Author Topic: A New Mining-System  (Read 1866 times)

tbenny

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A New Mining-System
« on: February 03, 2005, 12:47:09 pm »
A New Mining-System
===============

Comment
------------
I think the actual mining-system is not very good.
I play PS not for a long time, but i think it makes no sense to dig on some places in the world
till you have 10 pieces then sell it and repeat that until you have enough money.

I would prefer that you have somewhere outside of a town there is a mountain with a mining-station.
And it should also be more challenging to be a miner.
And more like a job and not like a hobby.

General
----------
On the world should be some mountain.
Next to it are some tents, NPC, ... -> I explain it at \'Surrounding\'.
The mountain has for example 25 Layers.
The mountain has two entries.
The first is for public entry, so everone can go an dig there.
The second is for people, which have a mining-right (restricted area).

Public Entry
---------------
Here you go in, search an Layer where are less diggers
and you can dig -> I explain it at \'Digging\'.
In the public area you have bad chance to find it
for example 10% of the chance at the restricted area.
And you have to go down by stairs, so it is not very profitable.

Mining-Right
----------------
Next to the mountain are the boss of the Mine.
You can go to him and buy a mining-right.
With that paper you go can pass through de restricted entry.
For every Layer are 5 mining-rights sold.
When you go through the entry you are teleported to your Layer.
It is important that always 5 people with nealy the same skill are together in a layer.
To make it fair to new players, the mining-right is only for 1/4 of a time-periode.
For example you can use it for a week in a month.
So you work one week, and the other time you can go for adventure.

By now one mountain is for 25 Layers * 4 Timeperiods * 5 Mining-Rights = 500 miners.
You can easily increase the number.

Digging
---------
One Layer is an area splitted in cubes.
You have a startpoint (teleporter or stair) from with you can dig in four directions.
You need some time till you finished an cube.
The time depends on your skill and on your tool.
With this methode you can dig tunnels through the layer.
Not in every cube is something to find.
You also have a chance to find some equipment (weapons, ...).
But you also can find some monsters.
All you find depends on the level of the layer.
It is important that when the rights are new to sold, that people are seperated by their skills
to gurantee that always equal skilled miners are in the propriate layers.

Now you would start do dig through the whole layer,
but when you dig not correct the instabil area will collapse.
For example tunnels that are 2 cubes wide, ....
The area should not be to large, that no other people are locked in the mine.
But the digger and maybe some near people will die.
And they loose the goods from this tour.
Maybe you have a bag that is to collect the ore and that bag is destroyed.

The layers are refreshed after every change of mining-rights
and after a collapse the small area is refreshed.

Every layer has a maximum of tunnels in percent.
That is an interesting fact for the public layers.
It will always be a risk to stay there for a long time,
because when many people dig, the layers will collapse often.
and so all people in the layer loose their goods.

Surrounding
----------------
Next to a mine should be following:
- Salesman with mining-equipment
- Buyers for the goods
- Maybe some sponsors for digging-orders (to deliver xxx goods in xxx time)
- Trainers

Training
-----------
1. You need a Trainer for level up.
2. You need theoretical knowledge.

At a Trainer you can buy books to learn about mining.
When you read a book you can browse through the book.
The book contains some nonsense, digging-rules and examples of tunnels.
The rules depends on the level of the book.
Always some of the possible rules are listed in the book.
When you finished the book you can\'t step back, you see 4 mining-plans.
2 plans are not correct to the rules.
1 plan is for a lower level.
1 plan is for your level.
After you selected a plan, the book is deleted.
When you selected the lover-level you get that plan as an scroll.
When you selected your level plan you get the scroll and rise one level.
Only when you know the older rules and the actual rules you will find the correct plan.

With the rules you know more and more how to get the maximum from one layer.
You can sell plans when you have that level already.

