Stone & Ore Suggestions

[redram]

So the initial impetus for this post was sulfur, but I tried to leave it broad so many stones and ores could be covered here, both existing and possible new.

SULFUR - My suggestion for sulfur is that it perhaps be made like saltpeter - a surface covering over normal stone - and further that it only appear in the vicinity of lava.   Right now sulfur is so common and boring.  It's basically never of interest to me.  I think I've always found it before I need it while mining for other stuff - black coal is the real gate, since it requires a tier 3 tool.   Right now 2 of gunpowder's ingredients are non-events, really.  Saltpeter and sulfur are both extremely common.  Now, my understanding is that eventually saltpeter will be used for fertilizer so maybe increased demand will help there.   If sulfur only appeared around lava, I feel like it might be more exciting to find, as lava is not all that common I think.  It'd also give a reward to finding lava, which would be nice.  Right now it's usually a letdown mining to lava sounds, unless it opens up a large cave complex. 

GRADED ORES IN GENERAL - it's my understanding that the intent is to eventually have grades of ore, much like tfc, with varying units per grade, and maybe even a nugget grade?  TFC was 10/15/25/35.  I forget what numbers were tossed about way back when, but thought it might be interesting to see if anyone else had thoughts.  A nugget size of 10 pretty much allows the player to contruct a tool from surface nuggets.  But a nugget size of 5 might compel the player to try other methods, such as panning or if a fire-based method to break ore were made. 

GRAPHITE - I really think it'd be good to have graphite for crucibles.  Fire clay is just so easy to get.

MARBLE - I think it'd be great to have marble as a layered deposit, like quartz.  Functionally it could be an alternate to chalk (and limestone, if that ever makes it in?).  So even if you don't know where chalk is, you could still find a marble deposit no matter where you are, and use that instead.   Aesthetically, I would love to see a variety of decorative types of marble.   In an SMP environment, I think there would be a huge market for decorative marble products.  The rarer the more valuable.

CINNABAR - refined to make mercury, for chemistry and maybe smithing.  Possibly ceramic glaze colorant?

The following items are more 'out there':

MAGNETITE - sure, it can be refined for iron.  But through other processes it produces natural magnets (for use in electric motors).  Possibly also required to make a compass?

BORAX - If flux makes its way into smithing, borax could be a high-grade flux that helps increase the chance of producing a higher quality piece.  If quality were to make it into the game, of course. 

BAUXITE - Another type of refractory material (in the form of aluminum oxide), better than graphite, but obtained through chemistry.  Also useful if aluminum were ever to be a thing (airships anyone?) or for anyone who wanted to made a future tech mod (it'd already be there).  Possibly also used to make alum (again, via chemistry), for high-grade leather products?

CORUNDUM - an industrial abrasive gemstone.  Occurs intermixed with RUBY and SAPPHIRE gems.  Perhaps the only way to cut diamonds, aside from sacrificing diamonds themselves to make diamond dust grit?

 

[Tyron]

So many pretty words

I didn't want to gate bombs too hard on purpose. The plan was that really deep down, you will encounter very hard mobs, but bombs were not intended to be near end game content. We'd need to have lava commonly appear in caves then i guess.

[heptagonrus]

Deep copper "should" be 50-100 units, to attract people to search it. Otherwise surface copper is so abundant that deep copper is useless. (Unless it is already >25, never met it  )

[redram]

5 hours ago, Tyron said:

I didn't want to gate bombs too hard on purpose. The plan was that really deep down, you will encounter very hard mobs, but bombs were not intended to be near end game content. We'd need to have lava commonly appear in caves then i guess.

That's a good point, and I don't want to make lava so common.  One of the things I really like about VS worldgen is that lava is an interesting event, and not just scattered all over the surface burning down forests.  And if it's ever usable as a power source then we'd definitely not want it common or easy to access.  So maybe scratch the sulfur idea, but I sure would love for SOMETHING good to appear around lava.  Maybe corundum or other gems?   If the game ever gets hot springs though, those could have sulfur deposits around them, and they would be ok at the surface!  It wouldn't even necessarily have to be surface planes, but maybe the ore blocks only spawn within a certain radius of hot spring source blocks.  This would also remove sulfur from propicking, since it would not be related to the ore maps, but to hot spring occurrences.

