This guide provides detailed information on when, why, and how to erect retaining walls. It will explain how to decide where to place the retaining walls to allow maximum ore access. It also covers ramp design planning.
 

Introduction

New players may find it challenging to place retaining walls. After reading several threads on this topic, someone suggested I create an overview of the information. This guide is it. I am current at v0.4.11
 
 
One of the problems with retaining walls is not knowing how far from the mine they need to be. It is not always clear to new players how much space they will need and how the walls will cascade as they go down (. Planning for a ramp, especially one with switchbacks to), can be a bit more difficult.
 
 
 

Terminology

Here is a glossary explaining how I will use particular terms. This glossary is intended to help you avoid confusion and minimize redundant wording.
 
 

• Transports – Both belts, and pipes
• Cell – The smallest section of terrain
• Section – This is the smallest territory you can select with your mining or dumping tool. A 4 by 4 cell square.
   
   
   
  
• Box – A 16 by 16 cell square that is marked with a heavy grid line on a map. A 4 by 4 square.
   
   
   
  
• Ground – Any terrain, no matter how (rock, dirt, ore it may be)
• Slide – When the ground decides that it wants a lower level, and achieves this goal
• Slippage – The aftereffects of a fall.
• Terrace – A subsequent layer of digging, or dumping
   
   
   
  
• Face – A near vertical piece that is usually mined at ground level.

Why use retaining walls?

You should only use them when you have to prevent slippage in particular areas of your map. Here are some situations that you might think of:
 
 

1. Buildings and transports are close enough (to the pile) so that a slide could cause damage.
2. The dig is located below sea level, close enough to it that if there's a slide, one of the cells on either coast could slide and cause flooding.
3. You must ensure that your ramp does NOT slide and block the access.
4. You may want to have a more pleasing view so you can use retaining walls.

 
Some believe that retaining walls are unnecessary. In some cases, (, particularly for rock and ore) the retaining wall construction takes more space than letting the materials operate independently.
 
 
Let's take a look at it in detail. (This illustration is intended to show how a surface of terrain will behave. When leveling a mountain, there is no need to construct a retaining barrier. These are just examples to help us dig down later.)
 
 
Here is a picture of an iron miner's mound (). We can see that the texture of the side facing the camera shows that the excavators have been removing ore.
 
 

 
 
When we select the mining or dumping option, we can see lines indicating the mound’s height. Each heavy line indicates one level of height. (Notification: I use this dumping tool as I can easily reach it using my 'keyboard' hand and mouse.)
 
 

 
 
The dumping tool shows us that the ground level' is -10. We can count up 10 heavy lines to a very high line which would be (0 at sea level. – We can then count 10 more lines to the very top (the heavy line exists but is very small), giving us a peak level' of +10. It is important to know the following:
 
 

• The peak of the mound is 20 meters above the local ground.
• It has been all about sliding to the summit.

 
 
Here is a view directly over the peak, with the sections shown to measure.
 
 

 
 
It took three sections for 20 levels ore to give enough room for the slope to be found. To control this terrain, we would need 4 sections of retaining walls. We can conclude from this that (is the smallest iron ore). The a*sertion that retaining walls take more space than letting them slide is incorrect.
 
 
However…
 
 
I would like you to refer to the Soil Test Guide of Undying29 at this point. He showed how to dump various materials using his guide. He shows how iron ore has the least slippage. It is more stable than rock when it comes to holding its shape. However, dirt is more prone to sliding than rock. If you dig (rather that clearing a mound of), there will be dirt on the surface.
 
 
Either the dirt is cleared before digging for desired material or there is more slippage. Depending on the depth, this could mean that another section of dirt is compromised.
 
 
I will be open about the fact that I do not use retaining wall in all cases. I will accept some slippage in many cases. However, on some maps space is at a premium (especially early). Therefore, being able build close to the mine might be necessary.
 
 
Retaining walls are not often strictly needed, but they do look great.
 
 
The rest will be about planning retaining walls to get all the ore.
 
 
 

Building The Wall

Before we start planning, let me explain how retaining wall placement is done. The key is to ensure that the facing face of the wall is at least one cell away the section's edge. The continuation of the wall can be used to reach the section's edge with no problem. (See the images for more information.)
 
 
As you can see, the yellow sections correspond to the mine. The green sections correspond to the outside of the mine. (Be careful when placing corners.) Don't ignore the upside down numbers. These numbers really don't matter. (I tried rotating this image and it looks silly. Also, I don’t want to go through the process of making screenshots again, so please ignore these numbers.)
 
