you could do a mountain base

you would have to make it terraced (i don't know if that's the right word), to make it work. You would have a massive base, though

Build under The Elder's platform. its an indestructable ceiling and perfect for a bunker base.

Originally posted by pipo.p:

Please correct me if I am wrong in my guess! I've only dug below copper deposits so far. To dig upwards, is it possible to first dig downwards (or frontwards) in a cliff or large emerging mineral block, way below top level, and then "climbing up" by first carving out a central column, then making it sunder by detaching it from the sides by use of scaffolding and scales? Would you be limited to 8 meters upward in this case? Can the process be repeated upwards, with or wothout intermediary mineral floors?

if you dig on the front of a cliff, it lowers the top of it. There is no dig upwards unless you are coming out from under an indestructible or rock, in which case, digging lowers the surface or if that is already lowered too much, does nothing but make noise.

way down is not possible either, its 8 below the original surface.

there isnt some work around that lets you did deeper. Again your best depth is to raise to max then dig, which doubles the 'depth' to 16ish.

if you had repeated large rocks or whatnot in a stack you can certainly dig under each one and use each one as a roof to a small room and connect them all carefully to a ladder series or something. I don't think many rock piles like this exist.

You are limited to 8 meters up or down from the base level of the generated terrain. No fiddling changes the base level. At one time there was a mod to allow you to dig above or below the maximum change but I'm not sure if it is updated or if it even works now.

Please correct me if I am wrong in my guess! I've only dug below copper deposits so far. To dig upwards, is it possible to first dig downwards (or frontwards) in a cliff or large emerging mineral block, way below top level, and then "climbing up" by first carving out a central column, then making it sunder by detaching it from the sides by use of scaffolding and scales? Would you be limited to 8 meters upward in this case? Can the process be repeated upwards, with or wothout intermediary mineral floors?

Build up limit is the same as dig down limit. You can only go 8 meters up or down from he starting point. Unfortunately that means that you aren't going to be able to get an extremely large mountain base even if you shave off the peak and then build up the sides.

If you want a really big base then you need to start some where that is really flat to begin with. That limits you to the meadows, swamps, or the plains. The biome you are most likely to find the largest flattest space to build in with out any indestructible objects in the way is the plains.

I have a 50 meter x 50 meter base in the meadows that only has a couple tiny spots that I couldn't alter. The problem with a base that large is the other side doesn't render and deer and birds can spawn in even if you have full work bench coverage.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2860289081
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Dig limit is 8 meters I believe, so you're not going to be able to dig nearly that far down.

Your best bet is likely to find a very steep mountain side and build up that. I've done similar, but not on a mountain, just a cliff face.

wew lad, you're gonna need to mine an awful lot of stone and chop many forests down in order to accomplish that.
good luck XD

to answer your question; yes there is usually a limit to how far down you can dig.

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Dig limit is 8 meters I believe, so you're not going to be able to dig nearly that far down.

Your best bet is likely to find a very steep mountain side and build up that. I've done similar, but not on a mountain, just a cliff face.

Good to know and that is a great idea! That's annoying about the dig limit but I'm sure there are reasons for that. But thank you for the info =D

What do you want exactly?
The dig limit is coupled to the raise limit, so you can double that. That is, if you raise the ground as high as you can FIRST, then you can dig 16 instead of 8. That is how I made my tallest building. If you can find a usable low area next to a taller area, you can raise it up and blend it in, and dig out your living space. Use a flat stone roof that is just a little into the ground and its invisible apart from above it, and if you go a bit farther down to do the roof, even that needs a steep angle to see.

The other tall building tricks include anchoring off a tall tree (counts as ground, but you must protect this tree from hostiles and they are difficult to hide inside the walls).
or very tall rocks (think plains) can be built up the side of them.
With supports a single column of dirt will support at least a 2 story home of at least 6 or 7 radius. So you can stick one good room off the side of a tall rock/cliff wall/tree/etc. Two trees together can more than double this, as you get a slight lift from the double connection in the middle, adding a tile or two more. (that is a floor piece that won't support one more hanging off it can usually support 1-2 more if it has a buddy sharing the load).

For a bunker, you can dig under any number of things, including the ML prefab towers, the queen lair, the elder layer, black forest multi-large-rock slabs (other biomes too), troll caves, and so on. ML has places you can dig far into a spike due to rocks, but its difficult to get it nice inside and you need a lot of care not to dig to the outside.

It is very difficult to make a large underground home that is also blended in perfectly. The bigger it is, the harder blending is. If it helps, my current base has everything except a smelter/kiln/ setup inside a 6x6 square. I threw the parts I didn't want to see under the floor (so its technically 6x6 X 2 floors, but that is about the space you need without any sort of organized clean layout. If you really, really don't care, I would bet you can get it all into 1/3 that space. A home that small can be buried under all kinds of rocks or other indestructible formations. It goes without saying that smoke is going to be a challenge.

If you want a small base, find the location of the Queen.
When going up the stairs, look for a small 2x2m wooden wall piece. Most likely found at the left side, if going up the stairs; about 4m inwards.
Destroy that wall piece and look behind it.

There's enough room for a portal, a workbench, a bed and most likely a fire as there are some openings available.

Thorin :)

Originally posted by Oakshield:

If you want a small base, find the location of the Queen.
When going up the stairs, look for a small 2x2m wooden wall piece. Most likely found at the left side, if going up the stairs; about 4m inwards.
Destroy that wall piece and look behind it.

There's enough room for a portal, a workbench, a bed and most likely a fire as there are some openings available.

Thorin :)

I don't know what is typical but after wrecking all the unnecessary black marble blocks and digging a bit with the pick mine was probably a 15-20 M radius cave. The default infrastructure uses a lot of those really big blocks and none of it is needed to support the stairs and alter/entryway. If you do need support, a bit of ironwood at an angle can keep the stairs up without filling the whole space.