[TRADE] Mining

[Necalli]

Since I have begun to play this PC more often, I have noticed that some miners are mining *every* room in a mining area in an attempt to find different ore and ultimately it just results in every single room being left with an open vein of mainly the same type of ore. Seeing that it is mostly low-skill ore types, I'm guessing it's new miner PCs.

My suggestion:

abandon vein - Command that will allow the miner to "reset" the ore currently obtainable in the room so they can attempt to find a different vein. To me this would be a lot better than spending hours "mining out" a vein to try to find something different.

Also, I believe this was mentioned before:

examine vein - Command that allows the miner to gauge the amount of ore remaining in an open vein.

[Selveem]

Related Thread

[Necalli]

Heh. Figured it probably had been mentioned before now. At least I'm not alone.

[Selveem]

No, actually I think it's good that you mentioned it without knowing about the related thread. It shows convergence of opinion without external influence. I think that's important when trying to figure out how many people feel about the different aspects of the game and helps us to avoid groupthink (which we're prone to as a community).

[Nysan]

Question...

Are we concerned that we cannot see how much of a vein remains? Or are we concerned that there is copper/iron everywhere and you cannot find what you want?

I agree on the first, would be nice to have some sort of vein-process check, outside of counting how much ore I have pulled thus far and comparing it to my prior numbers with X-sized veins.

The second, not so much, and that comes from a player of one of the oldest non-priest miners out there (you and your fancy refresh/revive spells!!!). I understand not everyone can find a use for every piece of metal out there, but rare metals are rare for a reason.

[Lirith]

I have to agree with Nysan regarding this. I think it would be helpful to be able to see how much potential ore there is in a particular vein, e.g. with 'examine vein'.
I don't think it should be possible to abandon a vein and just start mining in the same place again, simply because you don't like what you have found. There is always the choice of going to a different location to look for something different if you don't feel like mining out the vein available.

[Necalli]

Are we concerned that we cannot see how much of a vein remains? Or are we concerned that there is copper/iron everywhere and you cannot find what you want?

I'm concerned that out of the past week, I've spent 10-12 hours each day doing nothing but mining high-level areas and out of that 70-84 hours in-game, I've managed to find a total of two "tiny lodes of platinum" and one "tiny lode of titanium". Those three lodes combined took me about an hour and a half total to deplete, so I spent roughly half a week's worth of hours mining ore that I either did not need or had no use for. This is on a character that is able to buff all attributes to 20+, has a far better than average skill level, and has items that increase luck.

I could understand it if I was simply camping the Howling Peaks or something, but I've mined various levels of Undermountain, various sections of the Underdark, the lowest levels of Skullport Caverns, the cavern floor of Ched Nasad, sections of Menzoberranzan's Dark Dominion, the lowest levels of Mithral Halls all the way through to the openings to the Underdark, Maos, and I've even mined the caverns of a sunken city that's several leagues beneath the sea. Short of inventing Faerunian rocket fuel and blasting off to mine an asteroid in outerspace, I've pretty much scoured the face of the Realms above and below.

[Nysan]

First, 3 tiny nodes took you how long to mine out? That's 30 pieces of ore, if I remember right. Must be some missing details there because 90 mins for 30 ore just don't look right, even with a character without access to refresh/revive spells.

Second, again no ore/metal is useless. I am sorry that you, and anyone else, have not found a use for X metal in-game. Others have. Even if you have no interest in finding these uses, you could try selling them to PCs that do. Just a thought. Please don't take this as nagging.

Finally, I don't know what to tell you then. String of bad luck (not a stat reference)? I've had days/weeks where I got nothing but iron, copper, and lead too. That said, I've mined the same four areas for years, 1 low level, 1 mid-level, 2 high levels. The low and mid levels were stocked full with iron, copper, lead (a lot of lead), and tin with some gold and silver. The high levels were again full of iron, but gems, mithril, platinum, and titanium where there. In fact, my last 2 mithril veins were huge deposits.

Edit: Actually, here's some stats from my last week mining, sorry no sizes mentioned.
10 Iron nodes
2 Copper nodes
6 Lead Nodes
1 tin node
3 Mithril nodes
1 ruby node
2 sapphire nodes
2 gold nodes

[Necalli]

First, 3 tiny nodes took you how long to mine out? That's 30 pieces of ore, if I remember right.