 

 
 
Let's start with the corners. Take a good, close-up look at a corner section of retaining wall.
 
 

 
 
Notice how one corner has a small hole in it. This should point towards the inside of the corner being created.
 
 
The corner (is a 2 cell by 2-cell item) that will always be located in the middle of a section 4 cell by 4 Cell).
 
 
Let's now put the corner together with two short retention walls.
 
 

 
 

 
 
Use the copy tools to copy the entire corner build (1 Corner, 2 short retention walls). Rotate it to place it in a different corner spot.
 
 

 
 
Now, put a long retaining line from one corner towards the other. I don't think that it matters how it is oriented except that it matches the corner build.
 
 

 
 
Now, place the next long retain wall.
 
 

 
 
Now, place all the pieces on the example.
 
 

 
 
Simple as pie. (You'll notice that I didn’t say simple, as pi. This would be absurd.)
 
 
Now we have an attractive, clean retaining wall which will not be disturbed by drunken excavator operators.
 
 
If you place objects against the section's edge and an excavator is working in the section adjacent, you could cause wall damage.
 
 
Now for the PLAN.
 
 
 

Planning – When & How ()

When to Plan

 
 
Before anything is built in the vicinity of a mine's retaining walls, they must be planned. It is difficult for you to place a number on the 'nearby area' until you have planned. I recommend that you start the process (and at least partially at) at each stage. Stop the game as soon as it starts, and take some time to THINK about what you can do.
 
 

How to Plan

 
 
Our goal will be to construct a series of retaining wall most of the way around the mine. These walls will contain successive downward terraces on every five levels until the mine bottom is reached.
 
 
For an example, I'll be using the New Haven Map and the coal mine closest the original shipyard. You can also start a game on that map and pause it to follow this example.
 
 

 
 
Right away, we see a limestone deposit behind our coal deposit. It will cause some problems. This will likely keep us away from constructing a wall around our coal mine.
 
However, the limestone mine may also require a wall. We could use the same walls to surround both the mining areas.
 
 
We need a method to mark things. As we don't have any retaining wall research yet, I will use the mining tools and dumping equipment to mark terrain. We aim to place our retaining walls inside the marks we have left. (I promise it will make more sense if we walk through it.)
 
 
I used marking the sections for dumping at my own level. The developers have put a restriction on retaining walls. They can't be placed on any Section that has been marked. (The console command will remove this restriction, but we can still get around it with). Instead, we will mark the Sections around our mine and remove them during our process to show us where we need to put our retaining wall.
 
 
We will begin by activating overlay with the "L” key.
 
 

 
 
We will now mark sections of the deposit with the dumping instrument. We will mark an area that is at most six sections around the deposit. (This number is not set. We are just trying to make sure that there are enough markings left to show the border when we start erasing them. Any sections of the deposit, i.e. Sections with columns in them) won't need to be marked.
 
 

 
 
Because of the deposit's footprint, we might decide not to have any corners so we have marked the area as a rectangle. We might not mark the entire area for deposit that is more diagonal.
 
 
Here is a sideview of the columns. The shipyard would be to the left and forward for orientation.
 
 

 
 
These columns give us information about the useful material beneath the ground as well its depth. There are also columns with gray levels that represent dirt and rock. These will need to be dug up to expose the useful materials (. In this case, coal). We are interested both in the height of the ground below each column and the height and positions of the columns themselves.
 
 
First, you should note that the columns appear on every other section, not just each section. What about other sections? Each section (in the deposit) also has coal. This is particularly important when looking at the sections outside the deposit that are adjacent (. These include corners) sections containing columns. We don't yet know if they have any coal in them. We should a*sume they have coal in them, since our goal is to get ALL of it.
 
 
Let's start with some columns at the edge.
 
 

 
 
Each ring denotes the level of depth. These three columns each have four rings (- one brown, three gray. The brown symbolises coal (stuff we want)) while the gray represents dirt or rocks (stuff in our path).
 
 
A retaining walls can hold back 5 levels. We will need multiple terraces of walls to hold more material back. How many terraces would we need? One for every 5 depth levels or parts thereof. I count the rings to determine the number divisible by 5. (5, 10, 15, 20, and so on. Divide by 5
 
 
In this example, there are only 4 rings. We get 5. Divide by 5 to get 1. In this case, there is only one terrace of retaining Wall.
 
 
We will need to add 1 because we might find ore in the sections that are adjacent to the columns. This means we must reserve two sections to make our retaining walls.
 
