Need help with understanding levels and planning quarry size

[Stormweaker]

I'd like to mine every bit of resource in the different deposits, for that I am planning to do stepped quarries thanks to the retaining walls but I find it difficult to know how big the surface needed will be.

I could do it step by step, moving walls further everytime I dig 5 tiles deeper but that would waste building ressources and I may need to move buildins too close to the quarry.

Is there a foolproof method to plan where to place the surface walls ?

Right now I'm thinking of looking of the outermost parts of the deposit, count the levels and place a wall (1+level//5) mining squares away. For exemple for 13 levels I'd put it 3 mining squares away.

[Silent_Shadow]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2862883301

[Stormweaker]

Perfect, thanks.

I hope there will be some change to make this process easier (didn't look if there's a roadmap), like displaying the max absolute depth on top of the pillar, counting the rings is a bit tedious.

[Silent_Shadow]

You're welcome.

I wish there were a way to make subsurface mines, perhaps for reduced utilization of the deposit or needing materials to shore up the tunnels.

[jamiechi]

Originally posted by Stormweaker:

Perfect, thanks.

I hope there will be some change to make this process easier (didn't look if there's a roadmap), like displaying the max absolute depth on top of the pillar, counting the rings is a bit tedious.

The roadmap was removed. Edit: Fixed. Thank you Devs!

[Jan]

To be honest, ignore retaining walls. Not worth in in my opinion. You want to dig everything out und fill the hole later with rocks or waste.
Dig a ramp with a bit of space to the ressource node down to the maximum depth of the node. Then level everyting. Make sure not to build anything close to the digsite because 2-3 tiles might sink in.
I also like storage near my digsites. Main ressource of the site + rock+dirt. Connected to the mining tower. Rock and dirt storage empty into a second storage which is set to always empty.

[Reconjack85]

I've found it's kind of trial and error with each resource location. I mine the resource flat first, then use the resource locator (L key) to show how far out it goes under ground, the above link is great too explaining the particulars of the walls and how they interact. I try to use the larger black solid lines in the grid to snap my walls into. Of course certain maps or spots this takes up building space but it's a trade off. I expand my island with rock, slag, limestone, and sand as needed too.

[click]

What Jan said. Its orders of magnitude more cost and time efficient to go the "dig big hole and worry about it later" route.

[Calv]

Originally posted by Jan:

To be honest, ignore retaining walls. Not worth in in my opinion. You want to dig everything out und fill the hole later with rocks or waste.
Dig a ramp with a bit of space to the ressource node down to the maximum depth of the node. Then level everyting. Make sure not to build anything close to the digsite because 2-3 tiles might sink in.
I also like storage near my digsites. Main ressource of the site + rock+dirt. Connected to the mining tower. Rock and dirt storage empty into a second storage which is set to always empty.

This is mostly what I've been doing. Only time I've used retaining walls is to secure the few mining towers I built too close to the mining area.

I can imagine retaining walls being more essential on a smaller island where you are forced to build right up against the mining area though.

[jamiechi]

^ Yes. I do this as well. My goal is to flatten the island in the area of the mines first. Increase the size of the island in the ocean a bit so I can start digging deeper. And then Dig to the bottom of the mine deposit to get everything I can.

I also try to insure that nothing is near the mine deposits so I don't need to use the retaining walls. I may use them for decoritive purposes or to block trucks from going where I don't want them to go until I get the other road barriers researched.

If they were stackable, I might find them more usefull. But the developers don't want to allow that.

[Jan]

Retaining walls need a higher max hight to be usefull. 10 at least. Right now they just look nice but you waste too much space when building them correctly.

[Peter34]

I'd like tier-2 Retaining Walls that cost Steel to build and go up to height 8 or at least 7.

[Flat Stanley]

Another suggestion is that when you are filling in your old mine hole with crap (rock, slag, waste, etc), fill it to one level BELOW existing grade. So if the existing ground is at +02, fill the hole up to +01 and fill in the remaining last layer with dirt. This will allow you to place farms there.

[jentel.pops]

You now need two layers of dirt for farms. So fill it to 1 and fill it to +3 (the new normal level).

[Flat Stanley]

Wait what? Really? Son of a b................

[jentel.pops]

Yeah, I forgot why.
Not sure if it is only on new saves or also on existing ones.