More Clay please!

Wait, didn’t I hear about this complaint in a stream or somewhere?..

Thank you!

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The problem is the only renewable building material is wood. While clay and stone are clearly not renewable resources, in reality they are way more abundant than in Stonehearth. I think it should at least be possible to buy a lot of them (and they should be cheap) if one doesn’t want to mine for them to the point where it harms the terrain.

Basically, a running gag of Settlers of Catan players applies here: I literally want to buy ore for wool (or, to be more specific, clay for cloth, so that Weaver is somewhat more useful).

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We didn’t intentionally change the clay drop rate (or at least, I didn’t) - I just bumped it up some for the next unstable, so hopefully that helps.

I like the idea of Clay veins, though! It’s now on my list of nice-stuff-to-do-sometime :slight_smile:

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2 years of waiting…

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Yeah, I think a layer of clay, especially in the desert biome, would be great. Not sure how easy that is to do, but clay veins should at least be possible.

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I think clay specifically should come in LARGE chunk veins a few voxels under the surface, which have a guarantee yield of clay. This is because

a) it’s so important for Rayas Childrens game, it needs to be as reliably harvestable as wood in the temperate maps.

b) if we’re trying to mirror real life, clay pits aren’t huge sprawling works following thin veins like your classical mine, they’re digging plentiful “solid” clay directly out of the ground, so a clay pit shouldn’t be a massive strip mining operation. They should lead to pit style excavations, which would require greater yield per voxel in order to keep the pit sensibly sized. Mining tunnels for conventional ores work well because they’re out of sight. Further justification is time/effort by hearthling. A tree takes seconds to chop then POOF loads of wood. If clay veins delivered clay at 1 clay per every 1 or 2 voxels it’d lead to sensibly sized pits with ample clay for the player. The veins could be somewhat evenly spaced, so that the player had a good chance of having to send his hearthlings away from town a small way to the source.

(and while we’re discussing ores, a pet peeve of mine - copper ore isn’t rock with lovely orange stuff in it, copper ore is GREEN! The whole idea of smelting is you’re starting out with copper bonded to oxygen in an ore, then ripping that oxygen away with high temperature and carbon monoxide to leave the pure metal behind!)

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I really this this idea, too! So I may have done this. :smiley:

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Awesome! :cat:

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I agree, the problem is I wouldn’t like to damage the terrain so much. I we’re trying to mirror real life, pit excavations are heavily damaging to the environment and I would prefer not to engage my Lings in creating them (ugly holes in the ground pretty much defeat the purpose of building an elaborate palace next to them). Being able to purchase tons of clay cheaply seems an optimal solution for me.

As a chemist-to-be: this is not true. If we wanted to include realistic ores they should yield more than one metal each. The most abundant copper ore is chalcopyrite which also contains iron and is brown, another important copper-iron ore is bornite which ranges from black to brown depending on composition. Another class of copper ores are its sulphides (chalcocite, covellite, digenite) which are all black. A mineral which is indeed green and contains copper is malachite (a pretty one, looks like the surface of Jupiter but deep green), which is copper carbonate hydroxide, but it is not used in metallurgy because copper yield from smelting it is relatively low so it makes more sense to use it as a pigment. Among all options copper ore representing native copper seems a good choice, it is relatively rare but very easy to distinguish (a problem here is it is often found together with native silver). It is also worth noting that native copper was the first source of copper ever smelted and smelting oxidised copper ores is a relatively new process because it involves much more modern chemistry knowledge. While I often have objections to some development decisions I think the current solution is actually the best one possible.

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In this instance, I have to ask how strip mining an area to follow a vein is better then? Yes, a pit is ugly, but at least it’s contained. On top of that, it’d give you an area to create an industrial area, making it more of a city.

I don’t remember writing I think veins are better (probably because I don’t think so :wink: ).

You can always count for an unorthodox idea from me and I have one. In the Anno series there are non-renewable resources mined in huge quantities but the terrain is not damaged because mining spots are represented by objects which can be exploited (i.e. they resources come from mining spots, not from the terrain). A clay pit being an object which Lings can mine infinitely (in Anno 1404 the sources deplete over time and can be renewed for money, which is interpreted as hiring a geologist to find new veins) may be not very realistic but completely solves the problem of unintended terraforming for the sake of obtaining resources.

That being written, if I modded a clay pit as a workshop and added an ingredient-less recipe producing clay mound we could have an infinite clay pit without any major changes. Sadly this would limit the pit’s functionality to a specific crafter class (Potter makes sense).

I just got some K -BOMBS dropped on me!

In regards to ore I just don’t like the fact video games constantly re-enforce all of these tropey things surrounding resources and crafting.

My idea for clay chunks/veins shouldn’t result in HUGE pits around the place, if the yield of clay-to-voxel was a good ration. You’d end up with a nice sized pit just like Anno. And if you didn’t like open pits you could always just have an underground mine instead.

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Well, it would at least limit it to Crafting classes; you could add the recipe to every crafting class, after all.

I don’t see the big deal with digging for it. If you don’t want to visibly deform the landscape then dig underground. Really the ‘drop rate’ is just WAY too low.

I do love the idea of infinite or renewing clay resource nodes. Trees are renewable once you get a couple fields of them growing. Some mechanic to create a renewable clay source would be sweet.

Really not into all the ‘lets make it like the real world’ ideas. Games always walk a line between realistic and fun. Making me hunt all over for clay veins or in specific locations like near water is just annoying. It’s not like gold where you don’t need a lot of it. It’s the staple resource for RC; it needs to be easy to find, easy to obtain, and renewable just like trees.

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Geomancer.

I know it’s not in the game or anywhere near, but what if we did have “pits” for the beginning, and then late-game, she can “generate” chunks of clay out of wood (alchemy). Sorry, but I really like the idea of pits, as it would make an industrial area for my town.

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I think it’ll be easier to make mining pits once the digging stair tool is (possibly!) implemented.

You could still continue to dig underground if you liked, if the system changed as I suggested. It’s just players could ALSO opt to dig open clay pits like real life. May as well say “why chop trees like real life?” or “why require food for your hearthlings?”

If clay nodes are spaced reliably and detectable from the surface then they’re an identifiable and exploitable resource, just like trees. Just… without the endless strip mining of dirt.

+1 for renewable termite mounds.

I knew someone would say ‘well why do anything like real life!’… Like I said; it’s a balance. A balance between simulating real life yet still having fun… a balance between gathering a staple resource like wood vs clay. Right now gathering wood is stupid easy and clay is a chore.

I’m not saying ‘don’t make anything simulate real life because that’s boring!’… I’m saying make gathering clay just as easy as wood, make it less of an exercise in micromanagement, and if it happens to also be more ‘realistic’ then cool however that’s not a high priority.

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