Mine system overhaul?

[Thurrok]

At the moment, I feel that mines reflect something of a dead, gray, boring zone without any purpose other than to give ore through tedious amounts of repetitive clicking. What I'm suggesting is, give mines a warmer feel and more variety, while reducing tedious clicking.

First, entering a mine: Current mineholes look boring. I know jorb has already drawn another type of mine exit, as it's already included in the res (or is that an old one, veterans?). That one looks much more friendly, and might show that there is, in fact, development going into this direction.

Second, the mine shaft: One huuuge underground hall with no end for 3 screens just cannot look cool, no matter how you look at it. Let's not even talk about realism.
Instead, there could be something like a shaft going for 20 tiles. To the left and right, there are wooden supports keeping the hole from caving in (even if it was the same graphic repeated endlessly for the next thousand tiles, would look alot better than the current mines).

What you actually get to mine are stones sticking out of the walls, each one gives some (5-15?) ore of given metal and disappears afterwards. But what if this 20-tile segment of mine shaft is expended?

Expanding the mine: At the end of the shaft, there is always a building signpost/element that you can extend (think of walls). It needs some boards and blocks to expand each segment (further away from entry point), or lots of materials for a forking. This works like building a house, for example. Forked paths give double yield while having the same distance from the entry point, obviously.

Traversing the mine: It is possible to build tracks in mines, expandable like walls. They are in the center of each mine segment, passable (like one's own HF, UNLIKE waypoints) and cost 1 bronze/iron nugget each tile. Minecarts can be built out of wood (gets decay hits on travelling, like ram) or metals. They have a carrying capacity of 8x8 tiles and move along waypoints on a set path (e.g. you right-click it, choose a destination and autorun while it follows you). Two carts cannot pass eachother. Eventually there could be the option of tying them together with chains, that could be overkill though.

So... people, what do you think?

EDIT: I forgot to add, there's a near endless potential of adding Phallic Content (TM) to the new mine imagery.

[sabinati]

already planned

[sonerohi]

already planned

Sweetness.
Any plans for some spots to have better inherent quality, or more refining processes? Any-where mines with dismal success rates for the desperate?

[Thurrok]

Yay yay yaaay! No more boring mining!

I take it this will only be implemented in World 4?

P.S. World 4 sounds gay. Let's call it World 360!

[jorb]

We have lots of plans for it.

[DatOneGuy]

Yay yay yaaay! No more boring mining!

I take it this will only be implemented in World 4?

P.S. World 4 sounds gay. Let's call it World 360!

'Cause everyone from world 3 will turn 360 degrees and moonwalk away?

[jorb]

... a 360 turn would mean you'd keep walking forward, not away.

[kralmir]

they'd turn a 360 and moonwalk away, moonwalk means you're going in the exact opposite side you are facing, in a cool way

[theTrav]

... a 360 turn would mean you'd keep walking forward, not away.

not if they're moonwalking noob

[jorb]

Ah, my bad.