23 Meters of Futility?

[Ikeprof 182]

As per the video below, I seem to have stumbled on a limitation of mine ceiling height that I was unaware of.

 

While working on a boat cave expansion, I attempted to finish leveling a tile to the same level as the tile I was standing on.  A practice I had long used to make high mine ceilings -  Mine out the layer at the top, then go to the bottom and level forward from a flat tile (as you are technically leveling the next tile "floor" versus a tile "wall").  Anyhow, I had it to within a dirt or two of being level and I received the following event log message:

 

"Lowering the floor further would make the cavern unstable".

 

Thinking myself somewhat versed with the various nuances of mining, I was surprised by this message and searched the wiki to no avail.

 

I am hoping that I am mistaken in my conclusion and that someone will hop in here with an answer that I had not thought of AND will allow me to salvage weeks of work that ...to be honest, I won't re-do via collapsing and re-mining.  

 

Is there a finite ceiling height limitation of 23 meters?

 

Video:

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrocwEcSEWs&feature=youtu.be

Edited March 13, 2015 by Ikeprof

[Fineal 69]

Have you tried manually mining the high corner of that tile? Get the same message? Seems to me I have seen higher drop shafts than that before though I've never used the spyglass to measure. 

[Ikeprof 182]

Yep, Tried to manually mine the floor in the high corner.

 

Same message.

 

Good idea though

[Wurmhole 3,650]

Is your mining skill 76 by chance?

[Wurmhole 3,650]

If I am right, I will explain my thoughts

[Ikeprof 182]

Ike's mining is something like 60/84 and Lee's mining is more like 30 base.

 

Both characters were mining the same tile and got the same message at the same time, which caused me to rule out skill issues

[McGarnicle 1,463]

There is a maximum height that a mine ceiling can be. Not sure what it is, but i think its around 300 or something. Try using concrete to lower the ceiling a couple slope. You should be able to then mine the floor flat.

[Ikeprof 182]

Hmmm, ok, I do appreciate the response.

 

In the end, the tile I was trying to level flat was going to become below water level as part of the ship sailing area in the boat cave.  The ceilings even further in to the north go much higher, so I have probably 100 tiles that would need to collapse and be re-mined at a lower level.

 

I think this project is kaput.  Lessons learned

Edited March 13, 2015 by Ikeprof

[McGarnicle 1,463]

The way I make high mine ceilings is I will "mine up", mine the ceiling as high as you can reach, then level the ground. I have a boat mine project I'm working on now and the first thing i did was mined down to just above water level then opened up a room using the method i mentioned. Then after the area i want is all opened up I'm going to mine the floor down as far as it will let me.

[Tuanta 484]

believe its 3x mining skill (just like max slopes in digging)

[As_I_Decay 1,592]

Always found this mechanic to be completely asinine.

So, you're telling me I can make a dropshaft of immeasurable depths, but I can't mine the floor down to turn the dropshaft into a traversable path because of the ceiling? Okay Wurm.

 

[KanePT 699]

Wanna make a super high cavern?

Mine a tunel above where you want your tunnel to be.

Then mine below it, creating dropshafts. Tada.

[Kyleshandra 205]

Could this be done for a longer wider tunnel like a canal?

For instance, mine a 3 wide tunnel 80-100 dirt up from the water line and then mine at the water line below?

Edited March 25, 2015 by Kyleshandra

[Ikeprof 182]

My findings:

 

I mined out the area above that would form a ceiling.  To know how high above the water line to start this "ceiling area", I started a side ramp up using the "mine up" action each tile..  I believe i went 9 tiles mining up, which I believed would give me roughly a 20 dirt up/tile slope, which I was hoping would equate to 18 meters up.  I then mined sideways into my ceiling area, THEN broke through from that ceiling area into the existing boat cave area.

 

When I broke through, it was roughly 18m using a spyglass to the ceiling of where I broke through while standing on a flat water line level area below. (which I guess puts my closer to 19 meters from the "sailing area" inside the boat cave).

 

Standing on a flat surface adjacent the breathrough tile in the existing boat cave, I then leveled that "floor" (it looked like a wall, but it was the floor of a tile sloping upwards 180 dirt.  An 18 meter span from lowest point to highest point works fine.  Keep in mind that leveling a tile of that significant of a slope generates ALOT of rock shards.

 

I will post pictures to this thread when done, but it does appear that 23 meters is the maximum span from floor to ceiling that can exist in a cave outside of drop shaft creation.

 

Of particular concern was that I was not trying to create a flat floor, but rather a water area, so I had to have that span include the area below water that was mined down to maximum depth.

[Ikeprof 182]

Could this be done for a longer wider tunnel like a canal?

For instance, mine a 3 wide tunnel 80-100 dirt up from the water line and then mine at the water line below?

I would think that would work fine.  

[takatsuki 739]

I would think that would work fine.  

 

Ooooh!!! Typing on the forums at work! =P