So about preventing mine collpases any ideas?

[Scyris]

I've tried: Supports, building a house in the mine, getting rid of some of the clay so less weight on it+supports, and it seems no matter what I do once it gets to a certain size it always collpases, and it always seems to start from the clay, and cascades from one side to the entire otherside of the mine.

[FA_Q2]

Every 4 blocks I add a frame pillar - just a few wooden frames.  If I am making a massive mine I will dig the base of that pillar down to bedrock or to the point of rock if I am sticking with the ore vein.

 

Either way, as long as you place a pillar every so often the mine will not collapse.  I do not think I have had mine do more than a few blocks in several runs.

 

edit: you can also simply not dig a single column and leave the stone there to support the celling.  This is less effective when you are going through a vein though as that will be resource you are not mining.

Edited May 5, 2021 by FA_Q2 (see edit history)

[theFlu]

6 hours ago, Scyris said:

to start from the clay

Issue located. Clay, as in dirt or top soil, carries very little. I think the third hanging block will collapse; I haven't checked for a while. You'll need to dig into the stone layer and have a stone roof, then you're pretty golden. At that depth, only gravel will be a pain, might want to avoid areas where you see it.

 

You can cause a collapse under stone, but if you're used to dealing with dirt roofs, you'll be absolutely fine..

[canadianbluebeer]

Open pit strip mining with controlled deliberate collapses.  That's how I do it.

 

Otherwise known as Grand Canyon Mining Inc.

 

😛

 

 

[BFT2020]

My first support column is for my ladder to get in and out.  After that, I place a support column 5 blocks away (4 spaces in-between - I think, I will have to check what I did in my last playthrough)).   These are all 90 degrees.  Personally, I upgrade all my support columns to the first wood block.  I do that in case I accidently hit the blocks while mining so I don't cause a collapse myself.

[Liesel Weppen]

9 hours ago, Scyris said:

and it seems no matter what I do once it gets to a certain size it always collpases, and it always seems to start from the clay

Yep, that's how structural integrity is supposed to work. Every block has a "carrying capacity" that tells how far it can go without support without collapsing. For concrete it is iirc 7 blocks, for dirt it's 4 blocks and clay afaik is the same as dirt.
And it can easily cascade, because a falling block probably removes support for the next block, even if the next block would have a better "carrying capacity".

So you can build a "bridge" out of concrete that is 14 blocks wide (without support) by building 7 blocks from the left and 7 blocks from the right and they meet in the middle, but you can't build more then 7 blocks just from one side. You can also build 7 from left and 7 from right with one space in between, it still stands. If you but in the middle block, EVERYTHING collapses, because the middle block is the 8th block from both sides and therefore not supported anymore.

 

Everything just theory, not exact values... best advice here: Go into singleplayer creative mode and just test it.

(There is also "weight", so it's not recommended to attach a concrete block to a free floating dirt block.... but better test it yourself for exact values)

So to prevent a mine from collapsing, if the "roof" is out of different materials like stone and clay, either put support pillars close enough to each other (max. 4 blocks) OR build a complete layer (or at least a 4x4) grid beneath the "roof" out of material with higher carrying capacity, e.g. concrete.

Or even simpler, don't harvest large empty spaces but mine in long but narrow tunnels (e.g. 3x3) instead.

 

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Liesel Weppen (see edit history)

[Boidster]

The crazy thing is, you can have a great dirt-roofed mine going on, with support columns every 3 or 4 blocks in a grid, but you hit that one wrong block and everything collapses. Why would all of the properly-supported roof collapse instead of just the corner where you took out a wrong block? Does falling dirt do explosion damage? TFP be trollin'...

[Maharin]

1 hour ago, canadianbluebeer said:

Open pit strip mining with controlled deliberate collapses.  That's how I do it.

 

Otherwise known as Grand Canyon Mining Inc.

 

😛

 

Yeah, that's pretty much how I do it.  I will also build a one block "wall" around the outside just to keep myself from accidentally driving a vehicle into it.  Not that I've done that or anything...

Edited May 5, 2021 by Maharin (see edit history)

[Boidster]

5 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Yep, that's how structural integrity is supposed to work. Every block has a "carrying capacity" that tells how far it can go without support without collapsing. For concrete it is iirc 7 blocks, for dirt it's 4 blocks and clay afaik is the same as dirt.

 

It is also weight-based. So you can have fewer than 8* blocks which will collapse (due to weight), but >8* definitely will (regardless of weight).

