Digging

Main / Skills / Digging

Description

Digging is the skill of terraforming or moving dirt around, and is used either to raise or lower a tile. Digging requires a shovel and increases several characteristics: body strength, body stamina, and mind logic. Destroying pavement and cultivating a packed dirt tile also increases the digging skill.

Method

Activate a shovel and right-click a tile and select Dig. This will lower the ground and put one unit of the tile material in your inventory (if you have enough strength to carry it). Please note that the material is dug from corners or points of tiles, and the corner of reference is where you were standing when the digging finished. Where you right-click to select the dig command has absolutely no impact whatsoever on where you dig, where your avatars feet are is all that matters. The maximum slope you can dig on is 3 x [your digging skill]. e.g. A skill of 50.25 in digging will mean you can dig on, or adjacent to, a slope of up to 151 dirt.

It is not possible to dig on cliff or rock tiles. Rock tiles can be mined down though.

To lower a whole tile, you must stand in each of the four corners and dig. To raise a tile, you must drop dirt on the tile corners. Digging on tiles like clay produces material each dig, but not lower the clay or other material tile.

To check if a tile is flat, you can either right-click a tile and select Flatten or examine the tile's borders. If all tile borders say "The slope is level", then tile is flat. You can also see the difference in height between tile sides by examining the tile's borders. The reference will be a certain number of units of material either away from you or toward you relative to where you are standing. For example, if the slope is 2 dirt steep towards you, go to the other end of the tile border you examined and dig twice to level the edge in question. To avoid confusion in the beginning when examining tile borders, stand near, or preferably on, the blank non-highlightable "mini-square" at the corner of a tile.

Notes

• The only instance trees will obstruct digging is when there is a tree in the NE, NW and SW tiles.
• Digging holds a chance to reward you with Rare Bones & Emeralds. Anybody, even non premium accounts have the chance of finding Emeralds. Only premium accounts however have the chance of finding Rare Bones.
• Having a shovel activate will give a mouse tool indicating the slope of a tile border when you mouse over it.

Messages

The road would be too steep to traverse.

Cannot dig a cobblestone road to over 20 slope steep.

The water is too deep or too shallow to dig using that tool

You can only dig 7 dirt below water level with a shovel before you have to switch to a dredge.

You are not allowed to drop dirt there.

Cannot drop dirt on cobblestone road when the corner is surrounded on all sides by trees or similar tiles.

You are not skilled enough to dig in such steep slopes.

Slopes become too steep when the dirt slope is greater than 3x your digging skill. This includes any slopes on any tiles bordering the tile you wish to dig on. For example, with 5 digging skill, you can dig on a slope up to 15 steep.

You cannot dig in such terrain.

This message happens when the corner is surrounded by 3 or 4 tree or bush tiles.

This message will also occur when trying to lower floorboards through a dig action.

You hit rock.

All the dirt above the rock layer in this tile corner has been dug away.

Your shovel fails to penetrate the earth no matter what you try. Weird.

You are trying to dig in an area protected by the GMs. Most likely the Amnesty Road on Golden Valley. Find a different spot.

You suddenly become very weak, and your arm muscles fail you. You just can not dig here it seems.

You are trying to dig within a planned house.

You can't figure out how to remove the stone. You must become a bit better at digging first.

You need 10 digging to remove pavement.

You need to be stronger to destroy pavement.

Body strength of 20 and a digging skill of 10 is required for destroying pavement.

You need to be stronger to dig on roads.

You need 20 body strength to dig on roads.

The object nearby prevents digging further down.

An object, such as a bulk storage bin may prevent digging steep slopes.

The water is too deep and would only dissolve the concrete.

When using concrete to raise a tile below water the lowest height that the tile can be is 25.

Burying

Activate a shovel, right-click the corpse and select Bury.

• Note: a crude shovel does not provide the bury action

Burying is generally designed for the disposal of a corpse. An unbutchered corpse will attract carnivores so therefore it is a respectful act to bury an animal after you kill it. It is a good idea to butcher the animal with a butchering knife before it is buried. Also, remember to bury your own corpse after you pick up its inventory.

If you try to bury something on a rock tile, cave tile, or a dirt tile where the dirt is less then 3 dirts deep you will fail and get the message, "The rock is too shallow to bury anything in." However, it is possible to now bury corpses on a rock tile and or a cave tile in the same fashion as on dirt just with a pickaxe.

Dredging

A dredge is a tool used to dig dirt from under the water level. Maximum depth may be determined by your digging skill. Dredge quality is also known to affect maximum depth. You cannot dredge at a depth greater than 180 dirt below sea level.

You need a boat to dredge; any boat will do, there is no specific "Dredger" boat type. When not in a boat, you can only dredge to the same depth as you could dig with a shovel, which is 7 dirt deep below water level. You can use a dredge to flatten or level while disembarked.

To dredge, drive a boat to the corner you wish to dredge, activate the dredge, right-click the boat and select "Dredge". Boarding the boat as a passenger may help you stay on top of the tile easier, without drifting. Dredging makes the tile you dredged steeper, just like normal digging. Dredged dirt/sand/clay will go into the boat's hold if there is space available (note that the dredge should have space in it as well, as the materials will "pass through" the dredge to the boat).

Digging for Rock Guide

To set up a mine where there is no exposed rock, you must first reveal the rock layer under the dirt layer. Dig at a reasonable distance above water. Keep digging in one corner until "You hit rock" or do not have enough skill to continue digging. Once you hit rock in one corner, then you must dig in all other corners until they have hit rock also. When you hit rock in all four corners, then the rock tile will be uncovered. If you lack the skill to dig in "such steep slopes", you could dig the nearby tiles down further as well, to reduce the slope to the corners you are working on.

Tutorials

• Visual digging with Axeblade a in game image guide to flattening 2 tiles
• Digging - Simplified an attempt to explain how to flatten a tile, and how it affects the surrounding area

Titles

• Digger at 50 skill
• Excavator at 70 skill
• Land Shaper at 90 skill
• Earthwurm at 100.00 skill

See also

• Tile types
• Flattening
• Leveling
• Flatraising
• Landbridges
• Sculpting rock layer with a pickaxe