Let's talk about drills...

[Chumbi]

**This is not meant to be disrespectful of the devs in any way. This is a fun game that is in EA and I'm just giving some thoughts on potential improvements to the game.**

Anyone else horribly disappointed by the drills? I was very excited to set up my first drill only to find that it doesn't really do much of anything. I set up the vertical one (I forgot what the technical name was) thinking that it would, you know, drill. I imagined a technical marvel of spinning gears, and hammered sheet metal, belching forth smoke as the the point began slowly spinning into the dirt and rock below it. I truly expected it to expend fuel to begin drilling downward in a straight line where I placed it. That way, I could remove the drill when it reached a depth I was happy with and I could fill the tunnel with elevator shafts. I saw that there was an inventory, and was excited that I could harvest all the minerals and rock that my drill baby would pick up on the way. Instead, it sat there silently as my dwarves went about their business.

The tool-tips aren't helpful, and neither give an accurate description of just what exactly these machines are supposed to do, nor where/how to place for any effect. By looking at the models, I was expecting the vertical looking one to dig straight down in a line, and the horizontal one to dig straight across in a line. Again, this confusion may be the product of EA and the devs are already planning to provide better tool tips. I figured I'd throw this tidbit in just in case they may have overlooked that need.

Let's talk balance. They are the product of high tier mountain lore, they cost (arguably) higher tier resources to build, and they could be one time use. They use fuel and can deteriorate over time, so it's not like this would be free excavation. They could also jam up if their inventory got full, making it an almost full time job for a dwarf to empty and store all resources gathered in the process of drilling. I think they would make excellent tunnel creators in the way I expected them to in the paragraph above. The horizontal one could cut across forming hallways, and once done, you can excavate rooms with your dwarves. These straight paths would provide excellent space for rail cart tracks.The vertical one would make tunneling downward much less dangerous and would provide perfect room for elevator tracks. Both could also be balanced with specific ranges. Maybe they only drill 500 cubes in any direction?

TLDR: please make the drills worth building. Being able to drill downward vertically or across horizontally is not a far-fetched thought and could easily be balanced.

[JeanBibi]

Hello, I build my first drill (the horizontal one on my side) yesterday evening and.. same as you.. the drill just look to do nothing.. The drill have fuel etc.. but nothing happen.. the dwarf doesn't seem to be able to interact with it neither... So on my side... it's not working.. or i don't understand how it work.. maybe we need to make a special tool for dwarf and this dwarf will be able to operate it ?

[Chomann2000]

if you put them on ore deposits on walls they give you that type of ore, idk if it's infinite or not as i just kind a figured out how it works

[JeanBibi]

Ohhhh!!! Thanks you! I will try :)

[WarpQueen]

Hey, yeah the tooltips on the drills are misleading, we'll update those! It does not actually move, they are meant to drill ore you can see, like JeanBibi wrote.
But maybe we should also have a drill for forming shafts etc, I'll put it on the list. :)

[friday]

Drills for shafts would be very sweet indeed. Easier building of elevators and trains.

[The Freak]

I thought they might be mountable on a platform or cart at first or even on a rail but nope. At the moment they're slower but they mine more ore than just chipping it out of the wall with a pick. Definitely much room for expansion here.