Hi all,
In most of my games I come across these planets / bodies with mineral deposits of 10/20/etc. million minerals.
But with an accessibility that is so low, that it is barely worth it. (example 0.1)
I know its a gameplay abstraction, but still.
For example a deposit of 15 million Neutronium at 0.1 accessibility.
It feels strange that not a single mineral is more easily accessible.
It would be awesome if we can come up with a system that allows for investment into making minerals accessible.
And for which we can convey the necessary information in a readable manner.
Below you can find a brain dump regarding a potential mechanic.
Might be to complex, but maybe it can be a source of inspiration.
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Instead of a single deposit on a body, we have potentially multiple for each type.
A deposit can have a few flags / attributes:
* accessible (boolean?)
* hazardous (environment) (decimal value?)
** Increases cost of access to deposit
* Collapsed / blocked (decimal value?)
** Increases cost of access to deposit
* ...
A deposit has a "Mining infrastructure" need in order to "access" the deposit.
The "mining infrastructure" need is calculated based on "Amount of minerals, accessibility, hazardous, collapsed / blocked"
When a body gets surveyed from space you never find "everything".
But you get an indication of how many potential deposits are still there.
For example (focusing on one mineral type in my examples, but you can extrapolate them for all types).
A geological survey reveals 2 deposits of Neutronium.
* 2 million - 0.1
** Not accessible
* 100k - 0.3
** Accessible
Potential ground based deposit surveys 1-5 (always a range).
Survey by Geo survey squad reveals an additional deposit.
* 300K - 0.7
** Hazardous
** Blocked
As a result, your mines would be used at the 100k 0.3 deposit by default.
Mines would use the most accessible deposit first.
When you want to use the other deposits you will have to invest wealth, TN minerals and research.
You would have Technology to research which would allow you:
* Deep core mining - Allows construction of "Mining infrastructure"
** Mining infrastructure is needed to provide access to deposits which are blocked and or have a hazardous environment (gasses, etc)
** Ground construction needing TN minerals and wealth?
*** At least a bunch of duranium and corundium.
* Miners protection - Allow access to Hazardous deposits.
** (Is a line of research techs)
** reduces the effect on the mining infrastructure need.
* Mine access improvements (needs a better name)
** (Is a line of research techs)
** Reduces the effect of "collapsed / blocked" on the mining infrastructure need.
These research options could be combined with the current "Biology / genetics" category and be renamed to "Biology & Geology".
These changes would introduce a need to change the UI regarding minerals.
* Minerals overview (economics window)
** Provide toggle to show the deposit with the highest accessibility / highest amount in overview screens
** Show amount of deposits
** We show the amount of "known deposits" vs "potential deposits" [2/5]
*** After survey this can, for example, change to [4/4]
** Instead of "Quantity and Accessibility" we show "Total quantity and 'Deposits"'
** based on previously defined toggle we show the following:
*** [3/3] 2 million at 0.1 (toggle == highest amount)
*** or [3/3] 300K at 0.7 (toggle == highest accessibility)
** When we have a mineral type with potential deposits (2 know and a potential 5 further)
*** [2/7] 75k at 0.4 (highest amount)
* The mineral search window, you are searching for deposits.
** With a flag to only search for currently accessible deposits or not.
*** Hazardous / blocked as well
** we would also need to show potential deposits of the mineral type.
** We would need to show "Mining infrastructure" need.
* System generation and display
** Summary shows deposits in the same way we show on the Minerals overview (economics window)
Thoughts?
To complex? Or is there a potential mechanic here after refinement?
