Antiquities damage

Noddegamra

I was excavating an antiquity just now, and was using the Heavy Shovel. The tooltip says (at skill my level, 1/2) that the shovel will remove 1 layer of dirt in a 3x3 area, and only affects a single contiguous layer. The antiquity had 1 layer of dirt over it, but still got damaged on shovel use. If there needs to be a "buffer" layer in order to prevent damage, that should be stated somewhere. As it stands, the artifact should not have been damaged.

redspecter23

The shovel shouldn't dig through a layer and still hit the antiquity unless it's upgraded to dig 2 layers at once. To my knowledge, it won't even let you dig if you're at the bottom. It states you're unable to do so.

Is there any chance you were using the upgraded shovel that digs 2 levels deep?

If that's not the issue, is there a way to replicate the bug. If it can be repeated, it can be avoided in the future.

I've dug up a lot of antiquities in the past and never had a 1 layer shovel dig through more than 1 layer. It sounds like an isolated situation or a very rare bug.

Noddegamra

My excavation level is 6, so my heavy shovel level is 1/2. The tooltip states it removes 1 level of dirt. I can't find the skill that enables it, but the level where it takes 4 brushes to fill up the shovel/trowel bar instead of 2 is enabled. Not sure if that affects anything.
I have continued excavating, and as long as I stay 2 or more layers above the artifact it takes no damage. And when there is 2 levels above the artifact, the shovel removes both of them.

redspecter23

If your shovel is always removing 2 layers then you have the upgraded version. That would explain why it chunked your antiquity through a single layer.

It's convenient to dig a bit faster with that version but you have to be watching to see when you're at that last layer before the antiquity.

Noddegamra

But if I have the upgraded version when the skill says 1/2, what happens at 2/2? And why would all the tooltips still be saying "removes 1 layer of dirt"? There's a bug in here somewhere, has to be.

redspecter23

The bar that fills up as you use your hand brush? That tells you how many uses of your shovels you have. So you can use the handbrush twice, filling it up to the half way mark and use your shovel once. That one use will remove 2 layers of dirt if you have the upgraded shovel.

Noddegamra

That's not what I'm seeing - using the shovel once empties the bar completely. And I'm still not convinced I have the "upgraded" shovel. It takes 1 skill point to activate the shovel at all, and a second skill point can't be added until excavation level 7. So what would upgrade the shovel between those two points? And does it further upgrade (say, to 3 or 4 layers) when the second skill point is applied?
I could understand if the "4 brush" bar doubles what the shovel does, but it should be stated somewhere, and if it is I haven't seen it.

redspecter23

Well, if you have the first rank of the heavy shovel and it's consistently digging 2 layers deep, that's a bug I haven't encountered yet. It should dig 1 layer at rank 1 and 2 layers at rank 2 as far as I'm aware.

jle30303

My guess is that most likely you missed a "fissure" - the square which appears to have dust or smoke rising from it. Clearing that square all the way down to the base will cause damage to an adjacent antiquity. This can make some antiquities annoying to dig up if there are too many fissure spaces near the actual antiquity and it's impossible to get a 3x3 square without actually hitting one, so you may have to arrange to leave a larger pile of earth on some squares so that your shovel doesn't clear the fissure square.

(A fissure square can never have an antiquity directly underneath, but if you clear it with the shovel you'll damage the antiquity in the process.)

jle30303

Also, if you're going for an Ultimate-level antiquity, (a) fissures have a wider blast radius - and can cause chain reactions - and (b) the antiquity in question is more fragile and can only take two hits, rather than four or five, before it's lost.

Fennwitty

Noddegamra wrote: »

My excavation level is 6, so my heavy shovel level is 1/2. The tooltip states it removes 1 level of dirt. I can't find the skill that enables it, but the level where it takes 4 brushes to fill up the shovel/trowel bar instead of 2 is enabled. Not sure if that affects anything.
I have continued excavating, and as long as I stay 2 or more layers above the artifact it takes no damage. And when there is 2 levels above the artifact, the shovel removes both of them.

