Configure Miscellaneous Settings

The Miscellaneous advanced settings provide flags and overrides to fine-tune how MSO handles stope structure, pillar enforcement, model slicing, and discretization.

These controls can be used to relax or enforce constraints, adjust performance, or troubleshoot unusual shape behaviour. They are typically only adjusted by experienced users or during testing workflows, but can offer powerful flexibility when refining results in tricky deposits.

A Note on "Deep Search"

The complexity of the optimisation problem is directly related to the number of feasible stope-shapes that need to be considered, and how tightly they are grouped. This can lead to long processing times or, in the worst cases, no solution being found in a sensible timeframe.

There can be a very large number of high value feasible solutions but finding the best can involve a Deep search of the solution space. The best may however be only a very small improvement on many other solutions.

Note: Deep Search cannot be used in conjunction with the Force Zero Pillar Width option.

Activity steps

Define an MSO scenario, block model, orientation, framework and shapes.
Display the Advanced screen.
Expand the Miscellaneous command group.

Consider the following settings to fine tune your optimized output shapes by adjusting them after creation:

Do not force pillars between full and sub-stopes	Prevents MSO from automatically inserting a separation pillar between full stopes and their sub-stopes.
Do not force pillars between split stopes	Stops MSO from enforcing spacing (pillars) between stopes split across framework divisions. Useful when close packing is desired.
No structure test on seed	Disables seed structure evaluation. This can speed up processing in specific test cases but may reduce seed validation accuracy.
Force zero pillar width	When a stope shape has zero pillar, this forces the shape to obey the fixed stope width constraint exactly.
Deep Search	If enabled, a more thorough investigate of feasible solutions is performed. Warning: This can significantly extend processing times.
Use minimum offset for stope shape annealing	Controls the starting offset used during the annealing phase of stope refinement. A larger offset increases smoothing aggressiveness.
Force stope slice interval	Forces MSO to use the specified slice thickness for stope evaluation, overriding default or auto values.
Force model evaluation discretisation plane	MSO will evaluate the block model only along the selected discretization plane (e.g. XZ, YZ, XY). Useful for targeting planar behavior.
Force model discretisation interval U Direction / V Direction	Manually define the discretization resolution for stope evaluation. Note: The default discretization level is typically 4×4. Resolution in the U and V direction. Higher values = more accurate shape fitting, but increased processing time.

Miscellaneous Settings Example

You're working on a narrow, folded orebody where automatic pillars reduce stope recovery.

Disable pillar enforcement to allow tight packing
Lock the discretization plane to XZ to match geological layout
Set high-resolution discretization for U/V to capture narrow lenses precisely