Support Beams & Collapses

Support Beams

In TerraFirmaCraft, raw rock is unstable and susceptible to Collapsing. Many rock blocks, including Raw Rock, Ores, Smooth and Spikes can all rain down on your head under the right circumstances.

Support Beams can be used to prevent collapses from occurring.

Collapses can occur whenever a player mines any Raw Rock that is near to Unsupported Raw Rock. Once a collapse has started, however, even previously Supported rock can start to collapse.

The rock on the roof of caves is Naturally Supported. Any raw rock with a non-collapsible solid block beneath it, is also Supported. Alternatively, Support Beams can support a wide area at once.

When graded Ore (ore that can be poor, normal, or rich) collapses, it degrades in quality. Rich ore will become normal, normal will become poor, and poor will turn to cobblestone. Mineral ores will turn into cobblestone right away.

Dirt, grass, clay, gravel, cobblestone, and sand are also affected by gravity. However, unlike vanilla gravity blocks, these blocks fall down slopes, and cannot be stacked more than one high without supporting blocks around. Ore Deposits also landslide, but do not degrade in quality.

Support Beams

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To get started, Support Beams can be crafted with a Saw and any type of Logs.

Placing a Support Beam on top of a block places a column up to three tall. These must have a solid block beneath them to stay upright.

Horizontal beams can be placed between to connect two Vertical beams that are within five blocks, as in the above diagram.

Only Horizontal Support Beams cause nearby blocks to be Supported. Any block within a 9 x 5 x 9 area centered on a horizontal support beam is considered Supported.

In addition to being supported by support beams, rock can be supported simply by the virtue of having a solid block below it, such as more rock. However, it is important to note that Non Solid Blocks such as Stairs and Slabs, along with Smooth Stone, do not count as supporting.

Chiseling

Finally, it is important to know that Chiseling has the potential to cause collapses, just as easily as mining does, when it is done on any Raw Rock that has potential to cause a nearby collapse.



Remember kids: practice safe mining!