Locating resources through traders

[VintageStoryGamerX3]

So I was thinking about how hard it can sometimes be to come across certain resources in this game. This is of course by design, you should have to put effort in to locate these resources, and it makes sense for some of them to be rarer that others. However, due to the random nature of world generation, if you're unlucky you can have a world in which there is no chance to see a particular material in your area, forcing you to spend a ridiculous amount of time looking for certain resources, meanwhile on another playthough you might happen to build a base on top of an ilmenite vein or something by accident.

For me, this just makes me give up from doing certain stuff in the game on a given playthrough: I'm playing with 3 friends and we never found any ilmenite or halite, so no tier 3 refractories or salted foods for us (though I know we could buy salt from a trader if we really wanted to). Now these are minor things, completely unnecessary to progress the game, but still it feels kind of lame to have only 2 options: give up from trying or spend an upredictably large amount of time running around the world with a prospector's pick.

So, I had this idea: what if you could somehow get some more concrete clues as to where a given material is in the world? As an example, maybe there could be a chance for the traders to have info on the location of a material, because they've seen it during their travels or something. Then they could tell you, probably for a price, that e.g. they remember seeing some limestone a bit southeast from their location or something. Of course, this would have to be appropriately expensive so as to not make running around with a prospector's pick completely obsolete. These locations could be even less direct, maybe relying on some points of interest to guide you (some stuff like "go east until some ruins, north of those there's a forest. I'm pretty sure you could find some halite there if you looked hard enough" or somesuch), though this sounds somewhat hard to implement. Now that I think about it a system like this, if possible to pull off well, would be really dope for finding story locations as well.

Also, maybe there could be a new cartographer type trader that would have more info or more resources, and maybe could mark their general location on your map or something.

I think this could help alleviate some of the tedious aspects of looking for minerals, while also not trivialising the task too much, if balanced well. What do you guys think??

Edited January 8 by VintageStoryGamerX3
added tags

[MKMoose]

4 hours ago, VintageStoryGamerX3 said:

I'm playing with 3 friends and we never found any ilmenite or halite, so no tier 3 refractories or salted foods for us (though I know we could buy salt from a trader if we really wanted to).

Ilmenite belongs to the trio of resources which have reduced base spawn rates, alongside chromite and anthracite, meaning that you may sometimes have to search quite far to find it. It can form at most Y levels besides close to the surface and very close to the mantle (Y is in the [0.05, 0.85] interval), in all three igneous rock types and in both metamorphic rock types, so you can look for readings pretty much anywhere. It's possible to find "ultra high", but "decent" or "good" will be fine if there's nothing higher nearby, and you should generally ignore "poor" or lower readings for it.

I tend to roughly search the area with a distance of ~400 blocks between readings, which tends to allow me to find it reasonably fast, but sometimes the random generation is just uncooperative. I have a world where I found ilmenite on my second reading, but it took ~50 readings spaced ~400 blocks apart to finally find chromite, which is about as common as ilmenite. Once you find a reading for ilmenite, it's just a matter of sinking a bunch of shafts deep down. You can make multiple vertical shafts, or you can dig horizontal tunnels, both optimally in ~25 block intervals, of course using node search regularly. For this case it's mostly just a matter of preference whether you dig shafts or tunnels - if you have almost exclusively igneous and metamorphic rocks then vertical shafts are probably a bit more efficient, while if you have a thick layer of sedimentary rocks or basalt on top then horizontal tunnels might be slightly more convenient.

Halite is a bit of an odd case. Many people just buy salt from traders and don't bother looking for deposits. Dry lake beds in hot climates are mostly down to luck as they aren't detected by the prospecting pick (besides the sylvite in them), but domes can be resonably predictable. The readings for halite are wrong and appear higher than they should, even in areas where there is little to no chance for it to spawn. For a quite reliable chance to find a salt dome, you'll generally want a "poor" or "decent" reading in an area with an at least ~30-block-thick sedimentary layer or with a basalt top layer. If you find a "decent" reading with a basalt top layer, then you've hit the jackpot, but don't ignore other "poor" or "decent" readings in search of the perfect one.

At that point you have to dig tunnels below the sedimentary layer in ~50 block intervals. If that returns nothing in a faily large area, then you can make more tunnels in-between, but there's generally no need to go lower than ~12 block intervals as it tends to be pretty tedious and doesn't offer particularly high chances of finding something that you've otherwise missed. The prospecting pick's node search can't detect halite, but it can find sylvite which spawns in halite, so you can still use it to locate the domes to some extent (and you may also find a bunch of other resources this way). If you're digging dense tunnels, then you can make them at more varied or more specific heights for a better chance at finding other deposits (e.g. Y <= ~40 if you get pentlandite or chromite readings in the area).

