What is the point of the cog and crusher drills?

[Eoin Lynne]

They just do the same thing your dwarves do but slower? So what is the point?

[mikeydsc]

Its no man power, The labor can be used elsewhere, so its basically free gems/ores. Faster to pick up a pre-made batch than standing there mining it when you can be doing other things.

[Da' Vane]

Also, apparently they mine faster, and more, then what you'd get just from mining with dwarves...

[Draxxalon]

You'll get much much more ore/gems via machine than by hand.

[mrspookums]

Basically they never run out of ore. It's pretty much a cheat code atm.

[Troll]

Originally posted by mrspookums:

Basically they never run out of ore. It's pretty much a cheat code atm.

They do but very slowly.
I've had a number of my drills that had no more ore on their walls.

[Cheet4h]

Originally posted by mrspookums:

Basically they never run out of ore. It's pretty much a cheat code atm.

IIRC they do run out, they just extract a lot more than your dwarves would. At least that was a developer statement I read a few months ago on this topic.
Although it would be nice to have this information in a tooltip of these objects.

[mikeydsc]

Every mine runs out sooner or later. Why should this game be any different?

[Aonir]

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

Every mine runs out sooner or later. Why should this game be any different?

They do run out. They just get more from the deposit before its depleted. Rp related, think of it as if it went deeper in stone walls than dwarves can. At least its how i see it.
Numbers related, i think dwarves get 7ore for each square they mine, i guess the drills get between 2 or 3 times this. But let them run for a couple hours ans you'll see them running out.

[mikeydsc]

Originally posted by Aonir:

Originally posted by mikeydsc:

Every mine runs out sooner or later. Why should this game be any different?

They do run out. They just get more from the deposit before its depleted. Rp related, think of it as if it went deeper in stone walls than dwarves can. At least its how i see it.
Numbers related, i think dwarves get 7ore for each square they mine, i guess the drills get between 2 or 3 times this. But let them run for a couple hours ans you'll see them running out.

I guess you misunderstood as I am saying same thing, mines run out and it should be this way.

[XyPeZ]

Heres some numbers. the bigboy gets you 10x more ore per vein, the cog gives you less and mines slower. They can both be automated by building rails close to them, so the carts with fetch the ore/gems without a dwarf in them. Although if they are still assigned to hauling, they will keep going with them once in a while. Right now the only way to get around this is to build 20 storage rooms and hook them up to rails+stations then have a rail going through all of your production. Farms/forges/quarryes/smithy. Everything. Then completely remove their abiity to haul. Then they will stop and the carts with fill everything, fuel resources and finished produce. That way you don't really need that many dwarves in order to get a huge colony

[Da' Vane]

Bot Cog and Crusher drills have inventories, so it's a good way to build up a stockpile of ore/gems for when you need them for smelting/crafting...

[Landlocked]

I ran some drills on a single tile of ore until they ran dry, and here's how it turned out:

Cog drill:
Mined 48, 59, 50, 63 ore from copper, coal, sapphire, iron respectively
Crusher drill:
Mined 77, 64, 51 ore from copper, coal, iron respectively

My guess is that it doesn't matter what's being mined, but every time it gets another ore it does a probability check to see if one of the 7 dwarf-mineable ores is removed. Maybe 1/8 for the cog and 1/10 for the crusher?

[mipi123]

Originally posted by XyPeZ:

Heres some numbers. the bigboy gets you 10x more ore per vein, the cog gives you less and mines slower. They can both be automated by building rails close to them, so the carts with fetch the ore/gems without a dwarf in them. Although if they are still assigned to hauling, they will keep going with them once in a while. Right now the only way to get around this is to build 20 storage rooms and hook them up to rails+stations then have a rail going through all of your production. Farms/forges/quarryes/smithy. Everything. Then completely remove their abiity to haul. Then they will stop and the carts with fill everything, fuel resources and finished produce. That way you don't really need that many dwarves in order to get a huge colony

sorry to necro this, do you mean remove dwarves ability to haul and they will ride around carts putting stuff IN the carts?

[Cheet4h]

Originally posted by mipi123:

Originally posted by XyPeZ:

Heres some numbers. the bigboy gets you 10x more ore per vein, the cog gives you less and mines slower. They can both be automated by building rails close to them, so the carts with fetch the ore/gems without a dwarf in them. Although if they are still assigned to hauling, they will keep going with them once in a while. Right now the only way to get around this is to build 20 storage rooms and hook them up to rails+stations then have a rail going through all of your production. Farms/forges/quarryes/smithy. Everything. Then completely remove their abiity to haul. Then they will stop and the carts with fill everything, fuel resources and finished produce. That way you don't really need that many dwarves in order to get a huge colony

sorry to necro this, do you mean remove dwarves ability to haul and they will ride around carts putting stuff IN the carts?

Five days is hardly necroing, I think

No, carts can move items around independently of dwarves. Not sure if they can pick items up from the ground, but they do carry them between buildings.