Mining and Legions

Makarios

You may now only have two mines active at a time (this is probably temporary, but until things calm down).

There will be a bunch more lodes now.

Mizik

I just want mizikinite to be a thing.

Makaela

@sarapis @tecton When will we know who discovered which rare minerals first?  Since some have already been discovered/eaten etc.  Also will Help mining reflect the names of the discovered ones?

Jacen

The problem is that the system needs to be inprofitable for all but a few, not inaccessible to all but a few,  and jumping from inprofitable to profitable needs to be a matter of skill, not a matter of "Were you logged in at Serenade July 16, 2015?"

Melodie

Makaela said:

@sarapis @tecton When will we know who discovered which rare minerals first?  Since some have already been discovered/eaten etc.  Also will Help mining reflect the names of the discovered ones?

Latest announce for all but three of them!

Halos

ANNOUNCE NEWS #4383                                     (07/17/2015 at 18:35) 
From   : Sarapis, the Logos
To     : Everyone
Subject: New minerals!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I'm pleased to announce that 13 of the 16 rare minerals have been discovered and officially named!

Most of these are meant to be eaten, and have an effect that lasts for an hour.

Xerthyst: Gives health regen of 10% every five seconds.
Makaelicite: Gives mana regen of 10% every five seconds.
Telendrium: Gives endurance regen of 3% every 5 seconds.
Valenticite: +2 str
Laytronite: +2 dex
Azelhurium: +2 con
Shunsten: +30% rage gain
Melodar: 1/5 chance of every balance being only half as long.
Silathyst: Will level up a squad of miners. Permanent.
Qwindorium: Will level up a squad of soldiers. Permanent.
Profithyst: 40% extra xp for an hour.
Ahmetite: 40% extra gold from bashing for an hour (if you get the final hit).
Draekinite: Increases the time before your Rage disappears by 6 seconds.


Congrats to those who go down in history, and remember, there are still three minerals yet to be named.

Siduri

Makarios said:

You may now only have two mines active at a time (this is probably temporary, but until things calm down).

There will be a bunch more lodes now.

What of those who currently own 5+ mines? We're essentially giving them the chance to build an undefeatable army while the rest are unable to secure more mines to level up.

Tesha

Their army will suffer losses as they continue attacking, as I understand from one of @Sarapis 's answers to my early questions seen here:

Sarapis said:

Tesha said:

Oh, that's neat. The 20-30 was just a guess. I like how if you claim less often the rewards pile up, but it gets riskier. I look forward to trying to figure it out! At first glance it seems really intimidating and it feels like if you don't start right now you'll have a nightmare getting started later when other people have super strong legions, but maybe not, since you only lose comms and some of your workers. 

I don't think so, because there is inevitable attrition with legions if they're used for defense or attack, but we'll see.

Siduri

Tesha said:

Their army will suffer losses as they continue attacking, as I understand from one of @Sarapis 's answers to my early questions seen here:

Sarapis said:

Tesha said:

Oh, that's neat. The 20-30 was just a guess. I like how if you claim less often the rewards pile up, but it gets riskier. I look forward to trying to figure it out! At first glance it seems really intimidating and it feels like if you don't start right now you'll have a nightmare getting started later when other people have super strong legions, but maybe not, since you only lose comms and some of your workers. 

I don't think so, because there is inevitable attrition with legions if they're used for defense or attack, but we'll see.

While true, having 5+ mines mean that they recover from this attrition to a much higher pace (especially since you can't use level 1 warriors to do any attrition on them)

Inuad

Siduri said:

Makarios said:

You may now only have two mines active at a time (this is probably temporary, but until things calm down).

There will be a bunch more lodes now.

What of those who currently own 5+ mines? We're essentially giving them the chance to build an undefeatable army while the rest are unable to secure more mines to level up.

The current system seems to suggest that experience is gained by miners as they produce commodities, who then share experience with other units in the mine. If you have 5+ mines, the distribution of miners would likely mean that experience is gained more slowly.

Amranu

I mined out a massive load with a large mine, none of my units levelled up. So it seems you need to get additional mines afterwards.

Tesha

Can we make mines require some hp/mana to enter? Just had someone enter one to escape.

Silas

I think people are underestimating how quickly mines are being depleted when complaining about mining being inaccessible. I had one mine depleted within about 12 hours of mining going in, and I haven't constructed anything bigger than a medium mine. This will leave everybody in the same boat very soon, while we all wait and hunt for new lode spawns.

