Mining/Landscaping in Stonehearth

[Vince5754]

With news that Team Radiant is going to be working on the Mining System in the Alpha’s to come, I think we should throw around ideas for the how it might work.

Now there was a topic with a few posts about this, but since its over 425 days old, it seemed like it made more sense to create a new topic than to resurrect that decomposing-corpse. Agree? Disagree?

Landscaping is probably gonna be a good part of it, the removal of Dirt and Stone. I would think that in the construction tab, there would be a section for removing and adding landscape blocks. You could drag out a rectangle in the ground, and your Villagers would pull out Shovels or a trusty Pickaxe to clear the specified area out. And you could then re-place the Dirt or Stone you gathered if you want to add some hills or even mountains around your town.

Now Mining is a bit more tricky, because it can’t be Micro-manage-y (We saw that didn’t go so well with the original trapper) What I would think would make the most sense, would be a “Miner” class. You could set a location for him/her to look for precious minerals while you focus on other times. And they would bring there findings to the available stockpiles in your town.

How do you guys feel about all this, any ideas you think would be better suited for the game?

[Kaz]

I wont be satisfied until this game has quantum stockpiles, no way Imma have huge stockpiles filled with stone xD

As far as mining goes I wouldn’t mind if they did it the same way as DF did it, just designate what you want em to dig and then idlers will bring the stones/gems/etc etc to the stockpiles.

[Dwalus]

With landscaping we should be able to make ground-level roads!

[Kaz]

@Tom

We decided on mining because we’re sort of stuck without a reliable source of stone and ore.

Once you can mine stone and ore, we can add the mason and blacksmith, which unlocks vast amounts of crafting and building content: stone buildings (castles!), tile/stone roads, statues, metal weapons and armor. It’s a lot.

Yeah roads are on their way, I honestly wouldn’t mind even mining out the block below where the road is going to be placed if that’s the way they’re gonna do it.

[Tom]

Without getting into too much detail, we’re taking a big page from Dwarf Fortress when it comes to mining.

So think of that as a starting point, but applied to 3d rendered world. Then think about how the other Stonehearth tools work (farms, floors, etc), and you can probably figure out how mining will work.

[JonathanDB]

I actually think a ‘micro-managey’ method of mining is best (see gnomoria). How else are you going to build underground rooms and halls?

On second thought though, these guys arent dwarves (or gnomes) so I can see being happy with either method.

However the eventual dwarf race HAS to have the ability to make an underground town.

[woollysmash]

@Tom

Without getting into too much detail, we’re taking a big page from Dwarf Fortress when it comes to mining.

So think of that as a starting point, but applied to 3d rendered world. Then think about how the other Stonehearth tools work (farms, floors, etc), and you can probably figure out how mining will work.

I have nerd chills. Excuse me while I jump around excitedly

[Dwalus]

Maybe you could draw a rectangle on the ground, then choose the height to make it a rectangular prism and then select how far down you want it to go.

[JonathanDB]

Awesome, @woollysmash! That basically answers it.

Excited here as well.

[LeadfootSlim]

Taking notes from Dwarf Fortress is definitely encouraging! I can only look forward to what we’ll get out of it.

[EpicDwarf]

Here’s how I think it should go.

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##MINE TYPES:

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OPEN PIT MINING:

Castle Story style mining, just a little different. Select how wide and deep the mine is by dragging and dropping, and the non-busy Miners (The class is going to get put in probably) will get to work. It is still a pretty good way to do mining, and if this is considered micromanaging, then I don’t know what isn’t

---

Typical Mine Shaft Mining:

Drag and drop a path upwards, downwards, or to the side, and mine from there. You know what I’m talking about.

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##OTHER IDEAS

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Support:

So, wooden support beams should be used to keep mines together and stable, so so mine collapses happen. They should be makeable by the carpenter, or if that doesn’t work, they should just automatically appear like scaffolding. They both use wood. They both wear out over time so replace them time to time, or just wait for the dirt on the top of the mine to start falling.

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EXPLOSIVES:

BOOM BOOM BOOM! Explosives need to be in the game. Besides killing your settlers and destroying your towns and making goblin hordes beg for mercy, they should be used for mining to take out large chunks to make mining easier, but can make the mine much more unstable.

