A couple of mining questions, if you please.

[honeymilk]

I dropped down to level 8 on the very first black rock mined. Only other thing mined on level 7 was a straight line to the edge, but I hadnt been in the mine for months. If you constantly mine and burn to get a cave down you'll most likely get it quicker than waiting it out. But waiting it out will result in less time spent getting the cave down.

I can clarify that there are some hidden variables that very well could resemble the activity on a floor before the mine down becomes reasonably available.

To clarify further. Every cave down starts at something worse than a 1 in 30,000 Hard Rock to find. The more certain things happen, the better those odds get. The farther down levels you go. The worse 'starting' position you are at for the purpose of calculating those odds.

Just like fields... The system HIGHLY rewards the person who goes "Slow and Steady" in terms of time spent vs. reward. I.E. a player who only spend 1 hour a day mining in his mine will go down to level 9 for FAR less TOTAL hours spent then the players who are strip mining. However, like most systems in Salem you can 'brute force' it just as you can brute force the speed of a field. Meaning the strip miner will still find that he is reaching level 9 considerably faster (but for more total hours) than a casual miner.

[YellowDonkey]

Hi. Is it normal, when you just mined to the second floor and was suddenly atacked by 25 or something bats at one time, or is it just bad luck?

[grapefruitv]

Hi. Is it normal, when you just mined to the second floor and was suddenly atacked by 25 or something bats at one time, or is it just bad luck?

There is always a bunch of bats spawned when you drop down to a new level, if your biles are not high enough to handle them I would advise to wait 20 minutes or so before entering fresh level of the mine and let them despawn.

[YellowDonkey]

There is always a bunch of bats spawned when you drop down to a new level, if your biles are not high enough to handle them I would advise to wait 20 minutes or so before entering fresh level of the mine and let them despawn.

Thank you.

[Taipion]

Now thinking of that...

I remember the first mine-down I had, caused some blood damage and dropped my char down to the bats on the new lvl as it spawned, lately I had a mine-down and my char was still standing near the new entrance, not dropping down to the bats automatically, when did that change?

[jcwilk]

Now thinking of that...

I remember the first mine-down I had, caused some blood damage and dropped my char down to the bats on the new lvl as it spawned, lately I had a mine-down and my char was still standing near the new entrance, not dropping down to the bats automatically, when did that change?

On Popham a month ago or so I had the opposite, first mine down I took no damage and remained standing where I was mining, second mine down I got knocked out near the ladder up below (3rd level). One thing I noticed was that I happened to have a mine support very close to me when I made my first mine down, I wonder if it's possible that you don't get knocked out from a mine down if you're in a sufficiently supported area, or if its perhaps reduced?

[Kandarim]

yeah I remembered being dropped in the lower level too, with blood damage. But my last cave down (ages since i'd had a cavedown before that) I simply remained standing. When I went down the entrance, the bat infestation was merrily waiting for a cleave.

[kitty629]

What about the bats that spawn randomly while mining tiles, are they predictive of something good nearby or just random. The last bunch i killed and continued to mine that area led me to silver ore. Wondering if there is any correlation or just coincidence.

[Kandarim]

bats are more prevalent the more mad you are, but you can still get them at 0 madness. I haven't seen any correlation, but I've only had it twice I think now, at madness level 0. Neither times was anything worthwhile nearby that I found (one of those was in the middle of a room i was excavating, so I know for sure nothing was nearby. From a JC standpoint, I doubt they're indicative.