Mining-Plan
---------------
A Mining-Plan alone is not useful, because you could trade it to lower-level-diggers.
When you enter a refreshed layer, you can use the plan at a board at the starting-point of the layer.
You keep the plan, but now the tunnel-system is readable for the 4 other miners in your layer.
When you dig exact like the plan, you get a bonus of xxx percent during the whole digging
and maybe a special thing when you fininshed it.

For example there can also be some small mines around the world.
and maybe also some treasure-hunting-mines.
There can be some right treasure-plans -> you get something special.
And also wrong plans -> you attacted by a strong monster.



Look down some messages for some additions.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2005, 06:21:15 pm by tbenny »

Wicked Liquid

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« Reply #1 on: February 03, 2005, 07:18:06 pm »
Big wish tbenny..
Nice...

Quote

Mining-Right
----------------
Next to the mountain are the boss of the Mine.
You can go to him and buy a mining-right.
With that paper you go can pass through de restricted entry.
For every Layer are 5 mining-rights sold.
When you go through the entry you are teleported to your Layer.
It is important that always 5 people with nealy the same skill are together in a layer.
To make it fair to new players, the mining-right is only for 1/4 of a time-periode.
For example you can use it for a week in a month.
So you work one week, and the other time you can go for adventure.

I disagree with this though. Some people are not online often, so that is unfair. In PStime it will be more fair.


I like the whole idea to make mining more exciting and challenging, but this wish is a whole new game, :D hehe

Keep up the good work tbenny,
it would be great if they added this 2 the gameplay...
(i would be a miner for certain, hehe) ;)

Xordan

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« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2005, 07:31:13 pm »
Hmm, something like this might be good in the future. The area at least. I quite like the idea of a \"Mines\" area. I\'m not so sure about the system though. The current system is just a basic stage. Things like stamina will probably be taken into account as well, so the rules will be changed a bit making it better. I dislike any kind of teleportation in the game, stairs and lifts work just as well. You\'re also limiting mining to one area, which I also dislike. I don\'t see why there should be only one place where you can mine. I don\'t like using time as a limiting factor, it\'s unrealistic. How would people be able to know how long you\'ve been there exactly without magic, and then why should magic have anything to do with mining without changing the games settings a bit as well?? I see that to put these into play lots of things will be changing which could have a game wide effect, which isn\'t good. :)

NIm

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« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2005, 09:16:58 pm »
just set it up so that building can be built, and npcs hired as shopkeepers, and I myself will set up a trading post for the miners. :)

 Your idea with layers and cubes  is pretty confining: why not just do dynamic terrain in full 3-d? and with a level collapsing, wouldn\'t only the part with an excess of tunnels  collapse? it would be cooler to do a realistic simulation of how the tunnels would fall, and run it so that everything fell  realistically. of course that is probably processor intesive, so a fall would only need to be simulated about once a day or when there is a nearby explosion (note that in a real mine, collapse usually doesn\'t occour immidiatly, it usually requires a shock to trigger it. Also, collapses generally produce enough of a shock to trigger other collapses, so it would not be unrealistic for them to occour all at once. I doubt, though, that the devs are going to do this, because it will likely be quite a bit of trouble to integrate an engineering library into planeshift, even with such  great, motivated devs.

Terrain should be dynamic, so that anyone with appropriate skills and equipment can just start digging a new tunnel someplace, whther there is ore there or not. The other application of this would be building forts out of dirt, hollowing out caves for houses, etc. Mining skill would be used primarily to locate veins of ore, so you know where to dig. Mining skill would also increase your speed of diggingand cutting through rock. of course, selling mining permits would be entirley up to the person who own the land the mine is on, and thier ability to kick violating players off of it. using rent-a-cops :)  Everything you said, tbenny, would happen automatically, given some very generic rules about the planeshift world.(own territory, veins of minerals, which can be exausted, dynamic terrain, hirable npcs, ability to build buildings)

None of this stuff is exactly easy to implement, and I wish good luck to devs, who have come so far, but still have far to go
« Last Edit: February 03, 2005, 09:32:29 pm by NIm »

tbenny

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A New Mining-System Addon
« Reply #4 on: February 04, 2005, 05:09:17 pm »
I think I have to clear up some things.

