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[PTTG??]

I was thinking of the difficulties in making a realistic Human Fortress mod, one of which is that humans are just as good as dwarves at digging. I've come up with something that might work to correct this, and thus make the experience significantly different:

When a human miner digs out a square, they have a chance (perhaps related to skill) to accidentally mine the adjacent one even if it isn't designated, that tile collapsing into rubble and dangerous dust. This will have a number of effects:

- Humans will be unable to easily create even-shaped underground rooms- unlike dwarves who can easily shape the raw stone into the final product, humans have to rebuild areas that have been misdug.
- Humans will be much more likely to injure themselves as poorly-mined areas fill with dust.
- Humans will thus dig smaller areas, usually only basements and mineral-specific mines or quarries.

Of course, this could also work as a dwarven impediment as well. It would make legendary miners, who never collapse walls, more valuable (instead of being actively annoying to those who want less stone.) If that was the case, Dwarves may have an innate bonus to mining skill (though I hesitate to suggest such simple DnD-inspired racial delimiters. Perhaps faster skill growth or something.)

The biggest problem is that this will make fractal and thin-walled fortresses more difficult, but when it comes down to it, shouldn't intricate structures BE more difficult?

Duck Duke 2.0: That's a good idea. I wasn't thinking that full cave-ins would be caused, but it makes sense that shallow areas would be safer.

[Duke 2.0]

 Will it detect open space above, thus ensuring that quarries are inherently safer then mines like they are?

[Wooty]

With the amount of micromanagement and the awful rewalling system we already have, it would really suck if everytime a non legendary miner mined a room he messed up the walls. It would work for humans since they aren't supposed to be making fancy underground rooms anyway, but definitely not for dwarves.

[Lazer Bomb]

What about not a chance to reduce an entire adjacent wall to rubble, but to partially mine it, like the thing a wall looks like when a dwarf mines it and then you stop it before the rock is completely removed?

[PTTG??]

What about not a chance to reduce an entire adjacent wall to rubble, but to partially mine it, like the thing a wall looks like when a dwarf mines it and then you stop it before the rock is completely removed?

That sounds good. Then poor miners will "damage" all the rock surrounding the target. I still think that there should be collapsed walls at least for low-skill humans so that you can't expect a guy who just picked up a pick to make a perfect square chamber.

[Draco18s]

I like.  The bit about dwarves damaging adjacent tiles is good too: you can't smooth those, can you?  I've never tried.  If you can't it gives a good reason to have high skilled miner mining out the noble dining rooms.

[Boogerman]

What about not a chance to reduce an entire adjacent wall to rubble, but to partially mine it, like the thing a wall looks like when a dwarf mines it and then you stop it before the rock is completely removed?

That sounds good. Then poor miners will "damage" all the rock surrounding the target. I still think that there should be collapsed walls at least for low-skill humans so that you can't expect a guy who just picked up a pick to make a perfect square chamber.

When/if the cave in system is overhauled, the damaged squares could provide less support.
This could result in cave ins.

[Pilsu]

It'd be frustrating to get to a good start if dwarves kept destroying walls around them. Or quasi breaking them, making your fort entrance look like crap. Same for cellars really

Mining speed should really be enough of a factor

[PTTG??]

It'd be frustrating to get to a good start if dwarves kept destroying walls around them. Or quasi breaking them, making your fort entrance look like crap. Same for cellars really

Mining speed should really be enough of a factor

But consider; you start with a small entrance, and gradually carve out better and grander entrances as the fortress grows. Also, you can bring skilled dwarves. Also, this may apply only to humans.

But one way or annother, I disagree about the speed. I feel that there need to be more ways in which skill can be important, and currently mining only has speed and quantity.

[Capntastic]

Yeah, mining speed should be the indicator of mining skill, rather than "hurf durf all your stuff is broken because humans are arbitrarily inept at this solely to outline how good dwarves are'.   Because that's just silly.

[Mel_Vixen]

Well apart from miningspeed you could also lower the droped stones per mined tile. Say where an legendary dwarf mines an 10*10 room and gets 100 stones humans get only 90.

Also you could stop the Aquiver and Magmawarning for them. And you could disallow mining out stairs for them.

[Dasleah]

Perhaps humans should inherit the old cave-in rules, limiting the size of their underground creations to 8x8?

[Silverionmox]

To avoid rekindling the discussion about the desirability of more/less stone obtained by mining, I suggest people with an opinion on that subject to check out the "realistic mining" thread.

[Draco18s]

Perhaps humans should inherit the old cave-in rules, limiting the size of their underground creations to 8x8?

6xN.

[Sowelu]

Oh, don't worry, old-style collapses are still planned.  They just need some love to make them work with 3d, and all the terrible stuff you can do--like building an upside down pyramid supported by a tile of sand.