 
Now, we remove all sections that are less than three columns.
 
 

 
 
Let's look at the row just behind the row 3 (group 1 columns. The three columns directly in front of the short 3 are 11 rings high. (Count the sliver of an) dark ring at its bottom. These will be reviewed in a moment.
 
 
The column to their right is the height 10. It is crossing a topological arc, showing that the ground underneath it is moving from 2 to 3. It would be the same height at level 3 as at level 9, which is our ground' level.
 
 
The column just to your right is level 3's height 11. This corresponds to level 10 on our ground floor.
 
 
These two sections will need (2 each for height and) 1 for space for retaining walls.
 
 
The three columns to left of group 1, all at 10 feet, will require the same 3 sections.
 
 
Let's start by marking those sections. Don't forget to mark diagonals.
 
 

 
 
Let's get back to the group 1' columns. They are 11 ring high and require 3 sections for height (. One section for ever 5 or a part thereof). The third section is for adjacency. This means that we need to unmark 4 additional sections on the diagonal.
 
 

 
 
In some cases you may need columns that are further from the deposit edge. I've found that columns less than 10 rings in height are best ignored. This is because 10 terracing rings is 2 levels, but the column is just two sections away.
 
 
Now it is time to move on and unmark the items that are necessary for the remaining side of the mine.
 
 

 
 
Pay special attention to left corner if your goal is to follow along with the game. The column at the left corner is tall enough for the markings to change shape.
 
 
Now, to be more precise, I will mark the first ring in the retaining-wall wall with the mining tools.
 
 

 
 
 

Planning : When and how (Part II)

Let's take a look at a few other things.
 
 
First, how we interact with the limestone deposit. How do we want it to interact with us? I suggest that you use the same marking procedure but instead of bending in toward the coal we go straight up until we turn towards the bottom to include the limestone. I'm not going do that here, but it is similar to what we have been doing.
 
 
Second, we don't know what direction we want to take with this deposit on the right. Let's give the same treatment for the left side of the deposit. (This will change the point of view.)
 
 

 
 
We will need to be in a position to access the mine. This is why we won't be building a retaining wall. This is the most likely location for an entrance. Before we can be certain, we need ramps.
 
 
 

Ramps – Accessing The Mine

Ramps can be very different from retaining walls. The most important thing is the difference between slope and retaining walls.
 
 
A set of retaining-wall terraces can be changed at 5 levels for each section.
 
 
A ramp cannot change more than one level per section.
 
 
You can use switchbacks in (to make the mine seem smaller. However the ramp must be one-section long for every level.
 
 
How deep can it go? In theory, you could examine columns by counting rings and subtracting how high the ground is where it rests.
 
 
In my notes, I have an error in the calculation. However, I admit that I was possibly experiencing sleep deprivation (Great Jobs COI) at that time. In retrospect I see that I forgot to add +2 to the 'ground' level when I wrote it. This was probably because I was too excited at the moment.
 
 
We will still follow the theory. We also a*sume that we will build a wide ramp at the end and mine as we go.
 
 
Let's now examine the tallest column at the front.
 
 

 
 
That was for orientation. Now we zoom in.
 
 

 
 
This column contains 21 rings. It appears (was dumping) on level 6. It is not. The prior image shows you how to count the topographical lines. You can conclude that it is at level 7. I believe the dumping tool shows that the lowest elevation is shown. Switching to a mining tool yields the correct answer of 7. (I've already mentioned that the dumping device is my "go to" tool for inspecting things. I will need help.)
 
 
21 rings = 7 ground height, which means there will be ore in level -14. Level -14 lies 16 below our local "ground" level of +2. To reach all the ore beneath this column, we will need a ramp 16 feet long.
 
 
Let me draw that for your benefit. Well, let me pause.
 
 
After drawing a ramp at (using the mining instrument), I realized the problem in the row that is closer to the opening. It turns it has coal at level 14 as well.
 
 
Also, I am going draw the ramp with 4 sections. Later we'll discuss how wide it needs to be.
 
 
Let me draw that for your reference. (The number shown is the lower portion of the ramp. We need a section at level 14 under that column.)
 
 

 
 
Here is a zoomed view to give you an idea of the scale.
 
 

 
 
This is quite a bit of real estate that was not part of the deposit. Remember that we wanted to get ALL the ore. It will also require its very own retaining walls.
 
 
There are options. There are also other options. It doesn’t really affect how much space is used, but which space it is.
 
