Coming soon: mining changes

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-28 17:02:30

Why:

Iron is a necessary and consumed resource
By traveling a distance of R, a player gains access to ~ R^2 area and thus ~ R^2 more surface iron
Players' ability to travel farther grows with their tech level
No matter what reasonable scarcity we set for it, surface iron is effectively infinite
In order to make surface iron not infinite in practice, the scarcity setting would need to be very severe
Severely scarce resources are a tedious pain to find
Every town needs some iron for bootstrapping, so it can't be almost impossible to find
Effectively infinite surface iron makes iron worthless, and thus tech made with iron (like tools) worthless
There's no need to care about worthless things (Who took my axe? Who cares?)
Not caring is boring
Higher-tech mining methods are never needed
In the past week, there has not been a single diesel mining rig built
Of course, who would waste oil to produce a resource that can be had for free, in practically infinite quantities, just by walking?

Solution concept:

Some iron must be freely available for village bootstrapping
Freely available iron must not be practically infinite
New freely available iron needs to be added to the game regularly to allow new villages to form
The freely available iron added in this way needs to be near new villages, to avoid endless hunting around
There should be no exploit available that allows players to trigger the creation of more freely available iron at will
Beyond finite freely available iron, there should be infinite non-free iron available, but only in exchange for a precious resource

What:

No more loose iron ore on the ground
Muddy iron veins occur at spring-head sites along ley lines
Iron ore there is stuck in the mud, and cannot be retrieved
Creating your family's first well site (10 stones, not yet dug) dries up the iron sites along that one ley line at distance 160 from the well site
Creating your family's first well site also establishes your homeland
If you already have a homeland elsewhere, creating another well site will not dry up iron sites along that other ley line.
A partially dried up iron site allows you to harvest 4 iron ore with your bare hands
Digging a shallow well further dries up the partly-dry iron site along that ley line
A fully-dry iron site allows you to harvest 4 more iron ore with your bare hands, leaving a stripped iron site behind
Hitting a stripped iron site with a pickaxe is hungry work, and produces one iron ore
The expected number of iron ore harvested this way is 19
After that, you get an iron pit
Installing a stanchion kit makes a deep iron mine
Using the pickaxe on the deep mine is hungry work, and produces one iron ore
The expected number of iron ore harvested this way is 46
After that, you get a collapsed iron mine
Installing a diesel engine and a chisel there makes a diesel pick
A diesel pick produces 6 iron ore per unit of kero and chisel
Diesel engines can be removed from pumps, cars, planes, and mines
A diesel engine can be placed on ANY muddy iron site (that hasn't been dried up by a family's first well site) to grant iron mining to an outpost village

Details:

Each new family expects to have 2 iron sites along their first well ley line
Each family will have access to an expected 2 upgradable iron mines
Each mine site is expected to produce 72 pre-diesel iron
Each family is expected to have access to 144 pre-diesel iron
Some families will have more or less, if they have more or less veins on their ley line, or due to harvesting variance.
A family can migrate by taking their diesel engine with them to establish a new mine elsewhere
A family can branch out to other locations by making a second engine to establish an outpost
These numbers will be adjusted in the future as-needed

fug · 2020-03-28 17:08:21

Boo.

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-28 17:12:50

It was actually inspired by fug.

Whatever · 2020-03-28 17:12:56

Jason you keep adding weird mechanics that are not intuitive.
Coming up with good mechanics that makes sense and fit the game is more difficult, yes,
but good realistic mechanics are what i would expect from someone with so much programming experience like you who wants to make the best game ever.

fug · 2020-03-28 17:13:43

Boo me too then. Boo.

Twisted · 2020-03-28 17:16:08

Is there going to be a tech tree revamp with this? A large part of the tech tree is based on having infinite iron, making iron very limited completely breaks various tech branches such as bottles, springy doors, rails, keys, looms, and shears, effectively removing that tech from the game.

If there is no tech revamp along with this I can't see this working at all.

I usually try to be open-minded and positive but this sounds like a total trash fire that wasn't thought through at all.

Dodge · 2020-03-28 17:16:28

I'm predicting no change in player behavior except at the very end when iron actually starts to get low, but most generations still wont care about iron, could be wrong, we'll see.

Morti · 2020-03-28 17:16:41

Surface iron was dumb anyway.
You're all welcome to make rabbit pouches with me and feed wild berries, goose water, for the rest of time.

Dodge · 2020-03-28 17:17:30

Still better than infinite iron but not quite there yet imo

JackTreehorn · 2020-03-28 17:17:48

Sounds like a good update! I look forward to playing and seeing how this changes things. Maybe there will be more mining outposts or guarding of precious iron.

