Cave In Mechanics Are Too Easily Prevented

[wasa]

Currently cave ins only seem to happen if you mine a block with open air directly below it (AKA mining ceiling or upwards). While mining straight tunnels, discs (most of the valuable ores), or even entire rooms of any size will never cause a cave in, as long as you start from the top to the bottom and don't hit any caves (and even when I hit caves, I've never had a cave in propagate far enough upwards to have rocks fall on top of me), this makes it where support beams are only needed when mining upwards, which, given the nature of cave diving, is pretty rare.

Personally, I feel like If I'm enabling a challenge setting like this, I want to be forced to use support beams to prevent hazards, and not be able to game the mechanic 99% of the time just by changing how I approach mining rocks & ores.

[Thorfinn]

I knew that taking the floor out was always safe, but I guess I never really thought about the implications of that.

I'm not understanding the bit about hitting caves. If you are only ever removing the floor (mining from top to bottom) why would rocks be falling on you? Am I just not picturing what you are saying?

[wasa]

Since the "bottom" of your mine is the "top" of the cave, the floor would collapse, which can still hurt you quite alot since you fall inside the falling block entity before it turns into a block again (atleast, from my experience). I think it falls into an exceedingly rare circumstance, but it is one that I haven't been able to prevent so that's why I mention it.

[Thorfinn]

Oh, OK. Kinda similar to what happens in a landslide, where you end up inside a block or blocks? Or maybe that's something different. If I accidentally collapse some dirt and fall into a deep, deep hole, I can usually time a jump so I take no damage, or only a little.

[LadyWYT]

I feel like stopping people from exploiting the game mechanics is something you can only prevent so much of, as it's something that will always happen to some extent as players figure out the most expedient ways to do things. I also suspect that situations that are "too easy" aren't necessarily bad, as that's in many cases just a symptom of a player playing competently. Tasks should be easier once you have the right knowledge and skills to tackle them.

That being said, I get where the OP is coming from. I don't play with cave-ins enabled, but based on his description of it, it sounds like the mechanic could use some extra tuning so it's not so easily avoided .

[wasa]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Oh, OK. Kinda similar to what happens in a landslide, where you end up inside a block or blocks? Or maybe that's something different. If I accidentally collapse some dirt and fall into a deep, deep hole, I can usually time a jump so I take no damage, or only a little.

Yeah, the falling blocks behave pretty similar to landslides  

[Steel General]

I've never yet made support beams, and my deep mining is not hindered.  Approach ore from above and mine from the top down. If you find ore higher than you're mining there's going to be trouble, but it can be managed - clear out as much value as possible, then trigger the cave-in (mining at max reach from a hallway, ready to run backward as soon as the block breaks) and get what's left.

I'm not opposed to adjusting this system to make the beams necessary