Possible Iron Rework

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-11 11:45:19

Iron, in the current meta, is pretty much always harvested from the ground, with the only significant iron gathering upgrade being the cart/horse, as iron veins are VERY rare, which ironically (Sorry) makes the pickaxe useless in a iron based game. However, the pickaxe should not be useless, and should be necessary for late game mining.

I think raw iron should be less common, and iron veins more common, so the iron collecting meta would go something like this:
1: Collect nearby iron until you run out
2: Make pickaxe to mine nearby iron veins, for more iron
3: Build iron mines on said veins, in order to increase production
4: Travel farther and farther for more iron veins, until you inevitably run out, or need to use a horse

Last edited by UnnoticedShadow (2018-10-11 19:55:04)

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-11 11:46:21

Sorry if this post is a mess, I wrote it on mobile

Morti · 2018-10-11 14:46:30

I think some of Jason's best mistakes, are the ones where he changes the way fundamental mechanics work.
There is some beauty in the simplicity.
But it's also lazy and ugly.

Mining is a very hard, very dirty, very demanding process. Yet we understand that civilizations that do it survive and those that don't, fall to the sword.

I think it would give, presently, late game civilizations something to do, besides making food; having to work in the mines, so to speak. I don't yet know Jason well enough to know how to propose this idea to him in a way that he would gladly be willing to implement into the game however.

Personally I'd like to see a whole nother layer added to the game, an underground layer, that could be accessed via caves at first, a dark layer, that is revealed a tile at a time by the mining pick. The information from the surface could translate to the underground layer; the biomes above could affect the content below. Whether we go into the caves to bring out dirt, stones, rock, clay, iron, or, to lay pipes for the foundation of some future city's water and sewage networks. Heck, that's a game in itself!

Problem is this is all a lot to think about and even more to code, and thinking and coding is not adding content. That's already been done. I don't want Jason spending a month of his working time adding such an aspect to the game when he could be adding new objects to https://github.com/jasonrohrer/OneLifeD … er/objects the game.

If I had to choose between him drawing, scanning, turning pictures into a+b=c+d and making .txt files for all the attributes of a, b, c and d and giving them all some noises through his mic, or, writing code to make another layer of the game that correlates to the one on the surface, I'd rather have the former.

Sure, make it so you have to swing the pick each time to get iron from the node.
Hand on Stanchion, bucket goes down.
Pick on the node, iron falls down the hole, into the bucket.
Hand on the Stanchion, bring the bucket up with iron.

It could be a two man job; I pick, you pull.
Or a one man job where we just get in the rhythm of swapping between using the pick and the stanchion.

--

But man, an underground layer would be pretty cool...

Maybe that same layer mechanic could be used later for floors of buildings, and stairs?

I'm not a programmer, but I sure do enjoy the fruits of your code trees.

Booklat1 · 2018-10-11 19:43:36

so, i've thought about it and some other people have as well.

currently iron is one of the most important resources as it has many uses and is non-renewable. In fact, since iron can make most tools and locks and knives, which help keep your other goods, it is arguably the best material to be used in a currency siystem too (but this is a side note)

I think there's two possible solutions to this. One is making a rarer variety of iron vein with more iron, so whoever found one would help even more gens. The extra chance to find these would make mines, in general, a tad more common. The other idea is making it so here is a second tier upgrade to mines that gives so much iron that it'll probably take more people to mine it all. This way people will want to mine because it is so late game and cool.

Last edited by Booklat1 (2018-10-11 19:44:12)

Tarr · 2018-10-11 19:54:01

If iron mines were more common what would you even use all the extra iron for? Most the time someone will dig up a mine and you'll just have a bunch of extra pare iron to sit around and play with. I get eventually tools have to be replaced but I remember one family only needed about two iron mines for fifty generations.

Until we get something that requires multiple steels bars to make we don't really need extra sources of iron. The only thing that requires massive amounts of iron is railroads but as is they aren't in a viable state as of yet. Iron is probably our only true limiting factor on how long an area can remain in a livable state as everything else can be fixed or respawns with time.

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-11 19:56:03

I mean, slightly more veins with SIGNIFICANTLY less iron, and iron mines could be nerfed, if necessary.

Tarr · 2018-10-11 20:15:10

I think more iron veins with less would be fine. However, it's important to remember that early ground iron is important for eve and her children. You don't want the meta to shift directly having to rush a pickaxe to be able to get the rest of the tool set.

You would still need seven original iron to be able to get to mining in the first place. Hammer > Adze > Froe > Chisel > File > Blade blank > Pickaxe. This is skimping on the axe which is probably still something you need, the hoe so you can properly start farming, and the shovel that allows you to continue farming. It's a finicky balance system to keep enough natural iron to start out and not having so much to be swimming in iron.

Just swap iron veins down to a constant number like 24 (exactly two full carts worth which also makes exactly four even piles of iron) and maybe nerf natural iron an itty bitty bit.

