A friend and I took different paths under the Mining skill to see how well-balanced it was. He became a geologist and got the perk at level 10 that doubles the chance of geodes, while I got Prospector, which doubles chances of getting coal. That's fine, I suppose, but I can't really tell whether it's even working sometimes. Now, here's where the problem lies: Not only does he get a double chance of geodes, when he does get one, there's a chance he'll get two. When going after Omni Geodes, this can become ludicrously more powerful than the Prospector counterpart could ever hope to be. He claimed to have gotten nearly 40 Omni Geodes just 5 floors into the desert dungeon while I was still struggling to get even half that amount in coal (Not even from overturning coal storages in the the dungeons in addition to mining rocks, mind you). In addition he claimed to able to find up to 3(!!) Omni geodes per rock. Considering what you can find in Omni Geodes, this is really disturbing to me how unbalanced the different paths are for Mining. My suggestion for the Prospector skill is either: triple the chance of finding coal, make the level 5 miner perk give +1 coal per find in addition to its ore bonus, or... I don't know. All I know is that whoever picks the Geologist perk instead of the Miner will be rolling in rare finds, (Including IRIDIUM) and will be benefiting far more than those who picked Miner. tldr: Prospector under Miner is underpowered, doesn't make you nearly as well-off as the geode counterpart under Geologist's tree because the Geologist's perks compound on each other, please buff.
I feel like coal drops are bugged or broken. I also took the prospector perk but If I go into the regular mine I can use up my entire energy bar and not get a single coal drop. I normally farm the soot sprites on floors 55 and 65. Just jumping between those floors until I hear the boing boing sound. Coal is broken right now. Either it is bugged or it is way to low for game balance. I'd get the coal machine but thats 20 wood for one coal which is an entire tree for 1 coal. That also seems broken. Coal should be a lot easier to get. Edit: Also keep in mind that the Prospector perk doesnt give more coal (AFAIK) it gives one more ore per vein you pick. Since there is no coal vein it is mostly useless for coal. Works great for copper, iron and gold. Seems like sometimes it also works for wood logs and stone. (giving 2wood and 2stone instead of 1 of each.) But that might just be the way those drop 2 sometimes?
You're thinking of the Miner ability at level 5. That gives +1 ore per vein. I speak of the level 10 perk, Prospector, which doubles the chance of finding coal.
1000 views on this topic, but no posts? Odd. Maybe I'm mistaken. Either way, if there's that many people that saw this, maybe some other people can give some input?
you can spend some time killing the soot-ball monsters they drop coal pretty often (unless that's changed).
My problem isn't that coal is particularly hard to find. I'm trying to make a point that both paths of the Mining Skill should be worth it. Concerned Ape did a really good job on the other skills for the most part, but somehow this slipped through.
I've suggested a Coal Vein in the community suggestions; http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/list-of-community-suggestions.106985/ I'm at 900, and over half that thread is me. Tell me about the lack of input.
i took miner too because i like metal more than gems, but if i would play it again, i would take geologist. the coal-perk is kinda not worth it i think, if i want coal i slaughter the black monsters in the ice-mine, instead of mining rocks. also i still dont know if miner itself is working (+1 ore), since i still get just 2 ores sometimes...and i have never had a 1 ore vein before overall the miner path is currently not worth it. if miner would double the ore too, then it would be worth it. excavator should increase the chance to get ore from rocks (a lot) the other l10 perk with 25% increased income is fine also the smelting makes miner kinda useless, because you need two ressources and a lot of furnaces to process the ore...while geologist just needs to spend 25g
Good ideas. I would actually want some of the rocks below ground to have the same base chance of dropping coal as the rocks do above ground. Stangely enough, the perk works well enough with the surface rocks. That doesn't change the fact that mining is supposed to happen under ground, and that said rocks typically refuse to drop coal despite the doubled chance of coal.
I recently commented on the general discussion about iridium ore I completely agree that the miner perk is completely useless. I recommended to people to go geoologist for the iridium ore because it is by far the best way to get iridium ore. The iridium ore vien is mid hard to find and the don't give that many ores when you do find them. I suggest to make the miner perk more appealing is to increase the chance for the iridium ore vien to spawn when you choose it instead of double coal which is in my opinion completely useless.
I haven't got to level 10 mining yet but this sounds like a good idea. Implementing this and the ability to re-spec at the same time would be awesome.
I saw that thread, too, and agree with what you say. Omni Geodes typically yield iridum in one load of 10-20 geodes. Not difficult at all for a geologist at level 10 to get that many from Excavator. Good idea to make Prospector increase chance of ore rock spawns. I wouldn't want to be just iridium if we went that way, though. Maybe add a coal ore rock while we're at it if we do that.
Re-spec would be nice and all. Though, I would prefer respecs to be out of curiosity rather than regret, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to regret taking one path rather than another.
That ain't the only underpowered perk, IMO. There's the Fishing Lv10 one, where you can either get +50% from fish, or like +chance to find treasure. Uh.... considering most treasure is worthless (OOOO OOO OOO ONE BAIT!!!! WOW!), but the +50% fish worth is just... woah. If you fish up 3k worth of fish, with the perk you're gonna get 4.5k instead. That's... quite a large jump. How about the Farming Lv10 one? 10% Growth Speed or your artisan goods are worth 50% more? Well, let's see... considering most crops are <10 days, the 10% growth speed does pretty much nothing. The only crops affected by this are crops that take 10-15 days to grow, ancient seeds, etc and even then, at most, it takes off 1-2 days off the growing time. Meanwhile, the other perk, makes you ridiculous money from already high-priced goods. My Gold-Star Cheese/Mayo sells for 225g per item, lol. If I were to fill a deluxe coop with chickens, every other day I'd be getting 2700g instead of 1800. That's not counting the cheese, the tapper trees, the preserves, wine, etc. That stuff adds up fast. Suddenly, that whole "One Day Sooner" thing doesn't seem to matter much.... And even if that 1 day would make a difference (I suppose if you timed it exactly right, you Might get 1 extra harvest out of a specific crop in specific conditions), you're probably STILL better off with the "all crops worth more" perk. I would like a chance to re-spec, though. I took the ore mining one, and now that I'm swimming in iron and gold... and since Iridium Veins never spawn... well... maybe I'd have better luck with more geodes... oh wait, I took the wrong stupid perk, way back when I used to think gold was hard to get. ....../sigh As for Coal..... lol. I have like 200+ coal because of the little black fuzzy guys in the frozen floors. They drop coal like candy.
Well, those are still marginally relevant, I feel. The fishing one is all up to luck with the treasure, but that still means you can find nice things in the boxes... like diamonds. Faster growing does make a difference with fast-gowing plants + SpeedGro, as wheat can come in two days. Doubled chance of coal? Have fun wasting time mining surface rocks...
You might find the occasional 750g diamond... or have a guaranteed 1500+ gold every single day. *shrug* Or, use Advanced Fertilizer and get mostly gold and some silver star plants selling for more? *shrug* But then if you take artisan bundle, grow 60 hops per day in your greenhouse, dump said hops in your kegs, and get 60x450g every day, which is 27,000g. (You'd only be making 18,000 otherwise). The coal is definitely the worst one... though, what's the Lv10 combat one? I haven't gotten Lv10 combat yet. EDIT: Nevermind, wiki was finally updated with that info.
True, if you're really good at fishing, you can use the 50% money bonus to get loads of dough. I'm not so good and I use Treasure Hunter bobs. So, yeah. You can indeed make more money from artisian goods that way. I have friends who prefer that that get an extra harvest, though, while I went with apple kegging.
