Something I've noticed since Alpha 13 is that I seem to always generate maps that have no Plasteel anywhere to mine from the various mountains generated when I start my colony. Did I miss something in the version notes where Plasteel is no longer a mineable resource? Is anybody else seeing this, or have I just been really unlucky?
I've used the Dev Mode to turn off fog so I can find minerals in the rock, and I've been able to find Steel, Components, Silver, Jade, and Uranium, but not Gold or Plasteel...
I'm seeing commonality of 0.05 in 10-50 tile chunks in the defs.
Created a fresh map, turned on debug, turned off fog of war, opened inspector.
(http://puu.sh/q9nh1/d5e06333d0.png)
Looks fine to me.
Checked the A13 defs and it appears unchanged.
Either I'm really unlucky, or I just don't know what the color of Plasteel is when it's not exposed. I could have sworn it was a blue that stood out more, not that super light blue color from your screenshot...
Quote from: MaxKnight on July 21, 2016, 10:37:42 AM
Either I'm really unlucky, or I just don't know what the color of Plasteel is when it's not exposed. I could have sworn it was a blue that stood out more, not that super light blue color from your screenshot...
The color of mineable resources varies by the surrounding rock.
I have had the same issue. I have only played 3 games since A13 came out, but I havn't gotten any plasteel since then. I have to trade for it all and honestly it makes ship building impossible.
Same here. Started several colonies using dev mode to find Plasteel, but there was none. There was plenty in A13. Only way to get it now is to buy it from traders, which, as you know, is expensive.
It might be a bug, because on my map, I have TONS of plasteel, and not much steel. I mined about 6-7k plasteel (yes mined), and I still have several vein untapped, while the old one are not entirely depleted. It is that's ridiculous. I'm able to sell plasteel, to buy gold and make statues out of it, I basically have unlimited money.
That's not bragging or exaggerating, I think there is something wrong.
Since you don't need much plasteel (compared to your regular steel needs), if your map has any, it has too much, yeah. And it's fairly random. Some maps have it, some don't.
Regarding trading to get more being unviable, trading has been generally unviable since A13. I'll be writing a mod to fix this in a bit, but I felt like I should first take a swing at playing an A14 game through without modding.
Well, 50 Plasteel for the Multi-Analyzer. Plus using it as a superb crafting/art material. And of course, any mods that wind up only using Plasteel for things in crafting/construction.
Since I apparently can't tell what color Plasteel is supposed to be (and how have I never noticed that the color varies based on the surrounding rock?), I'm going to go back and check again, this time using that tool to highlight things that are usually undiscovered to see if any of it is Plasteel.
Edit: So, I just checked the only two colonies that I have started in Alpha 14, and on the first one there is a single moderate to large size deposit of Plasteel deep in the mountain where I likely wouldn't have found it for a long time, while on the second one there was no Plasteel at all. For that matter there was only a single small gold deposit that I could find, as well as a single small Jade deposit that was already visible without Dev mode.
Does this mean anything? I dunno. I just know that in Alpha 12 I generally wound up running into Plasteel as I was carving out rooms in just about every colony I had made, while in Alphas 13 and 14 I hadn't ever run into any... I'd probably have to make a lot more colonies and check them out to see if there's any pattern to if Plasteel is found or not...
If you still have the A12 files, you can just check its chunk frequency in the XML. A lot less work.
When I start a new map I always get ALOT of plasteel.
Try making your own seed for the map thats what I always do.
my current map has zero plasteel
I reloaded my current map (same seed, etc.) a couple of times to get a geyser at my starting location. Unfortunately that also removed a rather large exposed plasteel vein :s
Plasteel has often been rare since a13, even on mountainous maps.
I have seen many maps without any at all, when before that it was fairly reliable to have 1 or 2 nodes visible on the default map size. Even on large or small hills.
I suspect this is because of adding in 'components' as an alternative spawn without increasing the total mineable nodes per default map size. Effectively reducing the commonality of plasteel by almost half.
With the nerfing into almost non existance of traders since a13, it made playing to get to space as quickly as possible a huge huge pain. :(
On those maps I had which Plasteel is rare or not accessible yet , Ive built my Multi-Analyzer from Mechanoids (Ships or Raids).
There is also atleast 2 closed Rooms which will have a high chances of having Mechs in them.
breaking down there bodies ( smithing bench) gives Plasteel
Killing them ... thats a different Thread lol
Just keep in mind that getting enough material to build a ship to escape the planet is *supposed* to be difficult. There really shouldn't be any plasteel lying around on the map. Mechanoids will give you what you need for the multi-analyzer, and when an exotic goods trader (orbital or caravan) shows up you can get your gold.
Anything more than that you should buy. After your devilstrand farm is complete :)