Seeing as how almost every other mining system is fairly borring (click click click one billion times sitting in the same spot trying to get the same ore 20 other ppl are trying to get) and rather usual (the rock on/in the land somewhere, again, clicky clicky) and since PS is just the opposite, i think it needs a mining system that\'s just as cool as the game is!
im not sure what if anything is planned for the mining system right now, so please excuse me if there\'s something already done for it.
Basically, 80% of mining would be done in the ground, 20% on the surface; not like Run/Escape, where there are only 2/3 major underground mining areas. Why so much under ground? its the place where the majority of the minerals and metals are excavated. this leaves the other amount left over for open pit mines and rocky out-croppings and things of that nature. Now, lots of mines would not be part of the normal world, which means that you have to load in another area. this effectivly means that mines can be as small/large as could be made without interfering with other areas underground.
The metals. Ahhh the metals, the hard part of mining. What to put in? You have all your basic Copper, Tin, Iron, Coal, Gold, Silver, Mithril, Adamant, etc and any other \"special\" ores to put in ... stuff.
Copper + Tin = Bronze, Iron + Carbon (Coal) = Steel, fyi. Maybe some of the less touched-upon metals like Aluminum, Nickle, and Platinum.
One thing that\'s hardly touched in MMORPG\'s are Minerals. Minerals can give great strength to a metal, even if that metal is already an alloy. (read: Tungsten tipped steel bullets) Some minerals can be Zinc to prevent corrosion on iron, and make stainless steel and brass when mixed while molten with copper. Sulfer (or Sulpher, however YOU want to spell it...) to be used in fire making in cookingbecause it has a low ignition point, and thus ignites at lower temperatures. Phosphorus can be used to provide chemically generated light (glow-in-the-dark stuff has some phosphorus in it) and of course many others that could be used in quests or in everyday use. (Ran out of torches? Use light-emitting phosphorus when combined with [other mineral/metal]!)
All that is useless without having a fun way to mine the stuff out, though, so here\'s where my main idea is!
Basically, when you go into a mine you\'d normally see a bunch of rocks on the ground. Not so in my idea. The mineral patches would be everywhere; floor, walls, AND ceiling. How do you get to the ceiling? You get a builder to build you some scaffolding.
The more you mine the more the rock face becomes deformed and small, until only a small nodual is left. Eventually the nodual would be re-grown into the full amount of the seam (pushing the players out of the way, just incase someone went AFK too close to the nodual as it was regenerating) but be un-usable until it was fully regenerated.
Leaving the mines alone for too long will result in the noduals being \"over grown\". the longer they are over grown the higher the chance that the seam could drop off \"free\" peices of ore (something like wall decay irl (in real life), where bits of wall fall off the longer it stays up) and of course being over grown they would be larger than normal; again this is where the builder can come in, he can build wooden or stone walls around a nodual to limit how large they can become. making a node small would mean less ore yeild but you get it faster (as it takes less time for it to regenerate to its size) and making a node almost to its over-grown size would mean it would give a large yeild but regenerate slowly. building walls could also let paths remain open incase there are too many over-grown nodes nearby. the walls would eventually deteriorate and fall apart with some of the original material being recoverable after some hours with higher builder skill making them stay longer. walls can also be used to separate the iron ores from the copper ores.
) they also give a place to put a torch (if dynamic lighting will be put in)
Some times nodes will completly \"run dry\" and die off, but another node of the same type is randomly placed in the mine where there are few other nodes nearby. this will lead players to \"Where\'s that mithril node...\" and thats where a geologist\'s hand book comes into use. you walk upto a wall, take some ore, and look into the hand book looking for the ore. now, you actually have to
look in the hand book, on-screen and say \"Ok, this has to be mithril ore. its light in weight and its greyish blue in color.\" with alittle blurb at the bottom about how skilled you have to be to use it and stuff.
Skilled miners wont need the geologist\'s handbook; they\'d prolly know it all by visual referance to memory.
just incase you cant take out a sample (imagine trying to pull out a adamant ore at the lowest skill level!
) there\'d be little peices of ore sticking out of the dirt, just littleral screaming \"Minerals and metal here! Im over here!\" and \"MINE ME YOU DUMB ***!\"
and you can do your visual confermation that way. \"Yeah, thats [metal/mineral]. That stuff aint comming out o there at my skill level.\"
Of course you can be totally oblivious and mine it anyways, but you wont know what metal it is until someone smelts it, or you\'re stuck there for 15 minutes trying to get a metal out of the rock.