 
I will demonstrate a plan which will bring a ramp to the left side. Please note that I am not able to verify the final depth of the mine for each column. This deposit should be removed at a depth between -17 and -18.
 
 
First, a diagram showing the contents is shown below. This shows which color the columns are. C stands for coal, O stands for other (-grade rock and dirt), L stands for the few sections with limestone. The columns are only found in the other sections.
 
 

 
 
Second, this is the mine that has most of the retainingwalls placed. The number indicates how high the retaining wall is.
 
 

 
 
Third, we have a ramp which will take us from +2 – -17 with retainingwalls outlined. The ramp is narrower at its mouth due to the positions and retaining walls.
 
 

 
 
Kudos, if you are now calling yourself "Samurai!" This will end in failure because the -3-, -8-, and -13 walls at the upper left have little support on their left! ".
 
 
You are right.
 
 
But…
 
 
We will incorporate this plan into our plan for retaining walls around mine to provide that support. It will only take minor adjustments to the ramp diagram's retaining wall.
 
 
I know there's an oil deposit near the area where I have placed the ramp, but surprisingly they don’t overlap.
 
 

 
 
Now we have a plan to get ALL the coal. We can also build the outer retaining wall sections. It can also double-duty as the ramp for the Limestone mine located adjacent to the mine.
 
 
Now to build it.
 
 
 

Ramps – Making It Happen

Here is (, in broad strokes.) shows the order of things. There will be some overlap among steps. This means you will have to begin the next step (before you can finish the one you are currently working on. This must happen in order to ensure that there is no interruption in the coal flow.
 
 

1. You should build your mining tower near to the mouth of a ramp, but not in the area where there will be retaining walls.
2. Start by mining the surface coke. Start mining by setting your mining depth to (+2 at the local ground level.
3. Your storage infrastructure should be built close to the ramp's mouth. You may need to build additional storage units near the ramp for the coal.
4. Place the retaining blocks at level +2. You don’t have to finish them all. But, it is important to never mine next a retaining wall unless it is completed.
5. As soon as your excess coal is available, you can start mining the ramp below level -3 and the entire area below level 3. (This includes sections where the lower retention walls will be.) Once all is well, you will have dug two sections wide at level 3 through the inside of level +2 retaining walls. Don't forget that you must switch to coal mining and rebuild your excess coal before you run low!
    
    
    
   These changes are best made by changing the mining area of control tower and focusing either on the available coal or a s*rip just inside the wall.
6. Rinse, then repeat steps 4 to 5 for levels 3 through 8.
7. Celebrate that you got ALL the coal, and that there was never a landslide. (No, you didn't have any landslides. (I didn't win a landslide, did you?

 
 
If you have an issue, you can always backfill with rocks (dirt tends o slide too much)) or dig again.
 
 
It is important that you don't give in to the temptations to do one side and then get to the other. I've found myself in situations where I have to dig deeper than I can reach without getting into trouble. Steady wins.
 
 
 

Insurgency – Sand

I wanted to pa*s along the following.
 
 
Don't expect retaining walls made from sand to behave completely like good citizens. Sand is insurgent and can spark uprisings.
 
 
Really.
 
 
I have built beautiful retaining wall to hold back sand. Later (after a few drops of rain), a small piece of retaining walls was found that was one-level higher than its original position.
 
 
Yes, there was an uprising. Caused (by the insurgences of sand
 
 
Although it may be a bug in the system, I think it's a cute feature that's working as intended.
 
 
You've been warned! (LOL)
 
 
 

A Personal Note

I hope this guide was helpful and useful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comment section. I'm also open to feedback and suggestions.
 
 
This guide has been written to help others. Many gamers have helped me through this guide and youtube videos over the years. These people fill the void left by game developers. This helps to attract more players (. It also helps to generate more revenue and provide better patches) for these complex games.
 
 
I want to thank all those who are too numerous to name. Your efforts have greatly improved my enjoyment of so many games! Thank you!
 
 
One last thing…
 
 
Unfortunately, the last guide I wrote ended up on a website covered in ads. It was there, even though no one asked for my permission. I was actually accused by plagiarism. However, they credited my name and the accusation has been retracted. I feel obligated, in the spirit and tradition of " Once Bitten, Twice Shy", to say the following:
 
 
This guide is being posted at Steam Guides for Captain Of Industry.

 
 

 
 
I hope you enjoy the Retaining Walls : An Exhaustive Guide – Captain of Industry guide. This is all for now! If you have something to add to this guide or forget to add some information, please let us know via comment! We check each comment manually!