Guides:Guides/FlatRaising

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Tich's Art of FlatRaising

Definition

Flatraising is a term used to describe the process of making slopes greater than 40 dirts (4 meters).

Purpose

Dirt "flows" when a slope gets to 40 dirts (4 meters). "Flowing" means that the dirt will slide down the slope until it gets to a lesser slope (less than 40). Dirt will also flow if the diagonal slope of the tile is over 40 dirts (4 meters).

Measurement

To find out how many dirts (how steep) a slope is, examine the tile border. A digging skill of 15 or better will allow a "mouseover" examination of the border when a shovel is activated.

Restrictions

The largest slope you can make is 3x your skill.

Method

For this example I will assume that you're starting with a 4x4 (completely flat) area and want to flatraise the middle 2x2 area.

1. Drop 40 dirts on each exterior corner of the 2x2 area.
2. Once the exterior corners are raised 40 dirts, start dropping dirt (batches of 10-20 dirt is typical) in the center of the 2x2 area.
3. Flatten one of the tiles (rotating the tile to flatten is a good idea; if not you had better flatten all the 4 tiles). Remember not to stand on the high point when flattening as you will get "ouchies".
4. Repeat until you get the "spire" to your desired height or to the maximum height for your skill level.

Variation

Another option is to dig at the base of a slope to increase it, but this is not always possible (e.g. on landbridges or when building a road along rock).

Tip

• Once the slope gets over 29 dirts, you will have climb to get up and down from the 2x2 area. To save time, use this method to prevent you from having to climb up and down the slope as you work: drop items you have in your inventory (easier with four different items) until you form a "pile of items" which is easy to target. Then add at least 2 dirts to the pile and remove your items. You may add up to 100 dirts to each pile (one pile per tile).