---

MINECARTS:

Make hauling out large amounts of rock and other crap easier. Just throw it in there, and let some poor sap haul it up to the surface, or if you want to take a quick ride to the bottom, just hop in and take a ride, running into piles of stone and other peers, and most likely running into a wall.

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SCENARIO - MINE COLLAPSE:

If you don’t have support beams, then get some. Without support beams, your mine is susceptible to a mine collapse, which will destroy the mine, ruining your hard work at taking killing everyone in there unless they can get out in time, or their wounds aren’t severe enough to be fatal. Explosives can also trigger a mine collapse.

[SteveAdamo]

@Vince5754

Now there was a topic with a few posts about this

well, there’s also this fairly large thread (from May of this year):

Mining Permanent node's? or strip mining?

I would like to suggest that instead of the usual mine it and it’s gone you can instead mine it and then either the next day (or 3 days ) you can continue gaining a small amount of that resource. Certain areas can then either be sparsely populated or richer and give you more incentive to build small outposts where there are more resources. But there are a lot of factors such as how often you need those materials how much of it you can get in a single area and how easy it is to find and so on. So…

as well as some much older threads:

What are the plans for mining?

My favorite aspect about games like these are the ability to mine for items of high value and to create a kingdom underground. So when can we expect mining to be implemented? How would it work?? Will there be any advantages / disadvantage to living underground??? Also, please release an alpha / beta ASAP please. We can give you feedback quickly and we all want to play this game soon! Thanks!

Mines and Mining system

Tom mentioned on the last livestream that mining will start out as resource nodes and then be changed to mine shafts in later versions. My suggestion is for a way to implement the mining when they start underground version. Mines should be buildings that are the head of a vertical shaft that goes down with a lift that brings the resources to the surface. Once the shaft has been dug down to a level where resources are at and then the workers will start digging horizontal shafts to uncover the …

feel free to cherry-pick from any of those for additional materials…

[Atralane]

In relation to landscaping, I was recently curious as to how grass vs. dirt will be handled, in terms of occurrence in the world, benefits/penalties, and removal and replanting. Will we eventually have a way to transport ‘grass’ to other locations, like terraforming? And will grass re-grow over dirt normally, like most games (see Minecraft, for example)?

Also, I think maybe having a different penalty to walk speed on these types of terrain might be nice to have–dirt and mud is harder to walk through than a field of grass, for example. Someone from the development page post suggested that instead of roads further speeding up our villagers that they instead use the current walking speed for when travelling on them (using it as the cap, rather than the base). I sort of agree with this, since settlers seem to already move pretty quickly in the game and there’s always options for faster travel in the future, like horseback, cart rails, or some kind of dimensional plane portal. What do you think?

[vhramis]

Will our slavescitizens be happy if they were to live underground? Or are they going to need to live topside? Cause I can already see hollowing out a big cave and building a town inside of it to be a fun project.

[JonathanDB]

@vhramis

Will our slavescitizens be happy if they were to live underground? Or are they going to need to live topside? Cause I can already see hollowing out a big cave and building a town inside of it to be a fun project.

I think it would be cool to have them be happy under- or above-ground for now. However, I think in the long run they should be a little less happy living underground since we are going to get DWARVES as a playable race. The Dwarves should of course thrive underground.

[Teleros]

Even if they’re unhappy underground, surely you can do +happiness things to offset that unhappiness? Seems reasonable to me.

[vhramis]

I didn’t know about the Dwarves. That would make more sense, in that case. If they’re going to be the beardy miney type of dwarves that is.

[vhramis]

Pictures everywhere of the fields and trees that they can’t see while living in their dank holes, maybe.

[woollysmash]

I’d wager a good way to make the non-dwarves and dwarves happy would be to include lots and lots of bioluminescence. Glowing mushrooms, animals, algae on the walls which will amaze and impress your settlers.

[Vince5754]

@woollysmash

“include lots and lots of bioluminescence. Glowing mushrooms, animals, algae on the walls which will amaze and impress your settlers.”

Perhaps Gems too could emit a small amount of light. Then you could make your streets out of Rubies and Sapphires and watch them light up at night.

Warning, covering your buildings with tons of gems may attract unwanted attention.