Shoring for cave-ins

[Dustin James]

being able to craft shoring that would either decrease the chance of cave-in or completely neutralize the risk would be incredibly helpful.

[idiomcritter]

welcome to the forum

my understanding is that its kinda in the game already, done with support beams and I wished i'd known this when i last played on a server that enabled cave-ins..

Quote

Support beams can be used the following ways:

• As a way to reduce the instability of the ceiling in caves (if the cave-ins have been activated in your game settings, by default they are deactivated).

ref:wiki support beams

[Thorfinn]

I usually use fences or slabs to hold up the ceilings. My mines would look cleaner with support beams, but they are not really tourist hotspots. Hardly worth the extra durability consumed. Maybe on iron deposits, but, frankly, I'm too set in my ways.  

[Maelstrom]

fences, walls and slabs do NOT prevent cave-ins.  Blocks fall right through them.  Full blocks WILL prevent cave-in's however.  I've been testing leaving a column unmined but mine out the two blocks inbetween columns.  So far it's working incredibly well.

[Never Jhonsen]

Two things about cave-ins:

- Solid blocks do not stop cave ins. Many times in 1.19 and 1.20 I have had rock fall through (and even delete) a ceiling of packed dirt, and wooden planks. (Living underground in the middle of a forest with soil and rock instability is a fun challenge )

- Support beams are the best way to go, but even they are not perfect. You can still have a cavein fall through a layer of support beams. They do help to mitigate it a lot however.

[Thorfinn]

10 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

fences, walls and slabs do NOT prevent cave-ins.  Blocks fall right through them.

Interesting. I see them go to 100% unstable, but not fall. If they go 100% without a support, they fall like right now. Am I just getting out too fast, and they fall after I'm gone? I'd think I'd see sinkholes on the surface, but maybe not?

[Maelstrom]

I've seen areas of multiple unsupported rock at 100% and not collapse.  In my experience rock collapses only drop up to the two to three layers above the falling rock.  So far I've had very few collapses using the unmined column method.  It seems to be the most successful short of lugging support beams with you.

[Thorfinn]

16 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

In my experience rock collapses only drop up to the two to three layers above the falling rock.

Oh. That may well be it. Because of the way I mine, I've got a bunch of 3 wide corridors, with unmined rock and/or ore for the walls. It's only if that method starts playing out that I bother trying to shore stuff up by putting fenceposts down the center of the corridor, then mine out wider. Once I start seeing 70%s, I dig alcoves into the walls and fill them with fences and/or slabs. (Two slabs facing opposite directions makes a 1 wide passage through, that I assumed was safe, since there are no empty blocks.)  Since that's only deep ores, the collapse would not be evident from the surface. Maybe also why I thought I had cleared out all the ore that didn't involve a ceiling block, yet I find blocks I would have sworn I would have taken. What's currently the floor used to be the ceiling.