Just not getting cave-ins

[Thorfinn]

I don't know if something changed, or I was just insanely lucky before, but I've been running into a lot more cave-ins lately.

My typical mining has been nx3 corridors, such that if the ceiling was cracked, the center ceiling was 100% unstable. I camped out in such a corridor for 4 days, and no cave-ins. So I've just assumed that 100% meant something other than 100%.

But lately (not sure if it's been all of 1.20, or just later releases), I've been encountering a whole lot more collapses. Does anyone know what changed? I'm having to re-evaluate, and I'm having trouble separating what I've learned since from what I knew before.

[LadyWYT]

Was it working normally prior to 1.20.7? There seems to have been some sort of duping fix related to falling blocks, so maybe that's what changed and why things feel different now?

[Never Jhonsen]

A line from 1.20.0 update devlog:

Quote

Tweak: Cave ins are now less predictable, as they can collapse more blocks and create additional cave ins nearby

Now me personally, I haven't noticed a difference between 1.19 caving and 1.20 caving, other than the size diameter being larger. Course, all my cave-ins revolve around expanding my underground forest house, so I'm always fighting an uphill battle

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Was it working normally prior to 1.20.7? There seems to have been some sort of duping fix related to falling blocks, so maybe that's what changed and why things feel different now?

I'm not sure what "normal" is. Was the intent that "100% unstable" blocks always fall, at least in a reasonable short time, as in hours, not months? I've never seen that kind of behavior, though it seems more likely now. I have not yet repeated my experiment of standing around for a month waiting for the ceiling to collapse. There's just a whole lot more engaging stuff to do.

I just know that while cave-ins were almost non-existent in the timeframe of a typical mining expedition, now they are quite a bit more common. But 100% doesn't seem to mean that it's necessarily an imminent threat. Or maybe not ever. I went back into a mine that had a lot of 100% blocks a couple game months ago, and they were still there. So far as I could tell, none of them had collapsed.

[Never Jhonsen]

12 hours ago, Never Jhonsen said:

Course, all my cave-ins revolve around expanding my underground forest house, so I'm always fighting an uphill battle

Here's what I'm talking about btw, which I'm now thinking might be a side effect of the 1.20 changes.

Here is the roof of my soon-to-be steel room; you can see the top of one that is level with the surrounding ground. I dug out this 15x15 pit (13x13 room with walls) by starting at the very top and worked my way down. This caused no landslide issues, nor any cave-ins, as one would expect. However, when placing my pine planks along the walls, they keep triggering cave-ins in various areas. One such is here in the above photo, as well as in the next two.

These stone blocks? Rose out of the dirt as a resulting cave-in. This was flat dirt.

This is the room next to my steel making room.  These rocks phased through the planks and fell into here from that same cave-in.

Anyways, it's (literally) been an uphill battle in expanding this house, and now that you've made this thread I've come to realize all my issues HAVE been post-1.20

[Kyle Rick]

I play Wilderness Survival keeping cave-ins enabled but disabling sideways soil gravity because it felt annoying, so unsure if changing that gravity setting affects cave-ins. I will assume the two are entirely separate systems.

At first I was scared of cave-ins so I made sure to keep them stable with blocks, then using beams, but as I got comfy mining and learning how it all works it does not really seem like much of a problem unless you are rushing/careless.

It seems like cave-ins only happen if the block that is unstable has a block placed or mined that it is connected to by the 6 faces. Time does not seem to do anything for cave-ins at all from my experience.

Because of that, even if you have a ceiling full of 100% unstable blocks, it's fine as long as it's not disturbed. When mining I mine from top to bottom, as rocks are stable as long as there is like 3 or so solid blocks under it. As a result most blocks you mine have 0% instability, so as long as you mine a block with 0% it should never cause a cave-in from my experience.

Though I do also keep it safe by always mining at about max range and being away from slopes/staying at higher ground. It seems like the amount of damage caused by cave-ins is how much distance the blocks fall, increasing in a non-linearly way. So a small amount of falling does not do much damage but I imagine a few more blocks of falling will cause it to be deadly, but I not tested it out myself just from experience from blocks coming from high up.

Once I stopped being scared and became confident in my mining I stopped caring about cave-ins and mine much faster now. Just have to keep in mind about cave-ins when doing so however so you don't get careless. Also ores seem to be just as unstable as cracked rocks.

Is just from my experience so far with cave-ins, and unsure about some of it if people here know more.

Edited March 31, 2025 by Kyle Rick

[Maelstrom]

I will echo @Kyle Rick comments.  Higher instability percentages increases the chance of a cave-in but once a block reaches 100% does not guarantee a cave-in.  It seems that block updates are what will trigger a cave-in.

My best practices for digging like a dwarf

1. Leave an undug column every 2-3 blocks.  I've found 3 is the point where caveins become dramatically more likely, while 2 is very rare.
2. Converting a block to a chiselled block prevents caveins.  Caveat blocks of 100% instability cannot be converted.
3. Some kinds of blocks can prevent caveins, mostly full blocks, like cobble or planks. (limited success in 1.20)
4. Support beams can prevent caveins better than blocks. (I haven't tested this in 1.20 since it consumes too much resources for my tastes)
5. Fences and stone walls absolutely do nothing to prevent caveins.  Just don't bother.
6. Sedimentary rocks have a dramatically higher likelihood of caveins.  Be extra careful in these rock layers.

My conclusion on mining big areas underground - leave an unmined column with two blocks inbetween the columns.  ALWAYS mine blocks top down.  Leave mining an ore in these columns until the rest of the deposit is mined greatly reduces the risk of caveins.  I've found that using this method reduces caveins immensely to the point where I'm surprised when a cavein actually happens.

If rocks start falling - JUMP!  Keep jumping during the cavein and you'll end up at the top of the cavein and just have to figure out how to get to back to where you were.  Really large caveins can almost totally obliterate tunnels and leave you "trapped" in a small cavern.  Especially true in sedimentary rock layers.

Edited March 31, 2025 by Maelstrom