Using grappling hook to go down

[valenti_scott]

Hello-
I thought I saw a guy mention on YouTube that you can use the grapping hook to go down, i.e., jump down a steep mine shaft and not die. I was wondering if this is true, and can anyone elaborate?
-Scott

[GrimMonkeh]

When falling, hug a wall and fire the grappling hook a little below you and it will make you stop and lose your speed so when you hit the ground you won't die.


Just be careful, the hook won't work properly on the frozen cavern neither on the poison cavern. They have a 5 sec cd.

[valenti_scott]

OK, thanks.

[MoronWMachinegun]

What I do is put my lift in shafts that are 4x3, so I can fall down the open side and use my grapple to slow me down, as YoruToboe said. I'll also put the next lift shaft right next to the previous one, and clear enough space so I can just drop from the first 4x3 into the next 4x3. Makes getting down in a jiffy easy in the early game. I am unlucky going up, always seems I get a final SPRoooioiiiing on the last grapple that ends up shooting me way up into the air, so I use the lifts on the way up.

[mt6767]

At the top, you can place a layer of blocks 1 or 2 wider than the lift shaft, and 5 or 6 above ground level to serve as an anchor point and also block you from shooting over the top.

[valenti_scott]

Thanks, yea, I set up a vertical shaft to practice going up and down. I made the shaft 1x2. I placed an "anchor" block 3m above the top of the shaft.

Also, I put three stair steps down on either side of the shaft. I found I could maneuver sideways (going up) when I reached the top of the shaft, and land on one of the steps.

I seemed to do OK with a 60m depth. I found going up easier than going down. Going down, when I grappled downward against the wall, often I would be sent upward! I didn't want to go up!

It seems like you have to aim downward at just the right angle to break your fall, not go up, and not slam into the floor below you and die. I still haven't figured out what that angle is. It seems like the angle faces way down the shaft, but if you grapple against the floor you're in trouble. Also, it takes a finite amount of time for the hook to get from your hand to the wall, and you have to time it just right, so the hook meets the wall near the floor.

When I started practicing with a depth of 70m, I was constantly dying when grappling downward. I would fall a ways, grapple, and then be sent upward. Coming back down I'd try again. Eventually I'd hit the floor with fatal damage or almost fatal damage. I'm not sure why I'm doing OK with 60m but not 70m.

It's funny that I've got a pretty good infrastructure set up for all the T1 ores without learning to grapple well. I even have a cargo lift carrying lithium up to the surface. And I've found gold, titanium and nickel.

I was so afraid of grappling that I'd set up these ledges every 20m or so going up my shafts, so I'd grapple up and down 20m at a time. Of course now I have some lifts, so I don't have to grapple as much.

Right now I have lifts doing gown to a gold mine, but I have to change lifts about five times to get down there, quite a nuisance. That doesn't have much to do with grappling (directly), except that it amazes me that I've set all this up without knowing how to grapple very well. It's a challenging subject, and I don't see any youtube videos about it. Thanks,
-Scott