Mine Mishaps - trapped by roundtime

[Firerose]

When mining mishaps occur (rocks, pebbles and small rocks, etc.), there's simply not enough time to get out of the way. You are literally trapped by roundtime.
I'm not sure what the repeating roundtime is for mining (I'm guessing ten seconds), but when you hear rumbling, you can't move until it's too late. I think in all the time I've done it, I've managed to get away once, and that was only because my character somehow avoided the hit.

I'd like to suggest adding several seconds for us to get out of the way, or for the game to clear our roundtime when we hear rumbling, so we can actually leave the room.

I'm not the only one dealing with this issue--i've seen it mentioned in another thread here (don't recall which one), and spoken with others privately who've had trouble with this same issue.

[Prism]

I can also personally attest to these being a bit quick on the trigger, I think.

My own efforts last night resulted in roughly a 50% success rate after experiencing 6-8 cave ins. An extra second or two certainly wouldn't hurt, i don't think.

That said, a few suggestions in the meanwhile to maximize odds of success:

-Wear a helmet, at the very least. it'll save your life.
-When mining, be ready to move in a direction at any given moment. Know your path of exit-- and be ready to move there. Have your direction typed and ready to go so when you seee the ambient message-- that you can hit enter and fly toward your chosen destination.
-Don't bring your horse inside with you. Handcart pulling might sound reasonable now and then, but the minecarts are your friends, here.
-Better to run over nothing when ou don't have to than not to be quick enough on the trigger, hit your command input too late, and get hit. Be prepared, and it'll help to a certain extent.

[Rias]

The cave-ins are deliberately set up with some randomness to their timing so they're not always be avoidable by just leaving the room. Otherwise, they just become a thing to be triggered/scripted and henceforth ignored without serving as an actual hazard. Mining is dangerous work, and it's nice (game-design-wise) to see people other than warriors occasionally taking injuries and having to seek healing.

I've added the "Cave-ins" section to the "Mining" helpfile/wiki article, which reads as of this posting:

Mining is dangerous work, and cave-ins are inevitably going to happen. If you hear a rumbling sound or see debris falling from the ceiling, run! If you don't get away in time, you have a chance to be struck by falling debris and receive potentially serious injuries. Some information on cave-ins:

- The time between signs of a cave-in and the actual cave-in varies. It will not always be possible to avoid cave-ins by leaving the room.
- Falling debris is much more likely to strike the head than any other hit location. Consider wearing head protection while mining to minimize injuries.
- The more Stoneworking skill a miner has, the less they disrupt the stability of a room when mining, resulting in fewer cave-ins.
- Higher Stoneworking skill reduces mining roundtime, increasing chances you'll get away before the cave-in occurs.
- The Dodge, Stoneworking, and Perception skills all contribute to the roll to avoid falling debris.
- The Agility and Awareness primary attributes provide a multiplier bonus to the roll to avoid falling debris.

P.S. The ability to build mine supports to help with cave-ins is in the works!

[Prism]

The cave-ins are deliberately set up with some randomness to their timing so they're not always be avoidable by just leaving the room. Otherwise, they just become a thing to be triggered/scripted and henceforth ignored without serving as an actual hazard. Mining is dangerous work, and it's nice (game-design-wise) to see people other than warriors occasionally taking injuries and having to seek healing.

I've added the "Cave-ins" section to the "Mining" helpfile/wiki article, which reads as of this posting:

Mining is dangerous work, and cave-ins are inevitably going to happen. If you hear a rumbling sound or see debris falling from the ceiling, run! If you don't get away in time, you have a chance to be struck by falling debris and receive potentially serious injuries. Some information on cave-ins:

- The time between signs of a cave-in and the actual cave-in varies. It will not always be possible to avoid cave-ins by leaving the room.
- Falling debris is much more likely to strike the head than any other hit location. Consider wearing head protection while mining to minimize injuries.
- The more Stoneworking skill a miner has, the less they disrupt the stability of a room when mining, resulting in fewer cave-ins.
- Higher Stoneworking skill reduces mining roundtime, increasing chances you'll get away before the cave-in occurs.
- The Dodge, Stoneworking, and Perception skills all contribute to the roll to avoid falling debris.
- The Agility and Awareness primary attributes provide a multiplier bonus to the roll to avoid falling debris.