 

(*Just tested in 19.3 with wood frames and concrete; might be different in 19.4)

[Liesel Weppen]

11 minutes ago, Boidster said:

Why would all of the properly-supported roof collapse instead of just the corner where you took out a wrong block? Does falling dirt do explosion damage? TFP be trollin'...

Probably not trollin'

But more a problem of the algorithm itself. There may be situations where it depends from which side you start to calculate. Also it's iterative. If you change only one block, each block of the whole structure has to be recalculated. And that's also why SI kills your CPU. You can clearly see this when something bigger is collapsing.

Assume a 3x3x3 cube standing on just one block. Now you remove that single support block. Not the whole 3x3x3 structure falls as a single piece, but each block of that is dropping one after another. Because you can only calculate one block after each other (that's also the reason why this can't be multithreaded. The outcome of one thread would affect all other threads, so basically the calculations are serial anyway). When collapsing a huge building you can even see that sometimes it collapses on one side, than it stops there and continue to collapse on the other edge, and so on.

 

And even more funny: Everything starts to collapse from the top, not from the bottom. If you remove the basement of a skyscraper, the roof is the first thing to fall, while everything else in between "floats". 🤣

 

 

4 minutes ago, Boidster said:

It is also weight-based. So you can have fewer than 8* blocks which will collapse (due to weight), but >8* definitely will (regardless of weight).

Guess my edit was to late.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Liesel Weppen (see edit history)

[Boidster]

14 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

There may be situations where it depends from which side you start to calculate.

 

Edit: nevermind my original reply if you saw it. It was stupid. I looked at my old collapsed mine and tested with dirt. Dirt has mass 10 and max load of 20, meaning max 2-block horizontal support. My mine had 3 blocks between supports. 🙄

Edited May 5, 2021 by Boidster (see edit history)

[theFlu]

49 minutes ago, Boidster said:

And the dirt on top of the support pillars collapses.

That part definitely shouldn't happen, and I don't doubt you, the SI system is .. it's complicated. Also colloquially known as "bugged".

 

But for the "whole roof to collapse" - part, that can easily be "as intended", depending on your exact setup. The key parts of the SI system are the sides of the "supported" blocks. A roof can weigh exactly as much as those faces can carry and be fine. The "hard to grasp" part of the support is that support comes from all sides. If you have a dirt block that can carry 2 of itself per side, having one as a support pillar - as in carrying a roof on all its sides - it provides support for exactly eight blocks (4 sides, 2 blocks each). That happens to be the weight of a 3x3 roof with the support pillar in the middle.

 

So, with Only using support pillars, you'll need one for every 3x3. If building symmetrically, that means you'll need them to have only two free blocks between. One every third block.

 

If you're digging, you'll have support from the side walls as well. But the proportion of that support will diminish the larger your pit becomes. That allows you to have no issues with "4 blocks between" for a long while, but eventually you'll run into a limit.

 

Not to mention, some blocks are inherently "more important", for example corners. A corner will provide two faces of carry capacity, and only attach to one block, so for dirt that's three extra carry. You'll lose those three if you take out the corner, and are more likely to cause a collapse.

 

EDIT: replied to a now edited post. Sorry..

Edited May 5, 2021 by theFlu
The newbs above editing their's, I'm not removing this, maybe it serves a function... (see edit history)

[PoloPoPo]

If you want a good looking mine with an entrance, self-made walls etc. you should dig narrow tunnels in different directions. If you mine for the sake of getting materials and you don't care about how your mine looks like just dig out all ressources and enjoy the inevitable collapse that most of the time reveals even more ressources.

[Boidster]

39 minutes ago, theFlu said:

EDIT: replied to a now edited post. Sorry..

 

No problem. Good info. My old mine was in fact in a 4x4 support grid. It seemed like an awfully dense support system at the time...the time before everything fell on my head. 😄

[Liesel Weppen]

40 minutes ago, PoloPoPo said:

 you don't care about how your mine looks like just dig out all ressources and enjoy the inevitable collapse that most of the time reveals even more ressources.

Hmm, don't know how some people mine...

 

I usually dig down until i find a larger repository. Then i just follow the ores and avoid digging unnecessary stones. It's usually deep enough the the top is stone and no dirt anymore. Following just the ores usually turns out small enough tunnels so that the mine does not collapse. Of course sometime there collapses some gravel from the top but i almost never managed to make the whole mine collapse.