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-11 23:46:44

Actually, said Eve only needs access to three (technically two) pieces of iron before pickaxe, a hammer and a hoe. Once the pickaxe is obtained, said eve can just mine iron veins for a little while, and by the time iron veins are not enough, getting iron mines won't be too hard.

Last edited by UnnoticedShadow (2018-10-11 23:49:10)

Tarr · 2018-10-11 23:51:58

Yeah but you cannot even use an iron mine without all the listed tools in it's current form. Without the sanction kit an iron mine is just a giant hole in the ground. I mean yeah if he changes how iron mines work it would be fine to just make the pickaxe and collect your bounty.

But until then you need at least seven iron and more than likely upwards of nine before you can/should be fooling around with mines.

GreatShawn · 2018-10-12 00:08:24

We can have a sort of super deep mine that requires you two shovels broken and a ladder. Once entered, you teleport to some sort of another server (or a location on the map where eves and players won't find), and in that world it is filled with rock surfaces that blocks your movement (like in a real mine you are surrounded by rock walls) . you can break them with a pickaxe. It only consumes one use, and the stone collected can be chiseled into cut stones, But iron is also rare in the mines. Once you find a stone surface with red chunks on it and you mine it, you get iron ore piles (6 irons), which makes the work worth it. You can also mine gold underground.

It is just my suggestion, feel free to add anything else to it!

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-12 00:18:16

Another demension, pretty much, would be hard to make

GreatShawn · 2018-10-12 00:21:02

UnnoticedShadow wrote:

Another demension, pretty much, would be hard to make

Just teleport a player to a remote location on the server with limited space then.

Booklat1 · 2018-10-12 00:40:03

UnnoticedShadow wrote:

Actually, said Eve only needs access to three (technically two) pieces of iron before pickaxe, a hammer and a hoe. Once the pickaxe is obtained, said eve can just mine iron veins for a little while, and by the time iron veins are not enough, getting iron mines won't be too hard.

then you run out of branches and die horribly without a axe. Pick cannot be such a priority. axe is more important than how too.

boggers · 2018-10-12 04:59:28

UnnoticedShadow wrote:

Iron, in the current meta, is pretty much always harvested from the ground, with the only significant iron gathering upgrade being the cart/horse, as iron veins are VERY rare, which ironically (Sorry) makes the pickaxe useless in a iron based game. However, the pickaxe should not be useless, and should be necessary for late game mining.

I think raw iron should be less common, and iron veins more common, so the iron collecting meta would go something like this:
1: Collect nearby iron until you run out
2: Make pickaxe to mine nearby iron veins, for more iron
3: Build iron mines on said veins, in order to increase production
4: Travel farther and farther for more iron veins, until you inevitably run out, or need to use a horse

Kinda agree, pick seems pretty under utilised, but that opinion is likely due to our conditioning from other games like minecraft.

Iron veins could give up around 3 to 5 iron when hit with a pick before "drying up" and turning into the iron pit which requires the stanchion, similar to how wells dry up and require deep wells.

Mining iron veins with a pick would become stage 2 of a 3 stage process.

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-12 15:20:17

I thought they did! I’ve never seen one near base, so never tested it. What you said is what I had in mind, and should be changed.

boggers · 2018-10-12 17:35:03

I dunno, I find and stanchion a lot of mines, maybe cause I run zoom mod and prioritise milkweed. Sounds like you need to get out of the base more!

Iron veins aren't all that rare, it roughly averages about one per biome, so sometimes there isn't one, usually there's one, but occasionally you'll get two or rarely even three grouped together in one biome. I think the balance between veins and loose iron is about right, I just wish you could get a few iron out of veins before you need the stanchion. The bigger problem for me is when there is not enough loose iron in the nearby iron biomes to build the pick, axe, adze, froe, chisel, file and saw that are all required to build the first mine.

Would be nice if using pick on big rocks dropped iron occasionally too.

UnnoticedShadow · 2018-10-12 19:01:42

I think there are WAAY too few mines. I think that Iron veins should be more common, loose iron less common, and iron veins give you some iron without a mine.

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-10-11 11:45:19

Possible Iron Rework

#2 2018-10-11 11:46:21

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#3 2018-10-11 14:46:30

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#4 2018-10-11 19:43:36

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#5 2018-10-11 19:54:01

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#6 2018-10-11 19:56:03

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#7 2018-10-11 20:15:10

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#8 2018-10-11 23:46:44

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#9 2018-10-11 23:51:58

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#10 2018-10-12 00:08:24

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#11 2018-10-12 00:18:16

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#12 2018-10-12 00:21:02

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#13 2018-10-12 00:40:03

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#14 2018-10-12 04:59:28

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#15 2018-10-12 15:20:17

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#16 2018-10-12 17:35:03

Re: Possible Iron Rework

#17 2018-10-12 19:01:42

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