Variable Minerals Spawn

[Froggiest1982 (OP)]

The more I play and the more I would like to get less than 10,000,000 tons or more sites.

I think will be nice to have a mineral spawn slider (same as per Earth at game setup) to limit the number of minerals available in general. While I am happy with the number of sites you can find, overall I still think that the amount of mineral per site it's sometimes too much. Would be nice for a change, to have a game where finding an important mineral site would actually be a VITAL strategic asset to defend at all costs.

[Zap0]

Most large planets have millions of minerals, but often only at 0.1 accessibility. It's the normal trade-off in mineral generation, small bodies have low amounts and high accessibility, large bodies the opposite. Do you want to see less such planets, or just have their numbers dialed down by a few orders of magnitude? I've always seen such deposits as either endgame sources where your extreme mining rate makes them usable and other sources have been exhausted or as backup options in case there are no good sources of a mineral available otherwise.

Would be nice for a change, to have a game where finding an important mineral site would actually be a VITAL strategic asset to defend at all costs.

That seems more an artifact of generation with either such sites not existing or there being enough alternative sources to reduce the importance of a single site. This is not aided by the fact that you need income of eleven minerals in total, naturally forcing you to mine multiple locations and away from single points. I don't think a mineral amount slider would help here, it's more about density and concentration. There already is a system mineral density modifier which sometimes makes you come across bonanza systems, which I like. Not single bodies, but an entire system to defend here.

Moderately sized moons more often spawn with tens or hundreds of thousands of minerals with a decent accessibility. They make for such an important site more frequently than planets in my experience.

My case for a mineral amount slider would be that people often start with variable amounts of population and therefore industry. What's going to be a Sol poor in minerals compared to the rate of consumption of a 8b pop empire will be able to sustain a nation of 50m for centuries, not giving them such important mineral sources as there are just more available and not driving them out to the stars. How NPRs interact with a mineral starved map may be a point of concern, though.

[Stormtrooper]

Honestly I'd love mineral settings, both for amount and accessibility, separate for each mineral as well. That way I could get a decently balanced and challenging game with upped gallicite spawnrates to accompany for ever-hungry spaceships while drastically reduce other mineral spawnrates to have to actually care about them. Mineral slides would be a decent addition allowing for custom challenges and self-balancing beyond the simplistic tradeoff of low acc but high amount and vice versa which in practice often doesn't impact the gameplay as much as it sounds on paper.

[Froggiest1982 (OP)]

Most large planets have millions of minerals, but often only at 0.1 accessibility. It's the normal trade-off in mineral generation, small bodies have low amounts and high accessibility, large bodies the opposite. Do you want to see less such planets, or just have their numbers dialed down by a few orders of magnitude?

I would like to decide if I want it to dial down or not. I know I can do it from SM but I would like to set it up myself. I think I can agree with the below:

Honestly I'd love mineral settings, both for amount and accessibility, separate for each mineral as well. Mineral slides would be a decent addition allowing for custom challenges and self-balancing beyond the simplistic tradeoff of low acc but high amount and vice versa which in practice often doesn't impact the gameplay as much as it sounds on paper.

I've always seen such deposits as either endgame sources where your extreme mining rate makes them usable and other sources have been exhausted or as backup options in case there are no good sources of a mineral available otherwise.

This is your view and I could understand to a certain extent. However, the mineral deposits also need to account for distance (fuel to transport and route to set up are a major factor in larger empires especially not that we'll have raiders in 1.14). A 0.1 large deposit could work better if near (in fact, it always does) as you can transport minerals faster (partially mitigating less mining resources) and using less fuel. Furthermore, setting up the mining operation as well will cost you less fuel and can be done faster along with expanding such operation.

Would be nice for a change, to have a game where finding an important mineral site would actually be a VITAL strategic asset to defend at all costs.

This is not aided by the fact that you need income of eleven minerals in total, naturally forcing you to mine multiple locations and away from single points.

