Hey I’m trying to build my city inside a mountain, with the entrance at the foot of the mountain.
I can get my dudes to build downward, and have more rooms underground, but I can’t get them to build tunnels upward to have more levels above the entrance level.
I’ve tried mining single blocks to make stairways upwards and doesn’t seem to work, I’ve tried mining from the spot above using the slice tool but still no.
Any help would be fantastic thanks
The current mining tool is pretty awful for mining up. You’re generally better off starting from the top of the mountain and mining down.
Yeah I thought of that, just makes it harder as I want my farmers to be living closer to the ground.
Thanks mate 
You could go to the top and build a shaft all the way down to your main level, then drop a ladder down. This would let you easily gauge where each level needs to be. the hole you made at the top can be later filled in with the slab tool, or you could build a structure with a door over it to give you access to the top. Cheers.
This is what I always do. Mark off an 8x8 area, leave the hearthlings stuck in the mine shaft so they focus on mining their way down and out. If you’re not gonna worry about covering the top right away I’d suggest not building the ladder all the way to the top to avoid monster spawns. I always leave it 2 blocks away from the upper edge as I’ve had monsters step down onto ladders 1 block from the edge.
Sometimes, I place a mining zone up inside a mountain where my Hearthlings can’t reach (using the slice view), open the console (ctrl+C, I believe?), select that mining zone and im (instamine, a command you can enter in the console) it, then select a Hearthling and teleport them to the hole. (a ghost banner will show up, place it where you want your Hearthling teleported.) After opening some more space at that level, I’ll mine down to free my Hearthling, then place a ladder so more miners can go back up. Yes, it’s “”“cheating”"", but as far as I know it’s the best workaround besides just starting from the top.
Then I generally order my Hearthlings to destroy a stone pile as a sacrifice to atone for my cheats. (This part is not necessary to get the first part to work, and AFAIK the Stonehearth gods don’t deliver vengeance upon your town for your transgressions.)
I would love a proper tool for mining up, though. Hopefully that stair mining tool gets done properly and finished soon.
I don’t know what you call it, but in the builder you can click a wall and drag it to make it longer or higher. Maybe we could have that with mining zones.
There’s another way without leaving a huge open shaft at the top. Put a ladder as high as you want on the side of the mountain and then create a 3x2 spot like for a tall window (works best if you’re building housing in the mountain side - which I do). The hearthlings can get in to mine and then you just slap a window in there later.
Ooh that is a great idea! Thanks for sharing
You’re very welcome.
Manually placed scaffolding, same as ladders, would be so rad for fixing this issue. It’d make quarries look cool too!
Pssst… hey, @Logo, here’s another design idea… Dunno if you thought of it already or not, but…
The lattice windows also make very nice patio fencing. Sadly, you can’t move them once placed, but they still look nice.
@Wouter_Sikkema I discovered it quite by accident when I was trying to stack the windows on top of each other for a 2x4 window pane. I didn’t get the pane I wanted, but I got a lovely patio out of it. LOL I reloaded the previous auto-save and ran with it like a giggly two-year-old.
Just make sure everything’s exactly as you want it when you put them down. You won’t get them back up. The only alternative is to use the debug tools and destroy them if you need to rearrange.
They also don’t look very good if you try to corner them against each other. Use a two high stack of blocks to make it pretty. Maybe top it with a lantern or lamp to give it some more character.
@Spell_Blade maybe the box-stacking trick works, where you first place the bottem row, and then later use the “place” (not building) tool to place tohe top row in? should probably work
Tried it. No good. I just wanted a nice long window for my kitchen area. I didn’t use the building tool at all in the build for the image you saw. The whole town was carved out of a canyon mountain. It’s my preference over cluttering the landscape with buildings. I’ll jam the Hearthlings into the mountain or cliff first.
It’s tempting to start a tips & tricks thread for little ideas like the window fence and my method for carving out a mountain. Something for everyone to share the stuff they’ve figured out in the game. I know there’s others with way cooler ideas than me.
im in favor!. I know ive been relatively creative with roof/wall hybrids ( to make low “viking” houses) (by using the cut tool and re-dragging roofs liberally etc.) could be someone else might like that trick
I think the issue should definitely be fixed with automatically placed scaffolding or an AI that mines a shaft as high upwards as possible using a ladder and then mines the rest from top to bottom.
Manually placed scaffolding would be nice to have though, for decoration or for cases when you can predict that they will need it. Don’t know if it should be free like ladders though. It probably could and the trade-off is just that you can’t build something out of it that counts as indoors, it doesn’t give value to your town and might even be a bit unappealing.