Nah, "a tiny lode of X" is around 10-15 pieces. "A tiny node of X" is the 30 piece vein I think, though. Also, since constitution is retroactive and this PC is a L43 that can get upwards to 22-24 constitution with the right combination of spell stacking, he regenerates stamina very fast. It also only takes him around 3-4% of stamina per use of 'mine', so he can use the command around 25-30 times before tiring.

If not a command to abandon a vein, then percentages need to be redone and zones redrawn, because one room affecting the vein in a room that's ICly miles away is insanity.

[Athon]

If not a command to abandon a vein, then percentages need to be redone and zones redrawn, because one room affecting the vein in a room that's ICly miles away is insanity.

Your mining stats seem pretty on-par with my dwarf.

Unfortunately, redrawing the zones will be a hefty endeavor. The ore is set to the area file so any and all mining rooms in one area (generally 20-50 rooms) will be set to that one ore until it's mined out.

I'm gonna recommend two things:

First, trade focus in mining. I don't know if it's available on the surface, but a possible application or suggestion to get it added could come of it.

Second, if you can, find someone to mine with. The drawback is that you might have to share but you get the benefit of working through veins quicker.

[Nysan]

May have worded that wrong. Meant all three veins would be roughly 30 ore, since tinys are 10-15, smalls are 20-25, ect... (metal type has no bearing on ore per size, only failure %). Maxing that out to 15 per vein, that's still 45 ore. 90 mins just seems a bit lengthy for that. I'm assuming the 'better than average' mining level means at least apprentice.

Could make the argument that metal %s might need a once over. Even my numbers, in high level areas, seem to suggest risk vs reward is a bit unbalanced. Not a 100% titanium/mithril change, because rare still needs to be rare, but a few more high end veins in the heavy hitter areas wouldn't destroy mining. Low and mid level areas seem balanced, I think.

As for redrawing areas, that's a lot of work for just mining. Only really worth it if the area is already planned for an overall rework, like Mithril Halls, and mining sections redraw can attached to the project. Redoing every area's mining code, just for the sake of mining, is a bit much to ask though...

Edit: You beat me to it Athon! And trade focuses really do help.

[Brar]

Also, the ore you find depends on your skill levels, you won't find mithril at inept, even if you are in the lowest level of the nine hells

[Necalli]

It's all good. I kind of wanted to stay away from taking a smithing trade and just focus on the various trades that produce things for wizards, but I think I've got an idea to work weaponsmithing into his mercantilism, so that's going to be an outlet for me to burn through all this ore that can't be molded. The hard part is going to be actually learning the trade.

Which reminds me, there should be a nail mould to make iron nails with the precision forge.

And, since I don't want to open another topic that's pretty on par with this thread I had another idea for mining - add other mineral types to the list of mine-able items:

Rubble - Not as a deposit, but just waste material created by mining. Could be shaped to produce 'perfectly smooth stones'.

Quartz/Crystal deposits - Shards could be shaped to produce crystal rods and beads.

Lodestone deposits - Chunks could be shaped to produce lodestones.

Sulfur deposits - Chunks of this could be ground down to produce pinches of sulfur.

Phosphorous deposits - Chunks could be ground down to produce pinches of phosphorous.

Talcum deposits - Chunks could be ground down to produce pinches of talc.

Salt deposits - Chunks could be ground down into pinches of salt.


Might need some kind of different tool for the crystal, rubble, and lodestone. Maybe a rock-hammer/rock-tumbler or something to chisel and smooth them out. Where you is Gondars?

These are the only mineral type items I can think of off the top of my head, but there might be more.

[Selveem]

Rubble - Not as a deposit, but just waste material created by mining. Could be shaped to produce 'perfectly smooth stones'.

Quartz/Crystal deposits - Shards could be shaped to produce crystal rods and beads.

Lodestone deposits - Chunks could be shaped to produce lodestones.

Sulfur deposits - Chunks of this could be ground down to produce pinches of sulfur.

Phosphorous deposits - Chunks could be ground down to produce pinches of phosphorous.

Talcum deposits - Chunks could be ground down to produce pinches of talc.

Salt deposits - Chunks could be ground down into pinches of salt.

Some really good ideas there, man. It'd be nice if those could replace a lot of the 'you find nothing' responses, too. Otherwise even mining small deposits would be rather cumbersome.