Do you? Really? I think that mostly your priorities are always the same if you start conventional:
Neutronium. Gosh, these Shipyards do need it!
Sorium. As your efficiency is low at the start, fuel becomes essential especially if you lucky (or unlucky) enough to find aliens within the first 2 or 3 jumps from Sol.
This will lead to a massive need for Gallicite and if you planning a ground invasion Vendarite.

The rest of the minerals (including the important Mercassium and Corundium) are all based on the scale of your operations and usually extremely manageable with the 50,000,000 tons you just found on a remote planet with 0.1 accessibility from now to eternity. So yes, I don't like it. Deposits over the million tons should be the exception and not the norm, 0.1 accessibility or not.

How NPRs interact with a mineral starved map may be a point of concern, though.

This is true, but again I think that this feature is more for Human Vs Human situation. Consider that in the past 6 months I now generate and control my own Aliens as I cannot be bothered with NPR nonsense anymore. In this meaning, the changes to AI coming in 1.14 are extremely welcome. I think Steve should focus on adding more threats in the form of Spoilers before actually revamping the AI of the NPRs. Considering the complexity of Aurora, and despite his best efforts, AI will never match Human creativity and problem solving on the go. It is a system too different from Stellaris (or DWU for instance) where the "cage" of rules and simple math limitation can make the AI looking like challenging.

FINAL NOTES
I am extremely satisfied with the system overall and the comments above are just to clarify that while adding a simple slider could have larger implications, it is also true that some elements may be reviewed based on the years of experience we all have now on Aurora. Eventually, SM simple editing tools on the minerals generation and spawn are already enough for those who are looking for different challenges without extensive DB tempering like in other circumstances. Still, few of us may be happy with a less Randy Random experience and a more Custom Sandbox one.

[Bremen]

I agree, though I've found my own way to adapt to that: I play with a house rule that any colony can only have at most 100 automines or 200 normal mines.

Thus that colony with 170 million tons of .8 accessibility duranium doesn't turn into "hey, I'll never need duranium again, why bother expanding?" - it's a steady source of Duranium essentially forever, but at least it can't singlehandedly provide for my entire empire.

[Zap0]

The rest of the minerals (including the important Mercassium and Corundium) are all based on the scale of your operations and usually extremely manageable with the 50,000,000 tons you just found on a remote planet with 0.1 accessibility from now to eternity. So yes, I don't like it. Deposits over the million tons should be the exception and not the norm, 0.1 accessibility or not.

I practically never bother to mine 0.1 accessibility deposits, no matter how deep. There's better uses for the mines.

Do you actually go and set up dedicated mining facilities on 0.1 accessibility planets for those few units of Corbomite one needs per year? Even then, you'd be better off plopping down 20 mines on a 0.8 rock, not 160 mines on a 0.1 planet - you're finding those, on average, at the same rate as Gallicite ones after all. I can see an argument that the extra micro of managing small deposits for unimportant minerals is annoying. In my experience the unimportant minerals are rarely something you actually need to actively seek out anyway, my demands tend to be met by the secondary deposits mined alongside the Duranium or Gallicite of a given body.

That's what you're talking about, is it? Mine Alpha Centauri A-III for it's 0.9 Duranium, get enough 0.1 Tritanium, Boronide and Corbomite along with it that you never need to bother with these minerals again.

A symptom of equal spawn chances but different importances of each mineral. Sliders for each mineral do sound like they'd alleviate some of that pain, but fiddling with 11 or 22 sliders at the start sounds very annoying and not like something many people are going to be using. Doesn't sound like a hard feature to implement, though.

Consider that in the past 6 months I now generate and control my own Aliens as I cannot be bothered with NPR nonsense anymore.

I feel you brother.

Still, few of us may be happy with a less Randy Random experience and a more Custom Sandbox one.

Aurora could definitely use some more guided generation or normalized RNG. A mineral slider could take the edge of one of the cases where the hard edges of the pure RNG are showing through.

