Metals,. symbols, and mining

[Vogar Eol]

Currently on the code port I think its a little too easy to know what your mining for. If you see a vein, you mine right up next too it and either prospect with a dwarf, or mine a little. Now you know that such and such a color symbol will always be such and such a resource.

Personally, I think that makes things a little too simple and easy. We should add a little spice and some confusion as well.

I think all metals should use the same symbols, and all gems use the same symbols. Only difference should be in the colors used.

Copper ore and ?Emeralite? ore should be green.
Iron ore and Meteorite ore should be grey.
Gold ore and Adamantite ore should be yellow.
Silver ore and Mitrill ore should be white.

In short, you would not know if a single room of emeralite was hiding in that huge vein of bronze. It would also make the mine prospecting skill gerps and dwarves get much more useful. Once they mined all the way over to a room they could prospect to see if it was really Emeralite, or just bronze deep down in the granite. However, even they wouldn't know untill they mined all the way over to check.

The exact same thing would need to be done for the minerals as well. I am not as well informed on the colors of minerals, however. Isabelle, what do you think of this idea? Weems, I already know you dislike making it harder to mine Mitrill by hiding it in silver.

[Isabelle]

i don't mind the 'knowing what your aiming for'
as long as the resources arent so readily accessible.

if you have to spend some time mining in order to get what you want, and there isnt a crapload of the resource sitting there, i'm cool with that.

[Hrulgin]

Just my 2 gold, but I like Vogar's idea in theory. 'Disguising' the rarer metals (and gems) would make prospect useful again, as well as help limit the amount of 'super' resources being pulled from the mines. I know personally if i see a big M a couple rooms away Im going to change my mining direction to go for it, but if all i saw was a bunch of grey + I probably wouldn't bother. Unless, of course there was a chance of that + being a big chink of meteorite, or whatever..then i would have to mine through a lot more common ore to find the good stuff. IMHO this is a relatively easy fix to the 'big loot' problem a lot of people have with the new system.

[Nellwyn]

I agree with Isabelle. Color scheming is awesome and I absolutely love the design layout of the mines. But non-adept miners should receive less resources - if any.

[Tuler]

Nell I think they should get less... and wow, they do! They ruin more, and mine less. An adept miner will be able to gmine 50 silver from one place, and a non adept will mine 2 and it won't even show they ruined it.

Giving them no ore would make mining totally useless, as no new people could mine.

[Nellwyn]

Then you and I will disagree Tuler.

I don't like it when my mitrill miner can dig up 3-4 Obsidian (or higher) gems and destroy EVERY citrine/carnelian on a %. Which btw does not make sense.

Not to mention, on my mitrill miner, I still pull up 2-3 uncut b.diamonds on a %.

To me, that's not less, that still more than enough. It should be 1 on a % - IF you are lucky. And if it's a comma, you shouldn't be able to mine anything if you aren't adept.

I am an adept mitrill miner, why am I destroying resources that I am adept in? I have yet to destroy anything higher than an obsidian. It's backwards.

It's just a matter of opinion I guess.

[Chilliwack]

but copper's not green

[Quintos]

but copper's not green

It is when it becomes oxidized. Ever see the statue of liberty? That's copper...green pennies?

[phalanxyrian]

well actualy it becomes green when it oxides with water around, else it will turn out blue

[Chilliwack]

well in any case, why would copper ore be oxidized? coppers not in the mines long enough to get rusted..

[Kamseki Estel]

Vogar has a semi point
Meteorite is way too easy to find now as well as the higher lvl gems (like obs dia bd etc)

Perhaps revert Meteor back to black and make obs and dia same color and sap and bds same color so you dont ALWAYS know you hit this or that. and eme should never be minable cause its so powerful and rare so it should remain rare or the amount of 'super players' would gradually increase

Also, perhaps tone down how much of the mines is nothin but copper ore and raise sil,gold,and iron a tad bit

[weems]

Mining difficulty should not be have to be tweaked by the visibility of resources. If it has to be, then that means there is a problem with the difficulty of mining said resources.

Which there is. And the problem is that...It's way too easy.