Initial Mining

[Fidgety]

Just wondering if one should build a mining support near the ramp when you first enter a mine or if the ramp and entrance that you have built acts as a mine support.
Most of the mines that I have had a look in, other peoples that is, do not have supports there.
Does a cave in just drop loads of rubble boulders? I have seen a few mines with the entrance area swamped with these, although I dont know if its due to a cave-in or people just bringing them to the entrance area.

[Bjebr]

The entrance is safe , and act as a mine support.

Cave Down (a.k.a the access to the next level of the mine) are also protected from cave-in.

Bjebr

[Kandarim]

the ladder's protection area is supposed to be slightly larger than that of normal cave supports
I'm not sure whether the ladder/cavedown protects 100%, though (a single mine support still has a tiny chance to allow a cave in in its radius)

[Fidgety]

Thanks guys.

[salemwutwut]

cave in creates random black wall tiles

[Fidgety]

cave in creates random black wall tiles

Are these tiles you cant excavate? Or something else?

[Kandarim]

no, you can simply excavate them. You do not need to light a fire when cave ins spawn new wall tiles.
Spawned wall tiles from cave ins will always be rubble and should never result in a cavedown (although they used to).

[Fidgety]

no, you can simply excavate them. You do not need to light a fire when cave ins spawn new wall tiles.
Spawned wall tiles from cave ins will always be rubble and should never result in a cavedown (although they used to).

As far as I have read, cave ins follow dust falling from the ceiling. Is this dust very noticeable? Or is it easy to miss if you don't pay real close attention? I believe you have 10 minutes to get out or build a support.

[jcwilk]

As far as I have read, cave ins follow dust falling from the ceiling. Is this dust very noticeable? Or is it easy to miss if you don't pay real close attention? I believe you have 10 minutes to get out or build a support.

If you have sound on it's extremely noticable, if not it's still pretty noticable... There's a fairly heavy stream of dust particles falling down onto that tile for the duration so it's pretty hard to miss.

Also as mentioned by MaxPlanck noted in another thread... unlike most supports, when you remove a support which was built to stop a cave in, it will -always- cause another cave in so unless you really don't mind having a support there forever or have valuable stuff that you don't have time to clear nearby you should just let it happen and clean up the rubble later.

[Kandarim]

I have never missed it. It is like snow falling down on a single tile, and there is rather a lot of it. I tend to do my mining under supports though, so I don't have any pictures of cave ins handy.