When i talk about time i mean PS-time -> all other would be nonsense
I only explained the system with time cause of i nowhere read about stamina-systems.
Of course that would be a better system.

Working-Stamina
-----------------------
When you build a weapon in a smithy or dig in a mine you loose stamina (depending on your skill level)
Maybe you work slower with less stamina or so.
Then you have to leave the smithy or mine and go out to the fresh air and your stamina recovers slowly.
With this system there is no need for time-regulation.



I only explained it with an teleporter because at the moment this would be the easiest way to seperate acces to different people.
When doors are implemented, you get an key for your mine.
Then  there is a stair that leeds down and on every layer you have a door. If you forget to lock up everyone else can go in an dig.



The grafic don\'t have to be complicated.
You need no 3d-dynamic rocks or something like that.
The layers are totaly seperated from each other and not the whole mine would collapse.

I think it is usefull that when you enter a mine you only have the 1st-person-camera-mode. So there are no problems with looking through tunnels and so on.

With that you won\'t see the rocks falling down on you (only maybe some other people)
I think everyone accepts when the cubes move up and disappears and when it collapses the cubes fall down.

That is not more compilicated than opening and door !!!



I don\'t said that the mountains are the only places to dig.
I only wanted to create some places where beginners can try mining and learn.
So the real mines are not overrun by beginners.

I think it would be useful that above skill-level 15 or so you can build your own little mines.

There are resource points randomly generated on the world. Better resources in dangerous regions. If you the propriate skill-level you see such point (maybe colored or something). Then you build up an entrance (little wood house) also with a door and you get the key in your inventory. You can dig yourselfe or sell the key to another player or a guild. After a mine collapses or it to long unused the mine disapears and the resource-point is generated somewhere else.

If you have enough high level players you even wouldn\'t need to build and organise the mountains by NPCs.
A guild could also build mines and sell the keys.
There would only have to be a stair through the mountain.

Nimfis Altmer

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« Reply #5 on: February 04, 2005, 09:14:42 pm »
I think thats a pretty good idea...What i think should change in the mining is.. \"The more you mine. The more mining exp you get\" insted of having to buy the exp then go all the way back and mine to level it up
O RLY!?

Samoth

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« Reply #6 on: February 06, 2005, 01:19:33 am »
I agree mining must be kept out of town - the rest of this about layers is good as well.  I don\'t like the boss man idea either.

Soulless_Body

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« Reply #7 on: February 06, 2005, 05:10:42 am »
I like your idea. Very good. :D


Click the link  and enter your pass, user name for loads of free tria and greats guides.
http://img335.imageshack.us/img335/1638/youare6ml.swf

Xordan

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« Reply #8 on: February 07, 2005, 07:04:45 pm »
Quote
Originally posted by tbenny

Working-Stamina
-----------------------
When you build a weapon in a smithy or dig in a mine you loose stamina (depending on your skill level)
Maybe you work slower with less stamina or so.
Then you have to leave the smithy or mine and go out to the fresh air and your stamina recovers slowly.
With this system there is no need for time-regulation.


That\'s similar to the system that will be in place once it\'s implimented afaik.

The problem with being able to make your own mines is that every time you dig anything, every player in the whole game would have to update their world files from the server. Now I dunno about you, but I don\'t have the bandwidth to download new maps while playing, and I don\'t want to have to update once a day just so I have some mine which I\'m never going to go into. And having offline areas is unacceptable due to the ease of cheating through it. It wouldn\'t work the same as making a house because houses have a preset model which the client gets told is in a certain position.

