Surface Mining Restriction: Not Deep Enough For Large Ships - Intended?

[murp 0]

I'm building a canal and came across some agitating rock. After lowering the rock, it doesn't appear that its maximum depth meets the depth requirements for larger ships. The folks in GA - Freedom suggested the sculpting wand, but I don't believe anyone in the Pristine/Release cluster has one, and it also seems a bit silly to have to purchase charges on the wand just to lower the rock one or two extra dirt to grant passage for larger ships (based on some bad luck).

I wasn't sure whether this should be posted in suggestions or bugs, so apologies if this is the wrong forum section.

Here's a screenshot of the issue. I made a strip of land at the same level that surface mining forces me to stop lowering at. The sand is 3 tiles across, 2 tiles deep, all flat (same height as the lowered rock). On either side it slopes into deeper terrain; needless to say, the corbita wont traverse over the land.

After testing a bit it's either a 1 or 2-dirt difference from allowing the corbita to travel across it. It seems like this would be an easy fix by either reducing ship depth requirement on larger rigs, or to allow surface mining to continue a few dirt deeper. Is this an intended mechanic/prevention? It's a killer for my canal project.

Edited February 17, 2013 by murp

[LennyHarvey85 67]

This is why people make cave canals?

[silakka 2,360]

this is a lot cooler than a cave canal

we need an option to mine rock a bit underwater, atleast maxium to 30slope deep.

[Jimmy_Russell 0]

It's so close to being deep enough for a Corbita. Being able to surface mine a few more deeper would be nice

[Keldun 335]

People made cave canals, because in the past water mining was limited to 7 depth or so and because of mountains of course.

Zcul recently increased that limit and I thought that was to make ships pass. But I don't understand why he increase water mining from barely deep enough for a knarr to just short of deep enough for any bigger ships. That was entirely pointless.

Edited February 17, 2013 by Keldun

[Elen 1,013]

So I took a few minutes to do some research into how people broke rock underwater before machinery, hard to find real answers but I got a few.

1. A long metal pole with a hardened tip, used to break up the rock before dredging it out.
   
2. A manual drill on a long pole.
   
3. A pile-driver type item raised and let go to smash rock.
   
4. A drybox with the water pumped out ~ wurm will not allow for this one right now.
   

I kind of like #1 and #3 personally.

[Niclamus 17]

Sculpting wand is your only option right now I believe. I didn't know they had increased the depths you could mine down, that's awesome!

[Seara 686]

Sculpting wand is your only option right now I believe. I didn't know they had increased the depths you could mine down, that's awesome!

Pretty sure you can't get one of those onto the new servers until they get connected with the rest of the cluster.

[Niclamus 17]

Oh I'm sorry, I didnt read that this was on a new server.