Squads also seem to level up pretty slowly (my squads are all still lvl 1), so there are no huge gains being made by the people who got there first.

Give it time, people - it's a really cool new system that everybody will be able to play with.

ETA: Can we add 'carbon' to the list of keywords for graphite to make interacting with it more consistent?

Tharvis

It'd be nice though, if it was actually documented somewhere how the level up minerals work.

Giving them to a squad does nothing, and eating them does nothing and consumes it. @Makarios @Sarapis any chance for an actual "this is how you use the level up minerals without wasting them!" to be added to the mining scroll? >.>

Ahmet

Can we get squads to not show up on LOYALS? So much spam

Tael

I just want to say that I absolutely love the names created for the minerals.

You guys did an awesome job incorporating the character names while keeping them sounding mineral-y and there's some variety in them to boot.

Stuff like this that ensconces characters and achievements into the world and the game's mechanics makes me really happy.

Makaela

Tesha said:

Can we make mines require some hp/mana to enter? Just had someone enter one to escape.

I assumed this was the case.  However you are correct and it is not, most likely an oversight that will soon be corrected.

Thank you @melodie and @Halos for the update

Draekar

I agree with @silas that it will level out over time.

One thing I am not sure if others have noticed. I can refine with no coal in my rift but if I have coal in my rift it is depleted. I now have no coal in my rift just from refining stone and iron! This was quite unexpected and pretty annoying.

Makaela

@Draekar are you saying there is a bug that allows people to refine wothout actually having coal in hand/rifted?

Silas

Tael said:

I just want to say that I absolutely love the names created for the minerals.

You guys did an awesome job incorporating the character names while keeping them sounding mineral-y and there's some variety in them to boot.

Stuff like this that ensconces characters and achievements into the world and the game's mechanics makes me really happy.

Totally agreed (though silasium sounds much cooler). Letting players make their own little mark on the game world like this is a huge thing for player engagement, and it costs nothing.

There have been lots of really cool changes lately, with battlerage, bashing changes re: gold/xp/essence, mining, the tradeskill split, and various other system additions and updates and small quality of life changes that have just made the game that much more fun. It's really impressive to see, and the amount of work put in by @Sarapis, @Tecton, @Makarios, @Mortori, et al has really livened up the game world from a mechanical perspective.

Some really top notch stuff. Cheers, guys.

Melodie

Melodium also sounds much cooler, but is probably less scientifically accurate. Hrrnggh.

Disappearing gemstone, tweaks and Trade Minister stress aside, the system does seem really interesting so far. The fact prospecting won't be a thing anymore makes it 10x better already. If we could shift the initial iron cost to... stone or something, I'd probably be pretty damn satisfied (especially as things begin to smooth out).

Thanks for all the hard work lately!

Makarios

Yeah, everything in the mining system will check your inventory then your rift. We try to do this with newer stuff because it just saves typing.

APPLY <mineral> TO <squadid>

Carbon added as an alias for graphite.

Makaela

I like how they used my name!  I was sitting here for hours going gods there is no way to make it work! But you managed it!  

@Makarios neat! 

Melodie

Sarapis said:

Changes likely to be made: 

• Getting rid of prospecting. Probably just go to a mining camp and check what lodes of a particular raw comm type are within its radius.
  
• Going to, as a temporary measure only, limit the # of mines someone can have to two. Eventually it won't matter, because if you open a lot of mines you won't be able to sufficiently guard them, but for now, not enough people can attack a mine so it's too easy to just have lots of mines. Then going to reseed the world with lodes.
  

I should note though guys that the intention of this system is absolutely NOT to provide mining opportunities for anyone who wants it. That would lead to flooding the world with comms. The system is rate limited intentionally, and not just by how quickly you go through lodes. If you go through all the lodes of something very quickly, there'll be no more lodes of that type generated for awhile, until the system determines it's time to populate again. The idea is to create, over time, a rough average maximum output for each comm, so that we know roughly how much, at max, of a comm is being produced (just like with the village comm system).

Also, before I forget:

If prospecting is going away, it would be nice to have some way to figure out the following, preferably without a gold cost:

There is a medium carbon mine here on a huge lode that you'd guess is approximately 40% mined out.