P.S. The ability to build mine supports to help with cave-ins is in the works!

Specification appreciate it, as always.
Additionally, I think that further elaboration in the cave ins section helps dramatically for folks who are just getting into it.

[Firerose]

Rias, thank you, as always, for such awesome clarification. Some of this I suspected, but it's really cool to know which skills and attributes are involved with avoiding cave-ins!
The issue is not just the randomness of when the rocks actually fall, it's the amount of roundtime you're in from mining. This means you can't move, even when you want to, unless you're sitting on the enter key with a direction ready to, as Prism wrote, send you flying. Not everyone's reaction time is good enough to move you the instant you hear/see the text, or, in my case, the rumbling sound I put in, because without it I'd probably die in there.
Let's say you have ten seconds rt from mining, and the rocks fall in ten seconds or less. You're never getting out of the way fast enough, through no fault of your own.
i'd at least like to have a chance. I've been hit all but one time, as I said in my first post, and the only reason rocks didn't hit me was because my character somehow avoided them.
I hope this helps make a bit more sense. If you don't press enter the *instant* you see the rumbling message, you're pretty much screwed. It's rather discouraging for me. I can't and won't speak for others--maybe they're have a bit of an easier time here. Then again, maybe not. I'm not sure.

[Rias]

If you're having trouble typing a movement command within the minimum possible time until a cave-in (currently four seconds), I'd recommend typing FLEE rather than a direction, as the latter may leave you typing an invalid direction, or have you double-checking with a LOOK command to search for valid exits and spending valuable reaction time. Typing FLEE on the other hand will automatically send you running in a random direction. Do that as soon as you see/hear the rumbling, and as long as you have the Queue option turned on (as it should be by default), even if you're still in mining roundtime it'll queue it up to be entered automatically as soon as you're out of roundtime.

Let's say you have ten seconds rt from mining, and the rocks fall in ten seconds or less. You're never getting out of the way fast enough, through no fault of your own.

Yes, this is by design. Sometimes you have no chance to leave the room and avoid the threat, and have to instead rely on the skill roll to try and avoid the falling debris. If cave-ins were just a matter of command input timing, they wouldn't be a threat to anyone who takes a few moments to set up a trigger or script to leave the room when the rumble happens.

[Firerose]

Fair points, Rias. I keep forgetting about "flee!" I'll try to remember that--it'll probably save my char's life.
Seriously, thank you.

[IndomitableHeart]

Some clarification, please. Rias said previously that the stoneworking skill, dodge, and perception would determine the roll for avoiding rocks. Initially my avoid roll appeared to be D110. Relevant skills at the time were stoneworking 50, dodge 0, perc 0. So this low roll made sense. Now, my stoneworking skill is 200 (practiced to 200 as well), dodge is 50 (practiced to 50). Just now, I got a roll:
A large rock falls toward you! Rock(d400):291 vs Avoid(d132(-1+[1]x)):63.
I used to know, but I can't remember what all those parentheses and brackets are for at the moment. In any case, am I incorrect in assuming that the max roll I can get here is 132? So even with substantial improvement in stoneworking, and improvement in dodge, my roll appears to have only gone up by 22. Is there something else affecting my overall max roll capability? I know dodge is still low at 50, but I thought that the base was D100 plus current skill, so a dodge roll would be D150 in my case, right? Stoneworking at 200 doesn't appear to be factored here at all, unless that's what all the parentheses and brackets are for. I'm just confused. Thanks for any assistance.

[Squeak]

All three skills are probably not weighted equally, though there does appear to be some discrepancy in the calculations. The paranthesis are for rerolls, giving you additional chances to roll the die for a higher end result.

But I don't math.

[Gorth]

I would put money on the fact that your roll is reduced by encumbrance. Defensive rolls in combat which includes every recorded use of the dodge skill are reduced by encumbrance.