Take on Mining
MrAerospace
Join Date: 2016-08-22 Member: 221576Members
Join Date: 2016-08-22 Member: 221576Members
Resource gathering in all current games (not just Subnautica) is a pet peeve. The notion that minerals are randomly scattered around the map in the form of nodes makes for exceedingly tedious game-play. This design impedes advancement and forces exploration, making them BOTH tedious processes.
I would much rather see more “realistic” mineral deposits being designed, so that the player can return to a known location and gather their needed quantities of minerals in one go. Take a quartz resource for example. It naturally occurs in two forms: veins embedded in stone:
and after the stone erodes away, the quartz gets washed downstream and erodes into sand, pebbles and large stones.
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Another point to note is that multiple mineral resources can be found within the same mineral ores, and with the right equipment, can be refined out in the final process. For example, heavy metals such as gold and silver are often found within quartz ores, and are usually the main reason for quartz mining operations in the first place.
So the basic resource gathering process would be as follows:
1) Mineral Fossicking
This is the exploration stage of mining. With the now more concentrated mineral resources, players will need to spend more time in the discovery process, requiring them to cover much more ground but with a larger and more efficient pay-off.
Mineral resources could become set pieces in the environment: A submerged river bed of quartz pebbles, an exposed outcrop, or even crystal caverns. In this design, Instead of nodes being the resource, they instead become indicators of the presence of these larger deposits, and you could even have geobotanical indicators: plants that are found ONLY in the presence of certain minerals.
2) Geology.
This is the thorough scientific part of the mining process, where the analysis of ore samples is done, as well as quantifying the size of the deposit. It's complicated, and in game terms could simply be done with the scanner room + drones if you wanted.
3) Ore Extraction
Fairly self evident – break out the big machines and start digging, rather than producing small, usable materials though, this would act in a similar fashion to the way scrap metal can be turned into titanium.
4) Refining
Processing ores into valuable engineering materials. The fabricator is a good first step, but an all-purpose refinery would be an ideal addition.
The mining/refining process is still going to be a tedious part of the game, but it could have an interesting game mechanic which encourages the player to set small “mining bases” where they build a refinery, a power source, and a number of mining drones to do the dirty work, so the player can simply return to pick up the materials when needed.
I would much rather see more “realistic” mineral deposits being designed, so that the player can return to a known location and gather their needed quantities of minerals in one go. Take a quartz resource for example. It naturally occurs in two forms: veins embedded in stone:
and after the stone erodes away, the quartz gets washed downstream and erodes into sand, pebbles and large stones.
--
Another point to note is that multiple mineral resources can be found within the same mineral ores, and with the right equipment, can be refined out in the final process. For example, heavy metals such as gold and silver are often found within quartz ores, and are usually the main reason for quartz mining operations in the first place.
So the basic resource gathering process would be as follows:
1) Mineral Fossicking
This is the exploration stage of mining. With the now more concentrated mineral resources, players will need to spend more time in the discovery process, requiring them to cover much more ground but with a larger and more efficient pay-off.
Mineral resources could become set pieces in the environment: A submerged river bed of quartz pebbles, an exposed outcrop, or even crystal caverns. In this design, Instead of nodes being the resource, they instead become indicators of the presence of these larger deposits, and you could even have geobotanical indicators: plants that are found ONLY in the presence of certain minerals.
2) Geology.
This is the thorough scientific part of the mining process, where the analysis of ore samples is done, as well as quantifying the size of the deposit. It's complicated, and in game terms could simply be done with the scanner room + drones if you wanted.
3) Ore Extraction
Fairly self evident – break out the big machines and start digging, rather than producing small, usable materials though, this would act in a similar fashion to the way scrap metal can be turned into titanium.
4) Refining
Processing ores into valuable engineering materials. The fabricator is a good first step, but an all-purpose refinery would be an ideal addition.
The mining/refining process is still going to be a tedious part of the game, but it could have an interesting game mechanic which encourages the player to set small “mining bases” where they build a refinery, a power source, and a number of mining drones to do the dirty work, so the player can simply return to pick up the materials when needed.
Comments
You would almost need a complete rework of the whole ressource system for this to work and there simply is not enough time left until release for such a huge change.
Don't get me wrong here, I still like the idea of fixed deposits that possibly even respawn for getting my ressources. That is the way all other survival games I know of, handle their ressource gathering. So cool idea but would have to be done by the mod cummunity or we'd have to wait and hope for a part two of the game to see such big changes.