Obsidian and Orb of Confinement

Let me begin by saying I'm not that experienced with mining and this is just my potentially very flawed understanding. With that said, I've been looking into the orb of confinement city improvement for Targossas for a long time now, and it seems like the obsidian upkeep requirement is rather high relative to the spawning of obsidian lodes. From what I understand about mining, lodes only spawn when the commodities are used. So if the majority of the obsidian is mostly sitting in people's inventories, lodes will only spawn at the rate that enchantment goes through obsidian. Even if you get a majority of the obsidian lodes, I think the obsidian upkeep is a bit too high. I love the idea of a city being restrained by what commodities they can bring in, but with the numbers I've been given, it's too close to unsustainable. Am I totally wrong about this or can the orb of confinement use some adjustment in terms of upkeep price?

 i'm a rebel

«1

Comments

  • Lode generation has absolutely nothing to do with when comms are used.
  • Didn't you say before that lode are generated based on the total commodity type available globally?




    Penwize has cowardly forfeited the challenge to mortal combat issued by Atalkez.
  • @Sarapis Would you be able to say if the rate of obsidian lode spawning is okay, or if it could use a little nudge? From what I have heard it's too rare to sustain obsidian income vs upkeep cost.

     i'm a rebel

  • Just start tracking it. It's so predictable that you will eventually just have to fight Grandue/Josoul for rare lodes.
  • edited February 2016
    Tesha said:
    @Sarapis Would you be able to say if the rate of obsidian lode spawning is okay, or if it could use a little nudge? From what I have heard it's too rare to sustain obsidian income vs upkeep cost.
    There is enough obsidian spawned annually to supply all cities with enough obsidian to support both a scimitar and orb and still have have about 25% of the annual supply left over for enchantments and such.
  • edited February 2016
    Obsidian doesn't seem an issue to me, as long as you're buying it when lodes are around not waiting till you desperately need it. Silver is a bigger problem, with Josoul and Grandue getting from what I've seen almost 100% of it over the last few weeks, and setting the market on their own.

    I guess it depends whether they're using scripts, tracking and manipulating the timing to get these lodes or whether they're just trawling for them constantly as to whether that should be okay or not.

  • I can tell you it's not a persistent search effort, it's a predictable spawning system.
  • Then I think something needs to be done about that, as it's a bit annoying that someone can use that to manipulate getting all of one commodity and control the entire market.

  • Sarapis has already said in the other mining thread that they'll be changing the randomness of spawns, so seems like they're aware of the issues.
  • Valkyn said:
    Then I think something needs to be done about that, as it's a bit annoying that someone can use that to manipulate getting all of one commodity and control the entire market.
    Or, you know, you could do something crazy like form your own mining conglomerate and keep detailed reports on the natural spawning time and location of certain commodities for 10+ IG years in order to figure out the natural rhythm. And then, ya know, maybe work with a handful of people over the next almost 20 years to get to the point where you've cornered out the other mining groups on a couple of commodities and can start to raise the market price to a point where it is decently profitable. And it is crazy, I know, but do all of that while paying a group of people to train troops to be your assaulting wing and pay another group to be your priority mining wing. But you would probably have to do something absolutely insane like buying out other miners so you can effectively keep your profit margins where you've set them and prevent others from undercutting you and lowering the market price. Though, such a mastermind plan like this would make it necessary for you to track other miners whereabouts and when you suspect a lode is about to spawn send your employed people to engage these contacts in important discussion/business or jump them if they're infamous/mark so that they'll be distracted while you locate your target lode and construct your mine. However, all of this would require to you write contracts with business partners and set up systems to spread profits evenly across those working with you so that no one gets stingy and decides to break off from the group and start their own thing with the information you spent years figuring out, and likely force you to find partners who live on the opposite side of the globe who are awake while you sleep so that there is someone there to grab those spawns that occur in the middle of the night. You would probably have to continue to help other people find certain lodes and seek to legitimately make other people happy or else they'll grow to hate you and assault your mines out of greed/spite/jealousy while also offering cities discounts on bulk transactions so that they don't declare an all out war on your whole operation you've invested hundreds and hundreds of hours and tens of millions of gold building. Surely something like that would be an absolutely massive undertaking and roleplaying gold mine (pun intended), but I'm sure no one has ever done anything even remotely resembling that...

