From what I read on the one of the most recent posts by Tiy, a design problem was that players would just spawn on a planet, and then grind and toil for little reward. additionally, the goal was so that players would want to come back to a single mine, and get rewarded for their digging. Why not make large ore veins a thing? this would incentivize making a single mine, and allow players to maneuver around underground for ores without desecrating the planet. Distribution for the ore veins would be sparse, with traces of ores nearing the actual veins. Everyone loves tools, right? To add onto it, why not add in a new early-mid game multitool item: the divining rod. The divining rod allows you to pulse a small slice of the earth anywhere from 100-1000 blocks vertically or horizontally. it would then have a counter that adds up every alloy and displays a frequency of alloys underground (Ore amount: none, sparse, few, numerous, abundant) based on how many it finds. Then you can go ahead and plan your route down to the vein. The divining rod can be upgraded much like the M.M. to detect a larger range and to specify which types of ore are there, whether there are multiple ores, how far down they are, which direction you can scan, and more (maybe even visuals at endgame). maybe the rod can even have a charge or a short cooldown so you cant go down and just scan the entire planet in one swoop. This kind of system would be make it rewarding to explore the planet and since the player is looking for multiple ores, the horizontal feature can help keep a mine going in the right direction, not a random one. the rod can be given a fun name and that nice streamlined yellow tool color to snazz things up. Feedback pls
Yes. This sounds like a pretty good idea for making mining more thematic and not feel like quite a grind-fest. This combined with the upcoming underground ocurrances to keep it fun would make it actually fun.
I was thinking of the addition of an "Orefinder" upgrade to the MM which acts like a flashlight, projecting a cone which penetrates blocks and shows the positions of ores (but not what the ores are), although using this feature would have a constant drain of 30-40 energy per second. That way you don't need to change tools as much. Also, does Starbound generate the entire planet at once, or generate as the player approaches? If its the latter, then a 1000 block distance could be problematic if the player has not explored those areas and generated them.
I think it generates the whole planet at once but I don't know for sure. For the sake of developing this idea further we should run on this idea to make it all fleshed out and bring it to public interest. As for the topic: Having it cost energy would be kind of pointless, since it would regenerate very easily, but instead it could be crafted with materials found in the surface or maybe find it in a generated mine in the starting planet as to discovering new technologies from other races and such. I haven't thought of it in detail but you get where the idea is headed to.