Mostly, a way to know the kind of mine on the kind of lode, and how mined out it is. Its useful (especially if its your mine!)

Draekar

Makaela said:

@Draekar are you saying there is a bug that allows people to refine wothout actually having coal in hand/rifted?

you know... I am stupid. Ignore me. I worked out what was wrong

Tael

Makarios said:

Yeah, everything in the mining system will check your inventory then your rift. We try to do this with newer stuff because it just saves typing.

APPLY <mineral> TO <squadid>

Carbon added as an alias for graphite.

So uh - could we get that same functionality with EAT then (and APPLY for sileris)?

Sarapis

Siduri said:

Tesha said:

Their army will suffer losses as they continue attacking, as I understand from one of @Sarapis 's answers to my early questions seen here:

Sarapis said:

Tesha said:

Oh, that's neat. The 20-30 was just a guess. I like how if you claim less often the rewards pile up, but it gets riskier. I look forward to trying to figure it out! At first glance it seems really intimidating and it feels like if you don't start right now you'll have a nightmare getting started later when other people have super strong legions, but maybe not, since you only lose comms and some of your workers. 

I don't think so, because there is inevitable attrition with legions if they're used for defense or attack, but we'll see.

While true, having 5+ mines mean that they recover from this attrition to a much higher pace (especially since you can't use level 1 warriors to do any attrition on them)

Having five mines doesn't help you level up your soldiers any faster than having a couple big mines does (unless there's a bug that's letting people have more than 1000 soldiers in their Legion...50 full squads) does. The most efficient way to level up your guys is to stuff a big mine full of half them, half miners, on a big lode, and you can only do that twice before you've basically run out of squad space.

Makarios

@Tael: potentially, but its more complicated by the fact that their are combat implications in those cases. Currently we don't do the outrift checks on the mining/legion stuff just because there aren't any implications there and it is more efficient not to.

Something to discuss another time though.

Siduri

Melodie said:

Sarapis said:

Changes likely to be made: 

• Getting rid of prospecting. Probably just go to a mining camp and check what lodes of a particular raw comm type are within its radius.
  
• Going to, as a temporary measure only, limit the # of mines someone can have to two. Eventually it won't matter, because if you open a lot of mines you won't be able to sufficiently guard them, but for now, not enough people can attack a mine so it's too easy to just have lots of mines. Then going to reseed the world with lodes.
  

I should note though guys that the intention of this system is absolutely NOT to provide mining opportunities for anyone who wants it. That would lead to flooding the world with comms. The system is rate limited intentionally, and not just by how quickly you go through lodes. If you go through all the lodes of something very quickly, there'll be no more lodes of that type generated for awhile, until the system determines it's time to populate again. The idea is to create, over time, a rough average maximum output for each comm, so that we know roughly how much, at max, of a comm is being produced (just like with the village comm system).

Also, before I forget:

If prospecting is going away, it would be nice to have some way to figure out the following, preferably without a gold cost:

There is a medium carbon mine here on a huge lode that you'd guess is approximately 40% mined out.

Mostly, a way to know the kind of mine on the kind of lode, and how mined out it is. Its useful (especially if its your mine!)

Maybe integrate it into SURVEY

Siduri

Sarapis said:

Siduri said:

Tesha said:

Their army will suffer losses as they continue attacking, as I understand from one of @Sarapis 's answers to my early questions seen here:

Sarapis said:

Tesha said:

Oh, that's neat. The 20-30 was just a guess. I like how if you claim less often the rewards pile up, but it gets riskier. I look forward to trying to figure it out! At first glance it seems really intimidating and it feels like if you don't start right now you'll have a nightmare getting started later when other people have super strong legions, but maybe not, since you only lose comms and some of your workers. 

I don't think so, because there is inevitable attrition with legions if they're used for defense or attack, but we'll see.

While true, having 5+ mines mean that they recover from this attrition to a much higher pace (especially since you can't use level 1 warriors to do any attrition on them)

Having five mines doesn't help you level up your soldiers any faster than having a couple big mines does (unless there's a bug that's letting people have more than 1000 soldiers in their Legion...50 full squads) does. The most efficient way to level up your guys is to stuff a big mine full of half them, half miners, on a big lode, and you can only do that twice before you've basically run out of squad space.

Does this confirm that troops garrisoned in a stronghold do not gain levels?