Morti · 2020-03-28 17:25:32

jasonrohrer wrote:

Not caring is boring
Therefore
Caring is interesting

So, you folks be sure to care for each other.
Mr. Rohrer, is watching.

Legs · 2020-03-28 17:31:05

This, like oil, is a balance change that really demonstrates how cheating with zoom mod completely breaks the game. For anyone that's not cheating, these resources are incredibly rare and difficult to find. You have to comb through the area surrounding your home very carefully, and even after finding one you rely on memory to get there and back. Crossing through dangerous biomes with animals lurking just off screen. With zoom it's a joke, they see everything, resources, biomes, animals, literal GPS coordinates. That's what the game is balanced around since people are allowed to cheat like this. I've played this game for hundreds and hundreds of hours without ever mining iron. Why? It's either way too far from town to find again reliably or already long emptied by someone else, the same as oil.

Basically, the balance for these vital resources is centered around a very small number of people with vision assist cheats. Any semblance of balance that you achieve is false as long as you allow cheating. It only works if you cheat, and almost nobody cheats. In practice this stuff completely breaks the game and makes resources 100% unavailable. I mean, can you really call it balance when people literally have to cheat just to barely scrape by? Wouldn't the game be much better off banning cheats and achieving a proper balance for everyone?

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-28 17:35:55

Twisted, how does making bottles consume iron?

You mean because you need to make one blowpipe?

I looked at the tech tree, but I might have missed something else (also need a knife to make filter paper).

I do want you making difficult decisions about everything. There should be trade-offs everywhere.

You shouldn't ever be building something "just because you're bored" and "you might as well."

With the example of bottles (assuming that I'm not missing something), if you don't have a blowpipe, and are considering bottles, and there's only a little iron left, you should be weighing the value of the bottles to village survival vs. the value of an axe or whatever other thing you could make with the iron.

And if you decide against the bottles, then if someone comes along with bottles, you might be willing to trade with them (or rob them, or whatever.... but you will suddenly CARE that they have bottles, when before everyone had them, so who cares?). THEY invested in the blowpipe, and you did not. Or you could trade for the blowpipe, or steal it, or borrow it with their permission.

You can see how everyone having a blowpipe (because why not?) is less interesting than a blowpipe being a precious thing and a trade-off.

You ever seen a village just littered with duplicate iron tools? Where are the shears? Oh, we have 3 of them around here somewhere. I can't find them, so let's just make another set.

That is not the game that I ever intended to make. Of course, making the game that I intended to make is hard.

You're watching that process live.

Elsayal · 2020-03-28 17:41:22

we just need to try it out, then we can give you feedback

fug · 2020-03-28 17:43:18

Elsayal wrote:

we just need to try it out, then we can give you feedback

I'll give you a spoiler. it's bad.

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-28 17:44:13

Legs, as far as I'm aware, "banning" mods is impossible, from a tech standpoint.

Turing and all that, you know.

It's impossible to force a piece of software on the other end of the wire to prove to you that it's the piece of software that it claims to be. Anything the "real" software says across the wire, the mod can say too, because it can run an instance of the real software and copy what it says.

This is why DRM doesn't work, for example.

That doesn't stop people from TRYING to block rogue software on the other end of the wire. As far as I'm aware, an exploit is always found, eventually. I.e., you can try, but you will eventually fail.

And I generally try to avoid fighting losing battles.

That said, the vision could be limited somewhat by shrinking what the server sends you. That would result in a more glitch-prone vanilla client experience (the extra info, off the edge of the screen, helps to cover up brief network hiccups, so you very rarely see "unknown territory" white squiggles at the edge of your screen... there's plenty of "known" are off the edge of your screen to catch you, even if you pull the plug mid-game).

But regardless, searching around randomly isn't interesting gameplay, with or without the help of a mod.

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-28 17:45:30

remember infinite carrots

Twisted · 2020-03-28 17:47:20

jasonrohrer wrote:

Twisted, how does making bottles consume iron?
You mean because you need to make one blowpipe?
I looked at the tech tree, but I might have missed something else (also need a knife to make filter paper).

You need shears to plant glasswort and a blowpipe to make bottles. Iron is finite and you can't spend it on fun stuff when you need it to survive.

jasonrohrer wrote:

I do want you making difficult decisions about everything. There should be trade-offs everywhere.