Regarding deep copper, I think it's fine how it is.  I usually just run into it accidentally while mining for other things.  And the deposits are still quite often much larger than surface ones.  If anything, surface deposits should be reduced in size.  Plus the large deep copper deposits are excellent uses for ore bombs.

[tony Liberatto]

For me is all about the color of the different stone types.

I loved to build in TFC with Conglomerate ( For it's goldish color) Also Andesite that had an almost blue tone. Chert for the reddish and Dolomite for the greyish. 

As for Marble, I would love if we could have at least 3 different colors. See this Blue Marble:

Red Marble:

Pink Marble:

 

There are so many variations in marble color that we could even have one for each color depending on the color of the rock around.

In essence, give me beautiful blocks to use in my buildings. Believe me is a great advertisement asset. When you can say you have This many blocks in the game.

[Stroam]

Should probably combine these two.

[heptagonrus]

(With @Saraty revisiting this topic for the incoming worldgen update.)

1. It would be nice to have rocks to cover few more basic pallette colors, like @tony Liberatto said "In essence, give me beautiful blocks to use in my buildings.".
Tbh, I don't know exactly what I want, I am very bad with pallettes and color matching, so just general suggestions:

• A green one. Serpentinite? Malachite? TFC-like schist? In MC the mossy cobblestone /bricks are a very nice option for adding variety to stone buildings.
• A brown one. No idea
• A dark one. Well, we have basalt now, I guess. Could be nice to be able to make all types of stone blocks from it. Since it can be generated with lava, might be awesome for big builds. Altho blackish color might not be populare to live in.
• A purple one  Might be nice for mystic builds, altars. Maybe allow obsidian to be crafted into blocks, e.g. polished ones? Currently such a beautiful block can't be used imho. Cobblestone was already rejected as not believable to be made from obsidian.

2. Kinda offtopic to worldgen: it would be nice to have more end-game building blocks for houses. I would like to rebuild my cobble-log-thatch hut into something more presentable, but the only blocks I have are rarely looted bricks (e.g. granite bricks), black bricks and fire clay bricks (without slabs and stairs atm).
In MC it could be achieved with polished stone blocks, brick varieties, cracked varieties, mossy ones, etc. 

[tony Liberatto]

Maybe I should repeat myself a bit.
As far as minerals and metal ores, I think is a discussion that depends a lot on how we plan on improving the metal work. Are we going to have high tech metal work? Like Aluminum? Or Stainless Steel? What other usable metals do we really need?
The point I really want is a lot more variety for rock types:
Conglomerate: I just love the yellow goldish color.
Schist: The greenish has its place.
Dolomite and others:
A small list just to start:
https://1710-wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Ores_%26_Minerals

[Saraty]

22 minutes ago, tony Liberatto said:

Are we going to have high tech metal work? Like Aluminum? Or Stainless Steel

yea, stainless and maraging steel.

[Balduranne]

I'd love to see more crystals for decoration and profit, like Bismuth (We only have the metal </3) and Beryllium. Pyrite (Fools gold) would be a fun addition, if it could be used for lanterns. 

[redram]

I think it'd be fun if some day (maybe not this update) fossils were a thing, for collecting.  You'd mine them as a full block, and then have to use a chisel or rock hammer to break away voxels 1 by 1 until you've exposed the full fossil.

[MammaJamma]

So excited for new ores.

Antimony  - used in batteries

Feldspar - because its the most common mineral on earth

Fluorite - cuz its gorgeous

gypsum - used in fertilizer and in drywall construction, plaster etc

halite - just replace "rock salt" with a more technical name

Manganese - used in steel production

mica - for glass and sparkle (could make awesome lamps)

sulfur - in addition to blowy-uppy things also used in fruit preservation and wine making (two things I really want to see in the game and that would separate it a bit from TFC because they used different methods)

tungsten - super high melting point but stronger than steel

amber - not a mineral but so pretty

conglomerate - interesting texture

 

 

[Ashantin]

Could we please have dark grey slate? It has been used for roofing in the UK for many years and is mined in Wales. It makes gorgeous roof tiles . This house has flint walls and slate roof tiles.