraved from one side, and only one room could benefit from its engraving. there is actually a work around for this for constructed walls.
Where you want to place a double sided engraved wall, instead place a floor. type doesn't matter, as long as its constructed not just the natural floor. next engrave that floor, using the tricks above to re-engrave till you get the quality you want. then remove the floor and place the wall, this creates a wall that is engraved from the same location as it was placed, meaning it has no directionality and always has its full value applied
How does all this work?These techniques work due to two interlocking systems
1. When a placed engraved wall/floor is removed, its engraving stays, but is unused, if a new floor/wall is placed/created the engraving will transfer to that (placing a constructed one, or smoothing the natural floor)
2. Engravings cannot transfer from smoothed natural floor to placed, floor/wall. in the case of placing a floor it will count as defacing. but if a wall is placed then the engraving just evaporates