[Froggiest1982 (OP)]

That's what you're talking about, is it? Mine Alpha Centauri A-III for it's 0.9 Duranium, get enough 0.1 Tritanium, Boronide and Corbomite along with it that you never need to bother with these minerals again.

Correct.

I agree, though I've found my own way to adapt to that: I play with a house rule that any colony can only have at most 100 automines or 200 normal mines.

Thus that colony with 170 million tons of .8 accessibility duranium doesn't turn into "hey, I'll never need duranium again, why bother expanding?" - it's a steady source of Duranium essentially forever, but at least it can't singlehandedly provide for my entire empire.

It's a nice way to approach it.

[Droll]

I agree, though I've found my own way to adapt to that: I play with a house rule that any colony can only have at most 100 automines or 200 normal mines.

Thus that colony with 170 million tons of .8 accessibility duranium doesn't turn into "hey, I'll never need duranium again, why bother expanding?" - it's a steady source of Duranium essentially forever, but at least it can't singlehandedly provide for my entire empire.

I do something similar except the rule is 250 mines/automines per 1000km of diameter. Obviously you can change the 250 number to something lower if you want to be more restrictive but I like to think of it has how much mining can feasibly happen on the surface of a planet.

[TheTalkingMeowth]

Worth noting that surface area expands as the square of the diameter, not linearly.

Hah, now you can't unsee it and your headcanon is ruined forever.

[gpt3]

Worth noting that surface area expands as the square of the diameter, not linearly.

Hah, now you can't unsee it and your headcanon is ruined forever.

What if they're using open-pit mining? The base of an (downward pointing) cone expands with the square of the height of the cone.

[Froggiest1982 (OP)]

What if they're using open-pit mining? The base of an (downward pointing) cone expands with the square of the height of the cone.

However, Trans-Newtonian Elements (TN elements) are minerals, whose properties transcend known Newtonian physics. Found within the core of a planet, they require significant effort to extract. This is the original VB6 Lore.

Worth noting that surface area expands as the square of the diameter, not linearly.

Hah, now you can't unsee it and your headcanon is ruined forever.

The new lore is even more challenging as Steve introduced the Aether: A dimension co-existing alongside normal space, which has fluidic properties and is much more compressed in terms of distance between objects. This is where you can find the Trans-Newtonian Elements (TNE). With the right equipment, they can be detected from normal space (Our own dimension and everything within it), extracted, and refined into materials that can be used for construction purposes. TNEs exist in trace amounts throughout the Aether and over billions of years, they accumulate where gravity wells from normal space intrude into the Aether, causing swirling turbulence and ever-increasing compression. Larger amounts usually form in deeper gravity wells, although high gravity often makes TNEs more difficult to extract and refine. Another option is locating the smaller but more accessible deposits that form in the Aether at low gravity intrusion points, caused by small moons or asteroids.

I have enjoyed the mind-blowing explanations in the previous posts though. I did not know (even if they make perfect sense now) both concepts.

I am spoiling the fun, literally 

[Froggiest1982 (OP)]

I agree, though I've found my own way to adapt to that: I play with a house rule that any colony can only have at most 100 automines or 200 normal mines.

Thus that colony with 170 million tons of .8 accessibility duranium doesn't turn into "hey, I'll never need duranium again, why bother expanding?" - it's a steady source of Duranium essentially forever, but at least it can't singlehandedly provide for my entire empire.

I do something similar except the rule is 250 mines/automines per 1000km of diameter. Obviously you can change the 250 number to something lower if you want to be more restrictive but I like to think of it has how much mining can feasibly happen on the surface of a planet.

Just wanted to say thanks again, just a simple solution but it has now expanded my game so much as now before starting to mine I also need to consider the size of the body and how many mines I can actually use on such body. So for instance even 0.1 access now could be more useful that 1.0 access if it is on the right body.