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.
Messages
- You cannot dig in such terrain.
- Happens when the corner is surrounded on all sides by trees or other digging-unfriendly tiles. Cut down one of the trees to continue.
Method
Activate a shovel and right-click a tile (it is not possible to dig on rock tiles) and select Dig. This will lower the ground and put 1x of the tile material in your inventory. Please note, dirt is dug from corners (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.
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 corner.
To check if a tile is flat, you can either right-click a tile and click flatten or examine a tile's borders. If all tile borders say "The slope is flat", the 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're standing. For example, if the slope is two "dirts" toward 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.
Slopes become to 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.
Note: Upon reaching level 15, you no longer have to examine, nor double click a border to see it's slope. All you have to do is have a shovel activate and hover your mouse over it. At 30, you can see up to 2 borders away, at 45, 3 borders, and so on.
Burying
Activate a shovel, right-click the corpse and select "bury".
Burying is generally designed for the disposal of a corpse. A corpse will attract carnivores so therefore it is a respectful act to bury an animal after you kill it. It's a good idea to butcher the animal with a butchering knife before you bury it. Also, remember to bury your own corpse after you pick up it's inventory.
Digging for rock
To start you must dig a reasonable distance above water. Keep digging in one corner until you "hit rock" or you do not have enough skill to continue digging. Once you hit rock in one corner you then must dig in all other corners of the tile until they have all hit rock. When you hit rock in all four corners 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're working on.
Small digging guide
For those that have trouble with any of the above guides, here is a small picture that may clarify it. This is the result of dropping a small amount of dirt on the corner of a tile:
As per the image above, if you were to stand on the center corner (right in the center of the green square) and examine the rectangular tile border north of you, the game would tell you that the "slope is 1 dirts steep away from you". If you were to stand in the top-middle, and looking south, the examine would say that "the slope is 1 dirts steep towards you".
Dredging
A dredge is used to dig dirt from under the water level. Maximum depth is determined by your digging skill. You need a boat to dredge. When not in a boat you can only dredge to the same depth as you could dig with a shovel (2 dirt deep).
Improving the dredge uses carpentry tools and logs, but improves blacksmithing skill.
To use a dredge, while in a boat such as a Small Rowing boat, you simply float on top of the tile you want to dredge, and right click the tiles below and select "Dredge". Dredging will also make the tile you dredged steeper, just like normal digging, it's basicly the same. There is no specific boat to dredge from. There is no such boat as a "Dredger".
Titles
- Digger at 50 skill
- Excavator at 70 skill
- Land Shaper at 90 skill