If ocd-people dig out square rooms with flat floor and walls... yeah, then you need to care for making it not collapsing easily.

[katarynna]

if i do mine extensively in 1 area, i do support columns every 6 blocks, but i also do ceiling supports between the columns. So a column, 5 empty spaces, then another column. but at the top of the two columns, a row of wood blocks connecting them. I haven't had a mine collapse doing it that way.

[Star69]

3 hours ago, katarynna said:

if i do mine extensively in 1 area, i do support columns every 6 blocks, but i also do ceiling supports between the columns. So a column, 5 empty spaces, then another column. but at the top of the two columns, a row of wood blocks connecting them. I haven't had a mine collapse doing it that way.

I do something similar. I dig down until I’ve opened up the mine 3 or 4 blocks down below the dirt and build a ‘ceiling’ of cobble blocks. As I widen the mine I drop vertical pillars of cobble blocks every 8-12 blocks(I never count, just approximate). This allows me to continue mining until I’ve removed every piece of ore. I’ve never had a mine collapse doing it this way. I use cobble because I make it from what I dig out of the mine. I do like hearing how others mine though, seems to be several ways to prevent collapsing.

[KayBur]

15 hours ago, Star69 said:

I do something similar. I dig down until I’ve opened up the mine 3 or 4 blocks down below the dirt and build a ‘ceiling’ of cobble blocks. As I widen the mine I drop vertical pillars of cobble blocks every 8-12 blocks(I never count, just approximate). This allows me to continue mining until I’ve removed every piece of ore. I’ve never had a mine collapse doing it this way. I use cobble because I make it from what I dig out of the mine. I do like hearing how others mine though, seems to be several ways to prevent collapsing.

 

In fact, these are just the laws of physics. It's very cool that the game matches reality. I don't really like it when a character jumps over his head or falls from a kilometer height and does not break. The same goes for mines, buildings, etc.

[canadianbluebeer]

I've had some large caverns dug out of rock with no supports and it just would not fall down.

 

Dirt, that I try to get rid of until I get to rock. Sand of course, collapses if you just look at it.

 

Roads I've dug under and put supports up (pillars then the blocks between them)

 

Yes, I've driven into the open pits more than once.

 

Channeling E.K no doubt.  :D

 

[Diragor]

I gave up on doing mines with roofs. In the past I just placed blocks every 4 meter in every direction from the hole but damn that kills way too much time so I just screwed that idea and just went full hulk in my mines. just going down until I am 3 blocks deep into ore blocks. After that just simply go into every direction until you got only stone left. After a while you just got out all the ores without touching a single stone block you get tem from everything anyway so why mining them in the first place

[wizard puke]

If you make a grid of tunnels leaving 2 x 2 columns between them you can see all of the blocks. If there's ore in a column knock it out and replace it with destroyed stone. You're only taking out 5/9 of the area but you can get all of the ore and nothing will collapse because there's never more than one block gap between supports to bedrock.

[12pack]

On 5/5/2021 at 9:39 AM, PoloPoPo said:

If you want a good looking mine with an entrance, self-made walls etc. you should dig narrow tunnels in different directions. If you mine for the sake of getting materials and you don't care about how your mine looks like just dig out all ressources and enjoy the inevitable collapse that most of the time reveals even more ressources.

yep.. i like to dig with the intention of semi-controlled collapses

[FA_Q2]

5 hours ago, Diragor said:

I gave up on doing mines with roofs. In the past I just placed blocks every 4 meter in every direction from the hole but damn that kills way too much time so I just screwed that idea and just went full hulk in my mines. just going down until I am 3 blocks deep into ore blocks. After that just simply go into every direction until you got only stone left. After a while you just got out all the ores without touching a single stone block you get tem from everything anyway so why mining them in the first place

Because my concrete needs are astronomical.  

 

But then again, I just NEED that 10 height block to still be concrete.  What if something happens?  A cop might spit there for no reason at all...

[Diragor]

When I go for stone I just go for the nearest hill and just end his life from the tip to the bottom. This way I also get enough clay and other stuff^^

[KayBur]

19 hours ago, 12pack said:

yep.. i like to dig with the intention of semi-controlled collapses

 

I am also interested in landslides - it turns out cool. In a pinch, much more fun than a perfect picture of an ideal location. Although you can choose the style of play according to your mood. Okay. that the gameplay provides some flexibility.