    OR we could just change the spawn code to destroy all of the above work someone may have done and prevent something like that from ever happening in the future. I mean, god forbid you actually be forced to plan and work with other people and invest time and gold to prevent someone who is determined and comes up with a plan like that from actually succeeding. Sarapis said in the very beginning that stuff like that could happen and make some people rich and others would lose their ass trying... when it actually happens people lose their minds *g*
  • Yeah. Predictable spawning system is just no bueno. Do the rest, sure, but knowing the exact minute a rare commodity is going to spawn takes allllllllllll of the fun out of it
  • Grandue said:
    Valkyn said:
    Then I think something needs to be done about that, as it's a bit annoying that someone can use that to manipulate getting all of one commodity and control the entire market.
    Or, you know, you could do something crazy like form your own mining conglomerate and keep detailed reports on the natural spawning time and location of certain commodities for 10+ IG years in order to figure out the natural rhythm. And then, ya know, maybe work with a handful of people over the next almost 20 years to get to the point where you've cornered out the other mining groups on a couple of commodities and can start to raise the market price to a point where it is decently profitable. And it is crazy, I know, but do all of that while paying a group of people to train troops to be your assaulting wing and pay another group to be your priority mining wing. But you would probably have to do something absolutely insane like buying out other miners so you can effectively keep your profit margins where you've set them and prevent others from undercutting you and lowering the market price. Though, such a mastermind plan like this would make it necessary for you to track other miners whereabouts and when you suspect a lode is about to spawn send your employed people to engage these contacts in important discussion/business or jump them if they're infamous/mark so that they'll be distracted while you locate your target lode and construct your mine. However, all of this would require to you write contracts with business partners and set up systems to spread profits evenly across those working with you so that no one gets stingy and decides to break off from the group and start their own thing with the information you spent years figuring out, and likely force you to find partners who live on the opposite side of the globe who are awake while you sleep so that there is someone there to grab those spawns that occur in the middle of the night. You would probably have to continue to help other people find certain lodes and seek to legitimately make other people happy or else they'll grow to hate you and assault your mines out of greed/spite/jealousy while also offering cities discounts on bulk transactions so that they don't declare an all out war on your whole operation you've invested hundreds and hundreds of hours and tens of millions of gold building. Surely something like that would be an absolutely massive undertaking and roleplaying gold mine (pun intended), but I'm sure no one has ever done anything even remotely resembling that...

    OR we could just change the spawn code to destroy all of the above work someone may have done and prevent something like that from ever happening in the future. I mean, god forbid you actually be forced to plan and work with other people and invest time and gold to prevent someone who is determined and comes up with a plan like that from actually succeeding. Sarapis said in the very beginning that stuff like that could happen and make some people rich and others would lose their ass trying... when it actually happens people lose their minds *g*
          

  • SkyeSkye The Duchess Bellatere
    edited February 2016
    I'm not sure what it is about that hotdog but...



  • So... what I take away from this is there's plenty of obsidian spawning and getting an orb of confinement is not impossible, right? Woohoo!

     i'm a rebel

  • @Tesha you can get a feel by looking at how the mines change and such. If you ask Greys, he would likely give you some insight as to how fast obsidian mines.
  • @Sarapis I don't think people will catch on that fast. So many people are still mining for a loss and placing illogical mines. I just gotta wait for them to run out of gold heh. 

    On a related note, is there any reason the Delos commshop doesn't take down offers after an Achaean year?
  • On a related note, can we please get the prospector's guidebook as a general artie? Those who weren't lucky enough to get one in stockings are at a pretty decent disadvantage in mining to those who were, and it wasn't even something you could buy off someone who didn't want it. I went through so many stockings but nothing.

  • Greys said:
    @Sarapis I don't think people will catch on that fast. So many people are still mining for a loss and placing illogical mines. I just gotta wait for them to run out of gold heh. 

