Fix mining

[hoochy]

The problem isn't mining, the problem is how the game is balanced in A13.

Because Gold and Components are additional bottlenecks ONTOP of traders being ridiculously rare, one of the simplest and easiest scenarios to play (small map plains) is now near suicidal.

Even with mountains, you're still at the mercy of RNG to give you something to work with.

I'm not sure how you can say the problem isn't mining. There is nearly no mining on some maps, versus lots of mining on some maps. Since mining is so important to actual game play, and fun, I'm not sure why you think requiring only mountain maps to play is the way to go?

You need to allow mining in the regular ground also if you want to balance any aspect of this game. Otherwise the only reason for choosing a plains is to see if you can survive purely through trading. I'm not sure reducing game options, and gameplay, is necessarily a good thing but maybe you have a good argument for it?

There are non resource reasons for wanting to mine into a mountain, it provides a roof, and should have better temperature control than a constructed roof. Why should resources only be found in a mountain though? They aren't in real life. Even though this game is never going to replicate everything in real life, I'm not sure how adding a gameplay balancing aspect to the game, which is relatively easy and could be done in a day or two, is a bad thing. But it is just my opinion.

[hoochy]

I originally used the M-Co Deep Driller, but the mod author stopped developing the mod. I LOVED it for having those geyser-like spots on the map that you could place your drill on, and you also had to consistently produce and replace drill bits for the machine. You could also add some components to the drill that would allow you do "dig deeper" and get things like gold. You could also make more advanced drill bits that required a higher crafting level but lasted longer, that kind of thing.

Now this mod here hasn't been updated for A13, but it looks similar, it even uses the same drill bit sprites that the deep driller had, and also incorporates the specific spots on the map that you can place mines on.

https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=8902.0

I haven't tried it out myself yet, though.

Yeah that seems a little better than the ore extractor. However both the mods are just "find anything in any location" at least from what I can tell? You need to set resources on map creation, for each layer that a "Drill technology" can hit, and some tiles should have more than just one resource, just like in real life.

It is quite easy to do this, you could simply do it by adding 64bits to each tile for each layer, since it is rarely used memory it won't have much impact on the game at all. 32bits of that could specify up to 32 resources found in that layer, and the last 32bits could be a float value that specifies the richness of the deposit. It doesn't have to be done this way, but it is just a simple, low memory way to do it.

To give you some perspective, if we had 10 layers of mining underground, and you needed 10 levels of drill technology to get to the bottom, it would only cost 3.2MB of additional memory usage on a 200x200 map. And pretty much near zero CPU usage to do it, as the memory would be rarely accessed. This is why I offered it as a suggestion, because it is actually fairly easy to do , barely adds any CPU or memory usage and would greatly balance the game.

[hoochy]

Are talking about space traders?
Because ground based traders are not even remotely rare for me. They are quite frequent.
What is the faction situation for you?

One tribe, one outlander, two pirates. When ground traders do come, they're pithy little things that don't offer anything useful (a few components maybe) and have no silver to buy much. It is absolutely nothing to offset the resource cache that hills and mountains bring.

Yes exactly. I was on a half mountain map and still am running into massive problems with resources. Because Rimworld offers you zero way to get these extra resources, besides traders, the game just falls completely flat.

The game shouldn't reduce your ability at any point to choose a path, whether short term or long term, to fix the current problems you are facing. At the moment it is just a dice roll every so often as to whether you will get a trader or not. While this can be enjoyable on occasion, requiring the game to be played this way is a bit silly when you look at all the other options the game gives you.

Is it Rimworld, or "How long can you survive until a trader turns up"world. Why allow the user to do anything if this is basically the game? There should be no production buildings, just lots of pawn management until a trader turns up to save the day? Like The Sims, maybe.

[hoochy]

I dont quite get why Rimworld doesnt haves the z-levels, even a game with such advanced graphics as a FortressCraft runs them just fine. Extremely sloppily optimized code?

The game loos good without z levels.
However i agree that we should be able to place some mining tunnels on the ground.
Colonists could enter them, remain "inside" for X time and then leave with some ores/stone.
The ore and stone chances could be based on map settings.

"Real Z levels" I don't think should be done in the current Rimworld framework. The current game lags very badly on even good PC's because of its poor multithreaded design. And I don't mean on normal speed, I mean on 3x speed, which is the only speed I play except battles. I don't know why anyone would play normally on 1x speed, the game must take forever, it already takes so long to do pretty much anything on 3x speed. I feel like the 3x speed should nearly be the default speed, maybe 2x should be default, 3x fast and 4x faster. Maybe I am a minority but who really uses 1x speed except for battles?

Either way I can completely understand Tyrian's lack of want to do real Z levels, the framework (unity) he used is just not up to the task to do it. And given how good the game is already, what is his monetary reward for adding Z levels anyhow? He should just release Rimworld as is on Steam, quadruple the money he has already made and do Rimworld 2 on a new framework imo, if he is motivated to do it. I bought two licenses for this game already, but I must have put over 200 hours of game time into it. Mostly with mods, the core game isn't as fun and that should be a good indicator to him that he can make a lot more money with the right framework for Rimworld 2. Being a developer I know that burnout is a "real thing" though, so he may not want to do a sequel. Like I said it is just my opinion.

[Mathenaut]

I'm not sure why you think requiring only mountain maps to play is the way to go?

Exactly the opposite.
That's the problem. It didn't used to be that way. It is now.

The way A13 is balanced, resources primarily found in mining are bottlenecks. So you are screwed without mining. Used to be better when you could trade, but that's even worse now than before.

[hoochy]

I'm not sure why you think requiring only mountain maps to play is the way to go?

Exactly the opposite.
That's the problem. It didn't used to be that way. It is now.


The way A13 is balanced, resources primarily found in mining are bottlenecks. So you are screwed without mining. Used to be better when you could trade, but that's even worse now than before.

Even if you increase traders, how is this a positive move? It seems you open up gameplay options by increasing the ability to create or mine whatever the "Rimworld" universe has, rather than push it to "waiting for a trader". You can already do the "waiting for a trader" game right now, you can't do the game I stated.

[Mathenaut]

Traders were supposed to be a factor to balance out the RNG dependence. Because they have been nerved, A13 is even more heavily dependent on RNG than ever before.

Essentially, non-mountain maps need some kind of non-trade access to resources, or traders need to be made viable again.

[hoochy]

Traders were supposed to be a factor to balance out the RNG dependence. Because they have been nerved, A13 is even more heavily dependent on RNG than ever before.

Essentially, non-mountain maps need some kind of non-trade access to resources, or traders need to be made viable again.

Sure, or you could actually balance the part that matters, resources on the map.

I mean even if you implement the ideas I stated, you can still choose a map that has little of that, or requires you to break through ice to get it,  and hence requires you to rely on traders. There is nothing stopping that with my idea. All my idea does is open the game up for more options, I don't see how that is bad, I also don't understand why resources are only found in "mountains" and "hills" in Rimworld, especially when it has map types which don't feature that terrain much.

From a development standpoint the way Rimworld has developed makes sense, but from a gameplay perspective the way mining works in Rimworld does not make much sense.