It's not a difficult decision. You're not going to make bottles because you can't afford to waste iron on shears and blowpipes. It's the easiest decision in the world. I also notice that you didn't reply about any of the other items I mentioned

jasonrohrer wrote:

With the example of bottles (assuming that I'm not missing something), if you don't have a blowpipe, and are considering bottles, and there's only a little iron left, you should be weighing the value of the bottles to village survival vs. the value of an axe or whatever other thing you could make with the iron.
And if you decide against the bottles, then if someone comes along with bottles, you might be willing to trade with them (or rob them, or whatever.... but you will suddenly CARE that they have bottles, when before everyone had them, so who cares?). THEY invested in the blowpipe, and you did not. Or you could trade for the blowpipe, or steal it, or borrow it with their permission.

There's nothing to weigh. This is a game, we know exactly how much iron is left and we know that iron is limited. Using that iron for something useful is always going to be more important than making bottles. We won't be able to steal or trade for a blowpipe because there will be no blowpipes.

jasonrohrer wrote:

You ever seen a village just littered with duplicate iron tools? Where are the shears? Oh, we have 3 of them around here somewhere. I can't find them, so let's just make another set.
That is not the game that I ever intended to make. Of course, making the game that I intended to make is hard.

You're watching that process live.

You do realize that tools break, right? It's not a one and done investment, you need to keep making more and it's good to have more than one set of shears since the average town will go through ten pairs of shears in a day, if not more.

This update is a steaming pile of smelly garbage. Think it through before actually pushing it live, as it's clear as day that you didn't.

Last edited by Twisted (2020-03-28 17:47:36)

fug · 2020-03-28 17:47:45

Remember purposely releasing swords as butter knives?

Not all changes are good especially when warned about it.

jasonrohrer · 2020-03-28 17:50:19

Also, fug, in my test server, when I'm trying out the new mining tech, it FEELS so much more like mining. There's no random wandering around. You go there, to this spot, and you invest more and more tech into the mine to get more and more iron out, and you're a hungry miner, and there's a need for a supply chain to keep you fed, etc. And you're actually using the mining pick for most of it, which also feels much better.

Look at these fellows on their way "down" to work:

img_30691.jpg?w=825

Twisted · 2020-03-28 17:52:44

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, fug, in my test server, when I'm trying out the new mining tech, it FEELS so much more like mining. There's no random wandering around. You go there, to this spot, and you invest more and more tech into the mine to get more and more iron out, and you're a hungry miner, and there's a need for a supply chain to keep you fed, etc. And you're actually using the mining pick for most of it, which also feels much better.

These changes are fine and interesting (except 10 Hungry Work feels a bit extreme but whatever).

Making iron limited and 'removing' without considering the consequences and as a result removing a large amount of the tech tree is the problem.

Legs · 2020-03-28 17:53:41

What the heck bros... I thought it's impossible to cheat on VAC secured servers...

Alright, from now on it's an automatic curse on anyone caught using mods.

fug · 2020-03-28 17:56:27

jasonrohrer wrote:

Also, fug, in my test server, when I'm trying out the new mining tech, it FEELS so much more like mining. There's no random wandering around. You go there, to this spot, and you invest more and more tech into the mine to get more and more iron out, and you're a hungry miner, and there's a need for a supply chain to keep you fed, etc. And you're actually using the mining pick for most of it, which also feels much better.
Look at these fellows on their way "down" to work

Haha, imagine if you actually put that much thought into the update overall and mining became an actual group activity like that. It would have promoted teamwork and another good group activity but instead we got this mess of an update you'll only experience once while the rest of us get stuck dealing with an ill-conceived update.

I'd recommend to stop following the fever dream ideas.

Twisted · 2020-03-28 17:57:30

fug wrote:

jasonrohrer wrote:
Also, fug, in my test server, when I'm trying out the new mining tech, it FEELS so much more like mining. There's no random wandering around. You go there, to this spot, and you invest more and more tech into the mine to get more and more iron out, and you're a hungry miner, and there's a need for a supply chain to keep you fed, etc. And you're actually using the mining pick for most of it, which also feels much better.
Look at these fellows on their way "down" to work
Haha, imagine if you actually put that much thought into the update overall and mining became an actual group activity like that. It would have promoted teamwork and another good group activity but instead we got this mess of an update you'll only experience once while the rest of us get stuck dealing with an ill-conceived update.

That would have been so cool.

fug · 2020-03-28 18:00:12

Twisted wrote:

That would have been so cool.

Remember all those people who need flat rocks? Boom % chance for flat rocks.
Extra paint materials? Boom use that rng factor up in here.
Round stones? We got you've rolling over here.
Chance to actually run the mine out of supplies? Swoosh.
And of course we can't forget iron.

And within 2 minutes we've come up with a better solution than Jason. Teamwork is great.

Edit: forgot to put in a chance for the vein to go down a tier.

Last edited by fug (2020-03-28 18:02:12)

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Coming soon: mining changes

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