Guides:Flattening

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Flattening is the digging process of making a tile flat. Flatness can be defined two ways:

• All tile corners are the same height
• All tile borders are level (0 slope)

Automatic flattening

Automatic flattening is an action on a tile: right-click the tile and choose "Flatten".

Requirements

1. The tile and the surrounding 8 tiles are flattenable (see below)
2. Shovel is active
3. You probably want a cart to put dirt into

Some tile types prevent flattening. The most common are tree, clay, and marsh.

Flattening time

The action time is based on the height difference (in "dirts", as seen when examining a tile border) between the highest and lowest corners of the tile. The time is 9 seconds plus an additional 10 seconds for every 4 dirts difference. Examples:

• 0 = "The ground is flat now."
• 1..3 = 9 secs
• 4..7 = 19 secs
• 8..11 = 29 secs
• 12..15 = 39 secs
• 16..19 = 49 secs
• etc

Examples of tiles that would give 9 seconds flattening time (the number below is the height difference):

0---1 or 0---3 or 0---0 
|   |    |   |    |   |
1---2    3---3    0---3
 (2)      (3)      (3)

Results

Every 10 seconds, the flattening action moves some dirt from high corners and drops it on low corners.

When the flattening timer finished, the tile is not necessarily completely flat. If the sum of the heights of the corners is a multiple of four, then the tile can be flattened. Otherwise, there are 1-3 dirt extra that prevent it from being completely even. The different results are listed below:

• If there is 1 extra dirt, you attempt to assemble.
• If there are 2 extra dirt:
  • If the dirts are on the same corner (0-0-0-2), you attempt to assemble once.
    • In this case, the tile is not flattened completely. You must flatten again to finish.
  • Otherwise, if you have at least one dirt in your inventory, you attempt to fill twice.
  • Otherwise, you attempt to assemble twice.
• If there are 3 extra dirts, you attempt to fill.

Assemble means you attempt to dig one dirt on a high corner. If you can carry an additional dirt, the message "You assemble some dirt from a corner." is displayed and you gain one dirt. Otherwise, the message "If you could carry one more dirt pile, one more corner could be levelled" is displayed.

Fill means you attempt drop one dirt on a low corner. If you have a dirt to drop, the message "You use some of the dirt in one corner." is displayed and you lose one dirt. Otherwise, the message "If you carried some dirt, it would be used to fill the 1 corners that need it" is displayed.

If the flattening action successfully flattened the tile completely, the message "The ground is flat here." will be displayed. If this message is not displayed, you either failed to perform an assemble or fill, or it was a 0-0-0-2 spread.

Manual flattening

Manual flattening is the act of making an area flat through manually digging and dropping dirt. While the process requires more interaction by the digger, it is vastly superior when flattening areas of more than a few tiles.

Procedure

1. Pick a single corner as your reference (you could place a small barrel or another container on it so you know the reference corner).
2. Right-click on a tile border that adjoins the reference point and see which end of the tile border needs to be dug.
   • If the reference corner is the highest, then drop the required dirt at the lowest end.
   • If the reference corner is the lowest, then dig the required amount from the highest end.
3. Repeat until area is flat.

Manual flattening example

Lets say you have a 4-tile area you want to be completely level. You stand in the center of that area at reference corner 'x' below, and examine the tile borders leading to corners 'a', 'b', 'c', and 'd' showing how high or low each point is compared to yourself.

 e -------- b -------- f
 |          |          |
 |         +1          |
 |          |          |
 a -- -1 -- X -- +2 -- c
 |          |          |
 |         -3          |
 |          |          |
 g -------- d -------- h

Remember that slopes are measured on tile borders, and dirt is dug or dropped at the corner you are standing nearest to. The message "Two dirts steep toward you (ie DROP)" means +2 on this diagram; "One dirt steep away from you (ie DIG)" means -1. The message has nothing to do with how you are facing, and everything to do with where you are standing in the tile.

• Since corner B is one dirt higher than corner X, go dig one dirt from corner B.
• Next, since corner A is one dirt lower than corner X, drop the dirt from corner B on corner A.
• Now the XA and XB borders are flat.
• Corner C is two dirt higher than corner X, so dig two dirt from corner C.
• Next, since corner D is three dirt lower than corner X, drop the two dirt from C on corner D.
• XC is now flat, but XD is not. You need get one more dirt from outside the flattening area and drop it on XD.
• Now all four borders are flat.

Then you need to repeat the process for corners A, B, C, D. E.g. for corner A, you would need to level corners E, G and the one left of A (not in diagram). Then for corner B, you level E, F and the one above B (not displayed). If you levelled AE before then BE will already be flat.

(This is obvious when considering we're adjusting the heights of each corner. First we made sure A and B were the same height as X. If we then make E the same height as A, it's necessarily also the same height as B.)

Remember, don't dig or drop on corners you've already levelled!