Gems and Gem mining

[ImpalerWrG]

I'm sure its been sugjested before but searching turns up nothing for Gems so I assume old threads have been nuked. Basically a new class of minables that get used in jewlery (either modifying the existing jewlery recipies or for whole new ones). Gems are ofcourse very very deep being mined at a low probability ( <10%) from their own type of vein, on failure a regular stone is produced, on success a rough gem is placed in inventory. The rough gem must be cut before its usable and this requires use of a new Steel gem cutting tool the quality of which acts to cap the cut gems quality in the same manor a gold beater skins dose for jewlery. Cutting has a failure rate like that of smelting modified in the same way by nature/industry, in total an average of 100 mining actions are needed for 1 gem at nutral Ind/Nat. Possible gems include Diamond, Emeralds, Rubies and Saphires.

On a side note Amber might be a usefull and period apropriate gem, Baltic amber was a major gemstone in the middle ages and most comes from Königsberg in Prussia (A place Jorb seems to have some strong feelings about). I think Amber apearing as a very rare and hard to see Foragable on Sand would be good. Amber is actualy collected on the shore ware it washes up from the bottom of the ocean, and currently the game lacks any kind of foragable that spawns in Sand.

[OvShit]

Pretty neat, but, I think, you should have a chance of digging out a gem similar to a chance to get a pearl while boiling a mussel. If generic craft system have been implemented, then count of different variants of rings would be pretty huge leading to some interesting results.

[SacreDoom]

I like the amber idea.

[Lordryan]

and maybe you can find "Fossils" in the amber, like mosquitoes etc

Joking, but I really like the idea. Maybe you can make a "Crown" that adds to charisma (For Village Chieften?), or a Ruby/Saphire/Diamond ring for Dexterity(?), you can in-lay jewels into swords or something, etc etc etc. Lots of new possibilities

~!Ryan!~

[ImpalerWrG]

Pretty neat, but, I think, you should have a chance of digging out a gem similar to a chance to get a pearl while boiling a mussel. If generic craft system have been implemented, then count of different variants of rings would be pretty huge leading to some interesting results.

I had considered that but I think it would make it too hard to actualy know ware the vein of gem bearing rock begins and ends, at 1% probabliity you would have to mine out more then a dozen whole tiles of rock to find just one gem and you could be awful discouraging. At a more modest 10% chance you would get a rough gem maybe every 2-3 tiles mined out so your miners can feel their acomplishing something. Having the secondary cutting process be only about 10% sucessful means the effective yield is kept low, also it is realistic as many rough gems turn out to be flawed or shatter durring cutting or in some other way end up unsuitable for jewlery.

[DaMaGe]

oooooo diamonds...
+1

[LimaZulu]

This is similar, but...

Inkweed + Raw Sand = Stained Glass?

[dra6o0n]

Digging out coal and maybe oil is a possibility...
But I'm not sure how you would implement that, maybe lanterns?

Sure we got night vision and that totally blows over the use of actual lighting... But stuff that fuels lights can be handy against trolls maybe...

Maybe make trolls hate the light so it weakens them...

As with gems, you could make gemmed weaponry and armor.
It can provide stat boosts and makes you look more different than other armored hearthlings...

Like making a Crown? Using gold and gems...

[Uriel]

I thinked about it in w3, great idea... and then my tresure hunter would be bussy

[Potjeh]

I think Diablo did gems pretty well, and H&H could take a page from it. Basically, use gems to upgrade existing items. The number of slots could be proportionate to the item q, and base could be lower than 1 if you want to make it so that adding a gem to some item requires a minimum quality. The effect of gem would be proportionate to the gem's quality, and it would mostly be skill and stat boosts.