Stone chunk

For rocks and ores, see Rock.

A rock chunk is the general term for is any of the five types of stone chunk namely granite chunk, limestone chunk, marble chunk, sandstone chunk or slate chunk. Each chunk can be cut at the stonecutter's table to yield 20 stone blocks of the same kind. This takes 1,600 ticks (26.67 secs) of work. Rock chunks cannot be sold without first being turned into blocks.

Acquisition

Rock chunks can either found throughout the world naturally or spawned by the player.

A typical flat 250x250 map will contain about 600 to 900 chunks of each stone type for maps with two stone types or 400 to 600 chunks of each stone type for maps with three stone types. Chunks also spawn with a ~25% chance for each tile of rock mined. Each type of rock will spawn its own chunk, so mining marble will spawn a marble chunk.

Infinite chunks can also be spawned from a deep drill in an area that contains no underground resources. The type of chunk produced will be displayed on the deep drill's tooltip. It can be beneficial to place the drill right next to the stonecutter's table to remove the need for hauling, but this does risk the stonecutter being attacked by the insectoids that the drill can occasionally spawn, in addition to the drill operator.

Stone chunks will not be moved automatically, even from a home area, and must be manually designated by the player to be hauled. They can be hauled to any stockpile with the appropriate settings, however dumping stockpile zones default settings include rock chunks.

Analysis

Despite the objects made of the resultant stone blocks having different HP based on which stone type is used, all rock chunks have the same amount of HP. However, they do have different masses:

granite: 25 kg
marble: 25 kg

limestone: 22 kg
sandstone: 20 kg

slate: 18 kg

Thus, if stone chunks must be transported, such as when transporting stone to a colony in a biome with low stone supplies like Ice Sheets, it can be advantageous to chose Slate over other stone types, despite the inferior stats of the end product. Note that stone chunks weigh the same as the blocks they are cut into, so, barring fractional calculations to maximize pack animals' load, they are just as efficient to transport in either form. However, practically speaking, it may be advantageous to do the stonecutting at the colony where preexisting shelter, stonecutter's tables, tool cabinets, armchairs, light, food, beds, recreation and other production benefits can more easily be provided. If you do wish to create (some) stone blocks, it would be wise to take a pre-constructed stonecutter table with you, as it only weighs 20kg when minified, and you can bring it back when you're done.

Chunks provide decent cover (50% as opposed to a tree's 25% or sandbags' 55%). Together with the fact they are omnipresent on natural maps, they are useful in firefights and will be used by the AI. Considering they can be easily hauled, it is a good idea to remove them from places the enemy could use and form your own makeshift barricades with them - whether when attacking enemy settlements or defending against raiders.

The "Chunk Skip" psycast can be beneficial for both positioning cover for yourself or to remove it from enemies, as well as an easy way to move chunks a short distance without tying up a hauler. It skips the nearest 5 rock chunks or Steel slag chunks to the target location. It is a level 1 psycast that costs 4% psyfocus and 14 points of neural heat.

Production strategy

This section is transcluded from Stonecutting maximization.

Stonecutting speed is controlled by the cutting pawn's General Labor Speed stat which is determined by a pawn's stats and capacities rather than any skill. Thus, maximization is based on improving that stat and removing process inefficiencies rather than grinding for experience.

General Labor Speed

General labor speed is affected by manipulation, sight and global work speed.

Sight decreases general labor speed if below 100%, but offers no benefit above 100%.
Manipulation can be improved with bionic or archotech arms, or with drugs that improve Manipulation or Consciousness such as Go-juice or Wake-up.
Global work speed can be improved by certain traits, such as Industrious or Neurotic, a Leader's Work Drive, and the drug Wake-up, which stacks with the drug's manipulation improvement.
General Labor Speed can also be directly increased by +50% Production specialists, and those affected by their Production Command.
- The ability stacks with the role, but a specialist cannot self-buff.

Like other workbenches, using a stonecutter while outdoors, having no light, or under extreme temperature will negatively affect production speed. Care should be taken to avoid these conditions. Pawns with damaged vision / manipulation, or with traits such as Lazy should avoid stonecutting unless they are otherwise unoccupied.

While being a production specialist will lock out a pawn out of many other work types and the quality increase is useless for stonecutting, a stonecutter may want to become a specialist regardless. You can have as many specialists of a type as you wish, and the role can always be removed if the pawn is required for another role or once a sufficient stockpile of blocks has been made. Note that there is a −15 <Role> lost if you decide to switch or remove the specialist role later. If a temporary role switch is still untenable, consider placing the stonecutter table in range of your regular production specialist's workstations to benefit from their aura.

Process efficiency

Positioning the cutting table next to the chunk stockpile is ideal.

Placing an armchair or other chair will not improve production rates, but will ensure that the pawn remains comfortable and happy while cutting, however it will slow pawns as they path over it.

It's worth mentioning, with the Ideology DLC installed, slaves are ideal as stone cutters as the task doesn't raise any of the pawns skills. The -15% work speed from slaves is offset by a lack of need for recreation. Adding a circadian half-cycler further increases efficiency by removing the need for sleep at the cost of -15% consciousness.

Gallery

A collection of rock chunks in their natural habitat.

Rock chunk variant A
Rock chunk variant B
Rock chunk variant C

Version history

Original rock chunk variant A
Original rock chunk variant B
Original rock chunk variant C