Having 2 points in Hand Brush increases your 'intuition' meter max.

Intuition is used in multiples of two -- when you have 4 intuition, using an action that costs only 2 intuition will perform the same action twice in a row.

To ensure only one performance of the action, use the action when you have only 2-3 intuition in the gauge.

While this seems problematic, it actually gives you another layer of strategy and allows you to perform a lot of clearing of space in only a single turn.

EDIT: If you find yourself with a full 4 points in the intuition gauge, but only 1 layer of dirt over several spaces of the antiquity, consider spending your intuition on an unrelated part of the board in preparation of digging up the bonus loot. Then rebuild 2 intuition and then clean off the antiquity.

redspecter23

Fennwitty wrote: »

Noddegamra wrote: »

My excavation level is 6, so my heavy shovel level is 1/2. The tooltip states it removes 1 level of dirt. I can't find the skill that enables it, but the level where it takes 4 brushes to fill up the shovel/trowel bar instead of 2 is enabled. Not sure if that affects anything.
I have continued excavating, and as long as I stay 2 or more layers above the artifact it takes no damage. And when there is 2 levels above the artifact, the shovel removes both of them.

Having 2 points in Hand Brush increases your 'intuition' meter max.

Intuition is all or nothing -- when you have 4 intuition, using an action that costs only 2 intuition will perform the same action twice in a row.

To ensure only one performance of the action, use the action when you have only 2-3 intuition in the gauge.

While this seems problematic, it actually gives you another layer of strategy and allows you to perform a lot of clearing of space in only a single turn.

That's likely the issue and the part I missed. The shovel will automatically use your full bar if you have it available. If you have the full bar with 4 intuition, that will dig twice and consume the entire bar.

Syrpynt

jle30303 wrote: »

My guess is that most likely you missed a "fissure" - the square which appears to have dust or smoke rising from it. Clearing that square all the way down to the base will cause damage to an adjacent antiquity. This can make some antiquities annoying to dig up if there are too many fissure spaces near the actual antiquity and it's impossible to get a 3x3 square without actually hitting one, so you may have to arrange to leave a larger pile of earth on some squares so that your shovel doesn't clear the fissure square.

(A fissure square can never have an antiquity directly underneath, but if you clear it with the shovel you'll damage the antiquity in the process.)

Another tip: If you get one layer below whatever the fissure is, you won't ever dig it along with the rest of the highlighted area. So make sure it is not highlighted when digging, and you should be fine.

zaria

Fennwitty wrote: »

Noddegamra wrote: »

My excavation level is 6, so my heavy shovel level is 1/2. The tooltip states it removes 1 level of dirt. I can't find the skill that enables it, but the level where it takes 4 brushes to fill up the shovel/trowel bar instead of 2 is enabled. Not sure if that affects anything.
I have continued excavating, and as long as I stay 2 or more layers above the artifact it takes no damage. And when there is 2 levels above the artifact, the shovel removes both of them.

Having 2 points in Hand Brush increases your 'intuition' meter max.

Intuition is used in multiples of two -- when you have 4 intuition, using an action that costs only 2 intuition will perform the same action twice in a row.

To ensure only one performance of the action, use the action when you have only 2-3 intuition in the gauge.

While this seems problematic, it actually gives you another layer of strategy and allows you to perform a lot of clearing of space in only a single turn.

EDIT: If you find yourself with a full 4 points in the intuition gauge, but only 1 layer of dirt over several spaces of the antiquity, consider spending your intuition on an unrelated part of the board in preparation of digging up the bonus loot. Then rebuild 2 intuition and then clean off the antiquity.

This, I always use the shovel at two or 3.
Note that it don't need to be flat, but the center tile need to be on the top layer, tiles who are not connected to center with an edge will not be cleared so you have to clear them afterward.
Fissures can be disarmed with the trowel then you are 1-2 layers above bottom or simply not dig them up.