Mining Layers 1.6.0 — download

Mining Layers stays free. It was, it is, it will be. From now on this is where you download it — create a free account and grab the zip on the Mining Layers page. The current build is 1.6.0.0, released on 16 August.

What 1.6.0 changed

• Layers without a drawn area. Until now a TerraFarm polygon had to exist and be assigned to the machine before anything happened at all, which was the single most common reason people concluded the mod was not working. The reference height is now frozen from the undisturbed ground the first time a bucket touches a spot. Set the target to "Everywhere" on the layers page and the layers follow the terrain across the whole map. Where an area is assigned to the machine, that area still wins.
• The target height is yours again. The mod used to pull the pit floor down whenever that height sat near ground level — build a flat pad and you got a pit. It no longer does that. Level a pad, cut a berm halfway up the wall, grade a ramp at a fixed slope, and the dozer holds the line. Where your height cuts off the lowest layer, the mod says so and leaves the decision to you.
• Slot diagnosis with your map's real numbers. How many ground slots this map has, how many are taken, how wide its channel is — read from the running game, not calculated from an assumption. That is the actual cause behind material that digs and sells but will not tip back onto the ground.
• The freeze is fixed. With the bucket rammed into the ground or working against a steep wall, the mod threw a Lua error every frame and the game had to be killed from outside. This hit 1.4.3.0 and 1.5.0.0 without anyone changing a setting. If you are staying on an older version, set freeDumpHeight="false" in miningLayers.xml.

Portuguese and Brazilian Portuguese joined in 1.6.0, contributed by Alicopower — the mod now speaks six languages.

TerraFarm has to be installed and active. That's the foundation, not a recommendation.

Bugs go to GitHub Issues, not the comments here.

What comes next

1.6.1 is in testing: material names in material colour, an overburden mode, and a warning before you reach the layer edge. Two things here are for members only — the Director's Cut of Mining Layers, and Dig With Anything. More on that in the next posts, with video.