OK, enough of that, four things i forgot to mention:
1- sometimes nodes of the same type will be able to clump very close together. This is good, because it means that: A) The ore will regenerate x times faster with x amount of nodes there B) you\'re gonna get alot of ore
and C) That cluster will stay there for quite awhile.
2- With the rough and sometimes mucky ground, travel can be hard with a full load of gold (heaaavy!) which is why a builder should be on-site to place wooden or stone floors in the mine. these stay up longer than walls, since they cant be lamed. about 36 hrs can be derived from even the lowest skilled placement of wooden floors.
3- Nodes that originate on the floor will grow upwards, nodes that originate on the ceiling will grow downwards, and nodes on the walls of impenetrable rock will grow away from the wall. Ceiling nodes will be mined out upwards, leaving a cavity in the roof. Floor nodes will be dug out downwards, leaving a pit in the floor. Wall nodes will be reduced to a thin seam on the impenatrable rock.
4- Sometimes \"dummy\" nodes will spring up. these would be \"one time\" random nodes, where they come with one type of ore (Copper, for example) and then when they are mined out (usually a low amount) they will not regenerate but move to another location in the mine with a different ore type (this time maybe Zinc) ready to be mined out again (this ensures that \"Oh, there\'s only [these ores] there, i think i\'ll move on now...\" doesn\'t happen like it does in... run/escape.
)(Why \"dummy\" nodes? You\'d be a dummy waiting for them to regenerate.
)
Idea additions:
Guild minesGuild mines operate the same as the usual public mines (the ones above) except that they are usually much smaller, and privatly owned by guilds.
The way you can see a possibility of a [future guild] mine is a shimmering rock, for a shimmering rock holds valuable minerals and metals; and wealth! Underneath the shimering rock is a room of a uniform radius (im not sure how big something should be, lets just say 1 to 3 normal building floor sizes) and inside that room are dummy nodes and dirt nodes. The room is randomly generated every time you enter the mine; so one week it can hold copper, then next adamant (again to stop the \"oh this thing is here, i wont go there, its useless to me\" etc etc and the possibility of online \"guides\"
You can go upto the shimmering rock, and examine it. you then recive information on how it looks like. this rock is basically a bill board to tell you \"Hey, i have copper and tin! good for making bronze!\" or \"I have coal! and lots of it!\" IF you know what you\'re looking for (Geologist\'s hand book )
When you (the miner) put down the mine entrace, the entrance will stay up for 5 days or until the dummy nodes are mined out, then collapses (dont worry, it pushes the players out to avoid harm) to ensure someone else gets their turn. 3 days or more are needed for the mine to recouperate. when its built a dirt node will be centered on the mine entrance, meaning that you have to crawl down there, and mine out the dirt node from the inside. dont worry, the dirt node doesn\'t expand; thus the entrance will stay \"open\" for the 5 days.
Once you finish mining out the dirt and get to a metal/mineral node there you can look at what type it is (if you didn\'t check the sparkly rock, again, you can do this entire thing in ignorance and get some ore) and mine it out as stated above like a normal dummy node. there are about 1-3 dummy nodes in the entire mine; all other space is either open or filled with a dirt node. when you\'re finished for the time being you can exit the mine and close the door to it and come back later. once the mine is exhausted, you get pushed out of the mine and the mine door collapses. you cannot use the mine again for atleast 3 days. the longer you leave it, the more ore accumalates but only to a certain amount.
the next time you go in, you may get phosphorus, iron, and copper instead of sulfer and coal.
you can also put in things like Evanchild said, like a bucket attached to rope slung from a pully to bring up ore so a miner can just go from the node to the bucket instead of having to climb the ladder to give the ore to someone. at the top you can have crates of ore ready to be hauled by people (or summons or what-have-you) to be taken to the smelter or something. also, at the top of the mine, everything there cannot be taken by anyone without the miner or the builders permission; same goes for entering into the mine. you have to OK it with the miner and/or builder first; which often means giving them a small amount of $ to get in.
Additions:- \"Dirt nodes\", non-regenerative nodes that give nothing to you, but must be mined out to uncover the other, much more valuable metal and mineral nodes.
- Added in the \"Guild mines\" to this post.
- The miner can put down a mine entrance, its just that a builder is needed so that the mine can have enhancements. IE: wood/stone for walls and floors
- There will be tracks and trucks in the large public mines. guild mines could have them put in but they are too small, have too little amount of ore, and do not stay open long enough to facilitate the use of these ore hauling trucks; though they can still be built.
- Remember guild mines are meant to change hands.
End of Additions----
Hope you enjoyed reading that looooong thread! (If you didn\'t your missing out on some great ideas)
[edit] i should murder myself for having so many typ
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[edit]Added additions section.[/edit]
