Mining warnings

Main article: Mining

Under some circumstances a warning message will appear in the events window while mining or tunnelling to inform the player that they are either unable to continue on the current tile or that continuing may cause unusual effects.

Informational messages

These messages do not prevent mining but inform the player of the result of their actions should mining continue. These may be intentional or otherwise.

The cave walls sound hollow. 

Appears when mining into another shaft and the height difference is not dangerous.

Preventative messages

Mining will be no longer possible when receiving one of the following messages.

Side shaft

The cave walls sound hollow. A dangerous side shaft could emerge. [The cave shudders from some imbalance.] 

Occurs inside a mine. This message appears when the tile being mined shares a single corner with an existing tunnel. To continue adjacent tiles must be mined out before mining can continue on this tile. See example on the right.

Cannot have cave entrances meeting diagonally. 

Occurs when there is another cave entrance diagonally. It can be two tiles away from the tile giving the message. Mine out the adjacent tiles, so you can connect the two entrances by a tunnel.

The mountainside would risk crumbling. You cannot tunnel here. 

Occurs when opening a new tunnel from the surface. Caused when there is already a tunnel to the back or the sides of the entrance tile or if a tunnel is ahead but to far down to connect to. Surface mine down to reduce the slopes, then attempt to tunnel again.

The cave walls look very unstable. You cannot keep mining here. 

Occurs inside a mine. Happens when mining close to the top of the rock layer. The ceiling of the newly mined tile would break the rock layer. Can sometimes be avoided by mining downwards or by lowering the mine floor and thereby opening the new tile a bit lower.

The cave walls look very unstable and dirt flows in. You would be buried alive. 

Occurs inside a mine. Happens when the tile being mined will break out to the surface, but the surface is not exposed rock. To excavate it the rock on the surface must be fully exposed.

A dangerous crack is starting to form on the floor. You will have to find another way. [The cave shudders from some imbalance.] 

Caused by undermining previous tile mined above, as in a steep upwards dropshaft would be created. No fix, though mining another wall, and therefore changing tunnel direction, worked on same tile. Going from the other side down should work.

The ground is too steep to mine at here. You need to make it more flat. 

Occurs occasionally when mining the floor down. The cause is unknown.

The ground sounds strangely hollow and brittle. You have to abandon the mining operation. 

Occurs on the surface when there's already a tunnel on the tile being tunnelled, an entrance cannot be mined here.

The topology here makes it impossible to mine in a good way. 

Occurs when trying to create a mine entrance on a perfectly flat rock tile. 1 corner must be lowered with surface mining to continue.
This can also occur if both corners nearest the lowest corner are the same height.
Has also been reported underground, probably when mining that tile would create a flat mine entrance. Mining downwards may work in this case.

The mountainside would risk crumbling. You can't open a hole here. 

Occurs when attempting to create a mine entrance on a rock tile that is too steep. The maximum slope is 270.

There is no space to mine here. Clear the area first. 

Occurs when the tile occupied by the player has 100 a pile of items. Clear the area.

You fail to produce anything here. The rock is stone hard. 

Occurs on the surface. This means the tile you are attempting to excavate is actually an ore vein. There's nothing to do about it, you simply have to make your entrance on another tile. Note that if you make the entrance one tile below the vein, the tunnel will open right into the vein and cannot be extended until the vein is depleted. The best course of action at this point would probably be to mine out a rock tile next to the one you get this message on.

Happens when mining down a floor and roof is too high, Can only be fixed by collapsing all affected tiles and re-mining. (IOW. if you want the tile flat collapse it and re-mine, if you want to lower it collapse all surrounding tiles and re-mine.)

You hear falling rocks from the other side of the wall. A deep shaft will probably emerge. 

Occurs inside a mine. Caused when there is already another mine nearby, but there is too much of a height difference to connect the two mines.

You cannot keep mining here. The rock is unusually hard. 

The message displayed when one attempts to open a tunnel directly onto a vein.

The roof sounds strangely hollow and you notice dirt flowing in, so you stop mining. 

You get this when mining a ceiling too close to the surface and it is not rock.

The water is too deep to mine here. 

You get this when you are trying to mine too far under the water table.

The roof sounds strangely hollow. You must mine the other corners if you want to create an opening.

You get this when you are mining a cave ceiling and mined to outside corners height.

The roof sounds dangerously weak and you must abandon this attempt. 

Indicates the rock layer above is very close to to your mining of the ceiling, so there is no more room to mine further.

You cannot reach the ceiling. 

You can't mine the ceiling any higher.

You are not allowed to mine here. 

Deed permissions have disabled mining, and at least 1 spirit templar exists to uphold the law.

The rock sounds hollow, you will need to tunnel to continue 

When trying to Surface Mine above an open tile underground, and you are already at the ceiling height of the mine.

The rock is too hard to mine. 

You have tried to mine into a reinforced tile or more rarely, happens with stacked action when the wall breaks before you run out of actions (ie trying to mine thin air).

You are too unskilled to mine here. 

You have tried to surface mine higher than your skill allows. Freedom Formula: 3 x Mining Skill. Epic Formula: 1 x Mining Skill (Not-curved).

An altar of (deity) on the surface disturbs your operation. 

You get this warning when an altar is directly above the tile you are trying to mine (possibly near the entrance?). Push the altar to another tile.

This tile is protected by the gods. You can not mine here. 

GM protected highway tile above the tile that is being mined.

A felled tree on the surface disturbs your operation. 

A felled tree is laying over the surface of the tile where the tunnel will be created. Occurs when mining from the inside out.

Current tile needs a flat border to correspond to lower part of adjacent cave entrance. 

Need to surface mine the bottom slope of the adjacent tile to match the slope of the mine entrance. Only when creating a multi-tile entrance.

Lowering the floor further would make the cavern unstable. 

Occurs when ceiling is too high above the floor.