 

4 hours ago, VintageStoryGamerX3 said:

So, I had this idea: what if you could somehow get some more concrete clues as to where a given material is in the world? As an example, maybe there could be a chance for the traders to have info on the location of a material, because they've seen it during their travels or something. Then they could tell you, probably for a price, that e.g. they remember seeing some limestone a bit southeast from their location or something. Of course, this would have to be appropriately expensive so as to not make running around with a prospector's pick completely obsolete.

For prospecting specifically, I think it would be quite fine to just include more practical information in the handbook, perhaps in a dedicated mining and prospecting guide that would describe where certain ores actually spawn - the information about the ores above comes largely from analyzing the code (and you could also get a bunch of it from the wiki), but in-game information is really quite limited.

I do like the general idea. While the specifics are up to debate, it would just make sense that traders are roughly familiar with the area around them and may share some information about it, even if for a price. While prospecting information might be limited to specific ore types and may only be provided by specific NPC types, things like bees or nearby rock types could be familiar to pretty much every trader.

One potential issue which I'll point out is that players tend to lose motivation when they know the steps required to get a reward, and just have to slog through to get it, so it's not just about avoiding making some other methods less practical. If implemented carelessly, this system can run the risk of making resource acquisition more tedious, by largely removing the need to search for things and by extension taking away the excitement that comes from finally finding a good reading or something. Of course, the flipside is that players tend to also lose interest if they keep searching with no payout, which is why I wouldn't mind a reasonably expensive but reliable way to know "what you're looking for is somewhere in this area (in a decent quantity), you just have to find it".

 

4 hours ago, VintageStoryGamerX3 said:

These locations could be even less direct, maybe relying on some points of interest to guide you (some stuff like "go east until some ruins, north of those there's a forest. I'm pretty sure you could find some halite there if you looked hard enough" or somesuch), though this sounds somewhat hard to implement. Now that I think about it a system like this, if possible to pull off well, would be really dope for finding story locations as well.

While it's a fun idea, I think it would be fine enough to just provide a rough distance and direction. Don't get me wrong, more immersive directions could be amazing if implemented well, but I have doubts about how to implement it in a way that is actually reliable. Spending a bunch of time on a mechanic is more justified when you know the system will be more useful than annoying.

 

4 hours ago, VintageStoryGamerX3 said:

Also, maybe there could be a new cartographer type trader that would have more info or more resources, and maybe could mark their general location on your map or something.

This would ideally require some care to avoid making special NPCs too much of a challenge to find themselves, but it would make a lot more sense than just the more generic traders we have now. A cartographer is an interesting idea, and some others could include a prospector and a hunter or a woodward, and additoinally, the treasure hunter could be included in this category. Traders are getting new huts and stuff soon-ish to replace the current wagons, but I don't know whether that will come with any mechanical changes. Having some more unique and specialized NPC types could allow some of them to live together while avoiding issues with trading between two traders in a single hut and other shenanigans.

Edited January 8 by MKMoose
Add some extra information on ilmenite and halite.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, VintageStoryGamerX3 said:

So, I had this idea: what if you could somehow get some more concrete clues as to where a given material is in the world?

It's a neat idea, but I'm not sure how feasible this would actually be to code given that the world is randomly generated. I think it's probably much easier to simply allow traders to sell more goods, with the harder to obtain resources being a very rare trade and very expensive.

 

4 hours ago, VintageStoryGamerX3 said:

For me, this just makes me give up from doing certain stuff in the game on a given playthrough: I'm playing with 3 friends and we never found any ilmenite or halite, so no tier 3 refractories or salted foods for us (though I know we could buy salt from a trader if we really wanted to).

For the record, while tier 3 bricks are nice to have, tier 2 bricks are quite durable themselves, so don't sweat it if you have trouble finding ilmenite. In regards to halite, it's usually easier to buy it, but to tack on to what @MKMoose already explained, if you've got promising prospecting results it's easy enough to armor up and do a little caving to see if you can find a deposit.

Don't forget that you can also switch your focus to a different task that involves a lot of travel, like completing the main story or venturing to the tropics, and prospect along the way. Odds are that you'll find a lead on the missing resources, but if not the trip won't really feel wasted either.

[marmarmar34]

I've been lucky to bump into those two materials by complete accident. Both times were from spelunking in caves to find translocators. I guess my advice would be to gear up and go cave diving. Who knows, maybe the place you teleport to will have what you need.