Quarrying


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Information From Tale 7
The information in this article is based on Tale 7 and has not yet been verified in Tale 8. Please use such information with care as things may have changed in Tale 8.
If you are able to confirm and provide updated information, please consider updating this article and removing this warning.

The various types of Decorative Stone are extracted from the ground by means of quarrying. A Stone Quarry must be built atop a marble deposit. Locating a deposit is known as prospecting, and it is a cooperative two-person effort. Once built, operating it is also a cooperative effort, generally requiring four people (though this can be reduced to three, or even two, using Marble Mechanics upgrades).

Finding a Quarry

Prospecting for marble requires two participants, one of whom must be attuned to the marble type being searched for via the Rocks of the Ages skill. Slate is used in prospecting, so be sure to carry some. Expect to use 30-50 slate when prospecting for a quarry.

Rocks of the Ages

You need to tune yourself to the relevant marble under Rocks of the Ages at any School of Architecture for a cost of 10 slate. You need the correct Perception level (minimum 1) to get admitted to the class - see Decorative Stone for a list of Perception levels for various marbles. Temporary bonuses through food are fine, though you will still need the correct Perception level to do the actual prospecting, so have multiple portions handy. Tuning to a marble doesn't wear off; you stay attuned until you change it manually (even after your food wears off).

Prospecting

In order to prospect, you need a partner, although only the person attempting to shatter slate needs to be attuned to the marble. Your partner is another person standing within 32 coords—if there are multiple people in range, the game picks the person closest to you. So, to avoid confusing results, only prospect when there is just you and one other.

You prospect from the Special menu by throwing two pieces of slate down (Self->Skills->Prospect for <marble>).

All intact means your partner is out of range (32 in each coordinate - 512 feet - is the maximum)
A single broken piece means you scanned and found nothing (you see an emote of throwing some slate down)
Two broken pieces means you found some marble in a circle whose diameter is the line between you. (you see an emote: bless)

Use one of the prospecting strategies below to home in on the exact location of a marble spot.

Once a quarry spot has been found and a Stone Quarry has been built on (and the quarry removed after), you cannot get more marble from the same spot, though it will show up as a valid quarry spot when prospecting. Attempting to build on the used spot or a non-existent spot will give you a dirt quarry. Except for the fact that you can detect marble at the spot, there is no way to distinguish between those two cases. Consequently, it's good manners to build a marker that will not degrade over time (such as a Basic Sign) on a used spot, setting the label to indicate there was a quarry there and what type it was.

Also of interest, the spots are always at coordinate tile corners, just where the coordinates change values. These spots are fairly easy to see, especially in desert, and can help tremendously when you get down to the 2-3 coord range. Dropping texture detail to minimum makes them even easier to spot.

If there are 2 types of Marble, the higher perception level Marble will come out of the quarry and you will NEVER be able to get the marble that you otherwise successfully prospected.

Prospecting strategies

These links refer to pages from previous tales. YMMV!

T7: Prospecting Helper, a web app designed to simplify the process. Also serves as a visual guide.

Cappu's Guide, efficient and fairly easy to follow. 18-45 slate to get down to a 2-coord circle diameter.
Tortanick's Method, by Tortanick
House of Bes quarry guide, by Dors
Sord's quarry guide (has pretty pictures)
Spiral Search, by MarvL, is a Search Circle Quartering theory that only uses an average of 38.5 Slate to find a Quarry.
Examples of using Spiral Search by Yendor.

Using a Quarry

Stone Quarries are buildings used to extract Decorative Stone from the ground. Quarrying generally requires four people operating in unison. (It is possible to replace one or two of the people with custom gearboxes. The first gearbox replacement is often easier to construct than the second one; and you must have Marble Mechanics skill in order to install one and Advanced Marble Mechanics to install a second!)

Marble is extracted one piece at a time.
Each piece must be successfully lifted 7 times before it is fully extracted.
Working a quarry results in an Endurance timer

At every lift attempt, each quarry worker receives a list of four directions, randomly generated. Directions have two components, one taken from each of these two lists:

Northern, Southern, Eastern, Western
Up, Down, Left, Right

An example of a direction might be Southern-Left, often abbreviated as SL. Any set of combinations is possible, e.g. "NU, ND, SU, SD".

All four quarry workers receive the same directions, but the order in which they are listed is different for each person.

To successfully raise the marble, each worker must work one of the four directions, and no two people can work the same direction. Thus, coordination is crucial. If one direction is chosen by two or more people, then the lifting attempt fails, and the marble slides down one level. Lifting will fail if a worker clicks on a second move that has already been selected, otherwise it will display the words "Changed Direction" (even if the same move has been selected), costing END timer for both moves.

Provided each worker selects a different direction, the marble will be lifted one level. When the piece of marble is lifted to level 7, it is fully extracted and goes into the quarry's take menu

The direction list is randomized with each lifting attempt, whether the last attempt was a success or failure.

Output

Quarries break after a while. It is possible that dropping a piece of marble may cause a quarry to break sooner, but this is unconfirmed. Reports range from 10 to 40 marble sheets before breaking. Remember that it’s quite easy to find more marble nearby and if you want a serious dig, set up several quarries beforehand.

Quarrying Strategies

Each quarrier sees the list of directions in a different order, so coordination is not as simple as saying "Person A always chooses the first direction, Person B chooses the second direction, etc." Instead, two techniques have proven the most widespread for marble quarrying, both being (with practice) accurate and reasonably quick.

The alphabet method: Before starting, each worker is designated a number: Quarrier 1, Quarrier 2, etc. Then, during lifting, each worker simply chooses whichever direction corresponds to their number in alphabetical order. For example, if the list is "WL NU SD ER", you should alphabetize it to "ER NU SD WL"; then quarrier 1 pulls Eastern-Right, 2 Northern-Up, etc. This method is usually the faster of the two, and has the additional advantage of requiring no communication between the participants. Tip: give people who struggle with the alphabet position 1 or 4.

The call method: Each worker is assigned a number, just as above; additionally, one worker is designated as the "caller". During lifting, the caller shouts out the list of directions ("WL NU SD ER") in the order that he sees them. The order given by the caller is the order in which the workers take their positions (quarrier 1 pulls Western-Left, 2 pulls Northern-Up, etc.). (This can be slightly simplified by having the caller be the first or last position, and not calling out their own directions. For example, "NU SD ER" if the caller took the first (WL) position.)

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