Deep drilling explained

[Jimyoda]

- Hopefully this offers some helpful tips and answers questions players have about deep drilling.
- Someone please confirm the possible resources are only metal (gold, plasteel, silver, steel, uranium). I've read of people finding jade, which seems odd because the game classes it as stone and it seems deposits don't contain other stone materials.
  - Other comments and corrections welcome.
    - This text is from the wiki and I'll edit it with appropriate feedback. One topic not yet mentioned is research.
    -  I'd especially like to find out how using batteries works out and whether it's a feasible idea.

A deep drill extracts metallic resources from undergrounds deposits.
These deposits are discovered by constructing a ground-penetrating scanner and connecting it to power. Clicking the scanner reveals all deposits (cells highlighted yellow) on the map. Constructing or clicking any deep drill also displays all deposits, if a powered scanner is in place.

Placement
When placing a deep drill it can fit in as little as a 1x2 space - one cell for the drill, and one cell for the interaction spot. The 3x3 outline does not restrict placement in any way. It only shows the drill's 3x3 extraction zone and it can overlap walls, mountains, buildings, and even the maps border's exclusion zone. Most deposits are in open space, but in tight spots, the drill can be rotated (keys: Q\E) to position the interaction spot. A drill only extracts resources within it's 3x3 extraction zone, so it should be placed to cover as much as possible. If building a drill is blocked by terrain like mud or shallow water, a moisture pump can be used to dry out the area, albeit very slowly.

Operation
A deep drill requires power to operate. Besides connecting to the main power grid, relocating two or three charged batteries should sufficiently power a drill before it finishes extraction. This can eliminate running power lines to remote areas. Batteries can be recharged, relocated, and reused.
A drill is operated by miners. The drill's inspection pane shows what resource is below (gold, plasteel, silver, steel, uranium). Each cell can be mined twice, turning from yellow to red before depletion. Each extraction produces 75 resources. Each cell contains 150 resources. Drill operation can be suspended by marking the drill as forbidden. Once a drill has completely mined all resources in its 3x3 zone, it will continue to draw power until it is disconnected from the grid or deconstructed.

[14m1337]

I can confirm getting jade from deep drilling. see the attached screenshot.

[attachment deleted by admin - too old]

[Jimyoda]

Thanks, added jade to the wiki.

On a side note, some deposits are so close together you can actually place a drill that reaches a little bit of both. So I wondered what would be listed as 'resource below' if the drill straddled two different deposits, like a silver deposit and a steel deposit. The 'resource below' will list one of the two resources. But it will bounce between 'silver' and 'steel', depending on which cell is next to be mined. This is pretty trivial and don't see much use other than using one drill to identify the contents of two really close deposits.

[MikeLemmer]

I actually prefer running power lines to the drills, as it improves the chances of a Zzzt explosion not happening inside your base.

[carbon]

I'm pretty sure the size (physical area) of a deposit is correlated to what it contains.

The largest deposits are typically steel or plasteel. (20+)

Silver is medium sized (10 - 15)

Gold is quite small (2 - 9)

Not sure about the rest, but I'd bet they're smallish as well. Note: those numbers are estimates of observed deposits, not hard ranges.

[carbon]

I went through with god mode on to scout out a few maps and gets some slightly harder data on deposit sizes. The observed size ranges are:

Steel / Plasteel: 18 - 60 (mean: ~45)
Silver: 7 - 20 (mean: ~14)
Jade / Gold / Uranium: 4 - 10 (mean: ~7)

So, if you happen to have a deposit of size 15, you are more or less certain it's going to be silver. If it's bigger than 20, it's going to be steel or plasteel (with steel more common). Less than 10, it's highly likely to be one of jade, gold or uranium, but there are some rather small silvers thrown in there too.

Of the smaller deposits, I'm not sure you're guaranteed to see every one of them on any given map. That's especially true if you have a lot of deposits under water or other un-buildable terrain.

Also, it's uncommon, but possible to have deposits of different materials touching one another. I had a cluster of three deposits form a skewed triangle of gold, steel and plasteel. That can make it harder to identify things.

[Jimyoda]

I went through with god mode on to scout out a few maps and gets some slightly harder data on deposit sizes. The observed size ranges are:

Steel / Plasteel: 18 - 60 (mean: ~45)
Silver: 7 - 20 (mean: ~14)
Jade / Gold / Uranium: 4 - 10 (mean: ~7)

I checked this info against just one map, but a large one with many deposits. I looked mostly at the small and medium ranges. The only thing I'd say differently is that deposits can and do get as small as 2. Otherwise that info looks pretty accurate. Well done.

[Blastoderm]

So resources are stil finite? Shame. No way for long-standing colonies then, only a little help to get out via ship as soon as possible(

[carbon]

Keep in mind that you still can produce infinite amounts of food, wood, drugs, cloth/leather/wool, and whatever the slow but consistent cargo pod gods want you to have. That plus the ability to call in traders whenever you want: your resources are effectively limitless.

Not to mention a typical plasteel deposit has (75 * 2 * 45 =) 6,750 units in it. Hardly a tiny sum.

[CannibarRechter]

> So resources are stil finite? Shame. No way for long-standing colonies then...

Well, in the end game, mech raids typically bring me most of the steel and plasteel I need. Anyway, on the topic, I'd prefer if the deep drilling mechanics were changed. First, it would be okay if the collection rate were slowed WAY down. I feel that the fields produce too many resources, too fast.

After that, I'd prefer that the deep drill could access the entire field without the micromanagement, and that the field contained more resources. Perhaps infinite resources, not sure.

While these changes all seem like maybe I'm asking for the drills to be OP, I'm not. I'd be okay with any reduction in total rate of production that achieves game balance. I'm not sure what that reduction is, though. That's a game design question.

[Blastoderm]

For me it goes without question that 5 steel per drill use with limitless amount is infinitely better than 200 steel per use with limited, no matter how vast, amount of resources.

[SpaceDorf]

Thats interesting research, I never made it so far as to use drills yet.

[FMK]

So resources are stil finite? Shame. No way for long-standing colonies then, only a little help to get out via ship as soon as possible(

Finite resources? No way for long-standing colonies? If you say so.

The only real issue that there has ever been with long-standing colonies is running out of space to store the ever-increasing quantities of materials that you get from 50+ mechs/70+ raiders/100+ tribals per raid ... that and lag from too many colonists, which is why I've stuck with ~16. Since if you've made it that far to begin with, chances are you have a defensive setup that isn't hemorrhaging materials or pawns.

[stu89pid]

For me, it seems my colonists do not like to use the deep mine.
Are the mining priorities setup so that deep mining always takes a backseat to any normal mining?

Sometimes I need more steel but my colonists seem to prioritize traditional mining over deep drill mining.

[MikeLemmer]

They do. Traditional mining has priority over deep mining.