Unending Hillside Roof?

[Keramane]

So, I carved through a small hill, planning to make a huge grow-op (for food! Food.. yes, food. *shifty eyes*). I know there's a section where I can't no-roof-zone it, sdo tht's fine, personally steer my miner so that when it collapses, he's on the outside of it.

Poof, down it goes. Great. Cleaned up the rubble, splat, wave 2 of the ceiling comes down.

Okay, well, it was my newest capture-convert, whatever, I don't care, clear tHAT rubble. Splat 3...

Do these hill roofs never end?

[Tykero980]

Certain roofs are unremovable and if theres no support within 12 tiles it will cause a collapse.

[7FOUR]

Pretty sure they won't end. As far as I'm aware, only thin roofs can be removed. A thick mountainous roof will just endlessly spew rubble to support itself.

[Keramane]

Hrm, better sprout a pillar nearby and mine up the rubble.. I can just.. pretend it's a roof and not a pillar of earth.

[Emmote]

Just put your own steel wall or whatever in the center of the room and it'll stop collapsing.

[Steelwind]

RoofBomb mod is good for the small bits that need removing.

[jamesc70]

Roofs are one thing in this game that just don't make gameplay sense.

My first time having this issue, it collasped on my main shooter guy, destroying both his eyeballs somehow.

No way to plan for it (I've tried avoiding collaspe spots manually with no luck), no way to check for it (is there a roof there or not; only way to tell is to have it fall on you), no way it should stay in the game this way.

[Emmote]

If you hover over a tile it'll tell you if it has a roof (and what kind) or not in the bottom left.....

[Steelwind]

If you keep an eye on it when digging under hills/mountains it isn't that hard to avoid collapses. Any time you see thick roof you know it needs supports.

[jamesc70]

Originally posted by Emmote:

If you hover over a tile it'll tell you if it has a roof (and what kind) or not in the bottom left.....

Didn't know that, but still, it's just plain stupid.

No you don't look to see if there is a roof, you hover over an area and look at a report to see if there is a roof. Not very intuitive or fun.

[Emmote]

To be fair, if you're digging out a mountain - there is a roof, no question. I mean, what else do you expect above your head other than mountain?

[Steelwind]

Originally posted by Emmote:

To be fair, if you're digging out a mountain - there is a roof, no question. I mean, what else do you expect above your head other than mountain?

This. Plus there is a shadow. Sometimes hard to see but not too bad when you get used to it.

[jamesc70]

Originally posted by Emmote:

To be fair, if you're digging out a mountain - there is a roof, no question. I mean, what else do you expect above your head other than mountain?

If you are digging out the center of a mountain, in a large radius yes.

If you are digging the side of a mountain out, or a freestanding monolith from it's edges, you assume two things :

1. The roof would come down as part of the digging, like a hillside crumbling.
2. You wouldn't dig under a big overhang of roof if you could see it.

I guess that is what it boils down to for me; if I can't see it, it shouldn't be there. I never thought the DF complaints about Z-dimension levels were a big deal, but perhaps it should be.

[Emmote]

If you're digging out a small pillar of earth, there will be a very visible shadow created by the roof. At night you might miss it, but during the day, unlikely.

[Keramane]

The easiest way to find permanent roofs is to Zone in a No Roof Zone over where you want to mine. It won't fill in where there are perma-roofs, and it will carve out any shallow roof areas. Roofs are pretty alright as is, they are easy to support, 1 wall every so many tiles, you're fine. It's what, 5 logs?

[Son of Crom]

It's very easy to change this yourself within the game files. Open up Roofs.xml using a text editor. I would recommend using notepad++.

It contains the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Roofs>

<RoofDef>
<defName>RoofConstructed</defName>
<label>constructed roof</label>
<isThickRoof>false</isThickRoof>
<filthLeaving>BuildingRubble</filthLeaving>
<soundPunchThrough>PunchThroughRoofMetal</soundPunchThrough>
</RoofDef>


<RoofDef>
<defName>RoofRockThin</defName>
<label>rock roof (thin)</label>
<isThickRoof>false</isThickRoof>
<isNatural>true</isNatural>
<filthLeaving>RockRubble</filthLeaving>
<soundPunchThrough>RoofCollapse</soundPunchThrough>
</RoofDef>


<RoofDef>
<defName>RoofRockThick</defName>
<label>overhead mountain</label>
<isThickRoof>true</isThickRoof>
<isNatural>true</isNatural>
<collapseLeavingThingDef>CollapsedRocks</collapseLeavingThingDef>
<filthLeaving>RockRubble</filthLeaving>
</RoofDef>

</Roofs>


The flag "isThickRoof" refers to whether sections of roof get removed after collapsing. Change isThickRoof to false for RoofRockThick and no more infinitely collapsing ceilings.