Another metal source

[KillerofLawyers2]

This would just make finding, owning, and operating a mine pointless. If it's something easy to do like simply digging in the ground. Someones just going to macro it up.

[Peter]

Um, Bog ore would only provide a tiny trickle of low-q iron. How would this make mines worthless?

[sabinati]

This would just make finding, owning, and operating a mine pointless. If it's something easy to do like simply digging in the ground. Someones just going to macro it up.

tying it to a quality point would probably solve that, and scratch getting any ore from chipping stones, have that be from digging on mountain instead. maybe the chance could be ((q/10)-1)

so something like a q10 area in a bog would yield a bog ore 0% of the time, q20 would have 1% chance of finding a bog ore, with maybe 20% smelt rate or something for 1 nugget

[sabinati]

Um, Bog ore would only provide a tiny trickle of low-q iron. How would this make mines worthless?

no, killeroflawyers2 has a point, if you could just dig on a q10 area forever it would be overpowered. also since ore doesn't have q (unless they made a special case for bog ore) the resulting metal would be whatever (smelterq + fuelq)/2 is.

[Peter]

The problem with tying it to q-points is that then rather than people taking all the mine spots, they'll be taking up all the bog spots AND the mine spots.
And we already know that it's possible to exhaust points, so presumably digging for peat/bog ore would behave in a way similar to digging for clay. (Though hopefully not as punishing- digging once every 24 hours in the same spot with a 0.02% chance of metal return would not be pleasant.)

I understand you need to protect your metal monopoly, but let's put that aside for a minute and discuss how to make the game actually be fun for most players.

[sabinati]

well it's hardly a monopoly, but that's beside the point. q points regenerate. anyway the exact formula is of course up to loftorb, but the point i think would be to make no chance of a bog or on a q10 spot, with higher rates on a higher q spot. could be tied to the peat q (or in the case of digging on a mountain, the stone q) or maybe not. i don't know.

[Naerymdan]

Right now, you can drop down a mine shaft with 4-5 teapots and come back out with 4 chests full of ore in maybe 30 minutes which can then be turned into about 30 bar of any quality depending on your smelter/charcoal setup.

Having 1% chance of stone chipping or digging giving you a Q10 nugget making mines pointless? Even with a macro, you'd get what... maybe 20-ish nuggets in a full macroing night? And not all nuggets the same ore. And Q10 only. Without mentioning the horrid stamina drain of digging?

You know resource monopoly is fun when you have the resource. Look at the threads decrying the lack of free mines and of RoB for metal trade... Imagine you joined up on HnH like... today! No open sky mines left. Maybe a handful cave mines left. Mines belonging mainly to village/groups who don't want anything you have to offer and who do not want to spend the time to dig another 50 bars so you can make yourself and anvil/saw/plow/hammer/sickle/armor/cellar and such? Ouch.

Eh. Your comment about macroing reminds me of copy security on games and movies. The only ones hurt by those 'securities' are the ones who play fair. The pirates/cheaters/macroers never feel it. In this case, the macroer will not waste time grinding a stone for nuggets: he will have macroed his way to 100 exploration and found rustroots on the 2nd day, then proceeded to claim about 5 or 6 mines before anyone else has even the time to start finding chanterelles.

[ImpalerWrG]

On further reflection Flakes could be an interesting feature. While their not strictly necessary for implementing Placer deposits they could be a way to get coinage into more prevalent usage. At 10 flakes to the nugget (and assuming stack-ability like coins) flakes could act as early defacto-coins which would enter circulation in a wider and more dispersed manor then metal from mines. If flake based exchange becomes common then its very easy for coins which would be equal in weight to dove-tail with that exchange and replace it in the most developed areas. If Flakes are used though I think the need to have a sufficiently high find rate (at least 5%) for it to be at all worth while. With that high a rate it might be worth having prospecting or a new 'panning' skill required to get flakes or a specific 'panning' action separate from Dig so people are going to really TRY to get the flakes rather then just receive them when getting clay.

[Potjeh]

I think it'd be more fun to have it work more like foraging. Maybe some kind of a hearth magic metal detector (dowsing rod?) should be required to see the bog iron spots, so people not specifically looking for it won't find it (seriously, would you walk around the forest all the time without axe and sling in hand?), leaving more to those who *are* looking. Bog iron should spawn just like herbs, of course.

[niltrias]

I think it'd be more fun to have it work more like foraging. Maybe some kind of a hearth magic metal detector (dowsing rod?) should be required to see the bog iron spots, so people not specifically looking for it won't find it (seriously, would you walk around the forest all the time without axe and sling in hand?), leaving more to those who *are* looking. Bog iron should spawn just like herbs, of course.

I like this, plus the flake suggestion. The "herbs" would be fairly common, but only in swamps, which means a lot of slogging, and they give only flakes, which are 1/10 of a nugget, but usable in stalls the same as a coin. swamp land q determines flake q.

Edit -- Actually, lets broaden this. the "herbs" found in swamps yield iron flakes, the "herbs" found on mudflats yeild copper flakes, the "herbs" found in shallow river water yield gold flakes. Possible need a special tool or have a percent chance of failure on the gold flakes.