Kaseijin

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« Reply #9 on: February 07, 2005, 07:11:23 pm »
the idea i pretty good but i am not sure how easy it is to implement.

and i don\'t think... the predefined places to dig should be under control of npcs... i mean i think that as much of that should be left to actual players. I had some similar ideas for the minig guild. Beginers could start work as prospectors or be given a pick and shown good places to dig for a percentage...and so on. My point is that game itself should provide only the basics for economy...money and the ability to produce stuff... the rest should be left to players themselves as much as possible.
... that\'s why i am against beginner islands or things like that. It should be left to guilds and organizations to compete in recruiting and educating the newcommers.

basically the game should only provide the tools for an economy the economy should be shaped by players.... that way it will change with times as in real life, and devs and gms would have less things to control as the economy as such would be pretty much self regulating.
i actually play planeshift

kronon

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« Reply #10 on: February 08, 2005, 11:43:47 am »
tbenny: I\'ve got a quick read of you post and now I wonder. What is this system going to do about mine-bots. As you can imagine the mountain idea asks for bot\'s in private sectors where there is no one who can spot them.

P.S. The 10 peaces limit has been integrated because there were to many bots.

tbenny

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« Reply #11 on: February 08, 2005, 01:02:02 pm »
To Xordan:

I also think that it is not possible to let everybody dig everywhere because of the server and user bandwidth.
My idea was that the mines are fixed. And only the entrance is there or not. I don\'t know which protokoll and systems you are using in your game but i think that is the same like a door is open or a door is closed.
At the moment the world is to small and all people are to concentrated that this idea would work properly. But I think if the world is big enough and more cities are implemented you would have enough mines to limit the use of possible mines to open mines to about 25 Percent, so not always the same mines are used.
I would have no problem if all mines are always active, it\'s like now.

To Kaseijin:

I only noted NPCs for the mines, because i don\'t know if the guilds would also administrate the unprofitable mines for beginners. All other things should be organised by the guilds.

To Kronon:

At the moment you have only one way to sold ore. But I think there should be special traders for resources. This traders should adjust their price in relevance to their inventory. The inventory of the traders should reduce slowly.

At this point of game-realisation that system wouldn\'t work. But when more blacksmiths and other jobs are on the world they would process the ore and so the system would regulate itself.

Maybe there are quest for mining, so you have possibilities to sell more ore.

You will have the same problem with other resources.
Later if you can build your own weapons will you limit the amout of weapons in your inventory. Then it will be boring to walk back ten times to sell all things from an quest.

Only if you regulate the prices in relevance to the needs like in the real world such a system will work. If you limit all producing jobs no one will learn that, instead all people will only go for fighting.

Euphoria

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« Reply #12 on: February 08, 2005, 01:24:03 pm »
Excellent idea tbenny... I\'d imagine it would be a nightmare to implement in an open source environment.

Ulf Kleppe

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you guys got it wrong
« Reply #13 on: February 08, 2005, 07:54:30 pm »
wrong i tells ya,

the mining should be exactly like Dig-Dug!!!!

Upon entering the mine,

\"You seem to have crossed time and graphics boundries\"

play dig dug, get bars.

use other retro games(pac man, double dragon, contra, tetris, connect 4)

your level of mining goes up and you can do harder games in the heirarchy of retro games.

you can mine 1+level difference in the mineral given by a specific heirarchy of retro games.


blam

NIm

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« Reply #14 on: February 10, 2005, 12:14:11 am »
Ulf: don\'t be stupid.

tbenny: you got a good sytem, but the real world doesn\'t have layers and cubes! it doesn\'t have polygons either, but poly\'s work for everything else int the game, so why not this.
also: if one level collapses, what hold up all the levels above it? and a dynamic system allows one part of the mine to collapse without all the other parts going with it. ALso, you would only have to dl the mine if you actually entered it. otherwise all you would see is a hole in the rock. no bandwidth problem. Some good ideas with the real economy and all. Keep it up.