    On a related note, is there any reason the Delos commshop doesn't take down offers after an Achaean year?
    Some of us mine non-profit for city improvement maintenance too. :)
    image
  • Grandue said:
    Valkyn said:
    Then I think something needs to be done about that, as it's a bit annoying that someone can use that to manipulate getting all of one commodity and control the entire market.
    Or, you know, you could do something crazy like form your own mining conglomerate and keep detailed reports on the natural spawning time and location of certain commodities for 10+ IG years in order to figure out the natural rhythm. And then, ya know, maybe work with a handful of people over the next almost 20 years to get to the point where you've cornered out the other mining groups on a couple of commodities and can start to raise the market price to a point where it is decently profitable. And it is crazy, I know, but do all of that while paying a group of people to train troops to be your assaulting wing and pay another group to be your priority mining wing. But you would probably have to do something absolutely insane like buying out other miners so you can effectively keep your profit margins where you've set them and prevent others from undercutting you and lowering the market price. Though, such a mastermind plan like this would make it necessary for you to track other miners whereabouts and when you suspect a lode is about to spawn send your employed people to engage these contacts in important discussion/business or jump them if they're infamous/mark so that they'll be distracted while you locate your target lode and construct your mine. However, all of this would require to you write contracts with business partners and set up systems to spread profits evenly across those working with you so that no one gets stingy and decides to break off from the group and start their own thing with the information you spent years figuring out, and likely force you to find partners who live on the opposite side of the globe who are awake while you sleep so that there is someone there to grab those spawns that occur in the middle of the night. You would probably have to continue to help other people find certain lodes and seek to legitimately make other people happy or else they'll grow to hate you and assault your mines out of greed/spite/jealousy while also offering cities discounts on bulk transactions so that they don't declare an all out war on your whole operation you've invested hundreds and hundreds of hours and tens of millions of gold building. Surely something like that would be an absolutely massive undertaking and roleplaying gold mine (pun intended), but I'm sure no one has ever done anything even remotely resembling that...

    OR we could just change the spawn code to destroy all of the above work someone may have done and prevent something like that from ever happening in the future. I mean, god forbid you actually be forced to plan and work with other people and invest time and gold to prevent someone who is determined and comes up with a plan like that from actually succeeding. Sarapis said in the very beginning that stuff like that could happen and make some people rich and others would lose their ass trying... when it actually happens people lose their minds *g*
    I feel like a lot of that stuff would still provide a pretty huge advantage independent of the randomness of spawn times.

    And once everyone figures out the spawn times, you won't be able to hire someone to distract them during the node spawns anyway.

    Although I do wonder whether it might be possible make the spawns periodically randomised rather than just more random in general - keep the current system, but basically reparametrise it every few months or something.
  • Rangor said:
    Greys said:
    @Sarapis I don't think people will catch on that fast. So many people are still mining for a loss and placing illogical mines. I just gotta wait for them to run out of gold heh. 

    On a related note, is there any reason the Delos commshop doesn't take down offers after an Achaean year?
    Some of us mine non-profit for city improvement maintenance too. :)
    I don't think you understand what he is saying. He is saying people are mining in such a way that they are actually losing money (cost to produce commodity is greater than what you are selling it for. If you're intentionally mining in such a way that you're spending more gold pulling the commodities out of the ground than if you had just bought them off the Delos Market you should be fired. 


  • AhmetAhmet Wherever I wanna be
    Grandue said:
    Rangor said:
    Greys said:
    @Sarapis I don't think people will catch on that fast. So many people are still mining for a loss and placing illogical mines. I just gotta wait for them to run out of gold heh. 

    On a related note, is there any reason the Delos commshop doesn't take down offers after an Achaean year?
    Some of us mine non-profit for city improvement maintenance too. :)
    I don't think you understand what he is saying. He is saying people are mining in such a way that they are actually losing money (cost to produce commodity is greater than what you are selling it for. If you're intentionally mining in such a way that you're spending more gold pulling the commodities out of the ground than if you had just bought them off the Delos Market you should be fired. 


    Some people are losing money on small mines like coal and stone to level up legions, so that they can defend their more valuable mines down the road (or so their logic goes)
    Huh. Neat.
  • MelodieMelodie Port Saint Lucie, Florida
    Some people, sure. But as Skye posted about in the other thread, there are a lot of people who sell at a loss just to cover (some of) their expenses. It's understandable when you're new and getting yourself trained up, but when you continue it for basically forever, it's extremely frustrating.
    And I love too                                                                          Be still, my indelible friend
    That love soon might end                                                         You are unbreaking
    And be known in its aching                                                      Though quaking
    Shown in this shaking                                                             Though crazy
    Lately of my wasteland, baby                                                 That's just wasteland, baby
  • SkyeSkye The Duchess Bellatere
    edited February 2016
    Sarapis said:
    Lode generation has absolutely nothing to do with when comms are used.
    Not gonna lie, this is actually one of my biggest disappointments with the mining and commodities system. :(

    @Melodie remember that what'shisname who drove the price of obsidian down by selling his own product in batches of 100 at decreasing prices? Yah don't forget there are people who will do stupid things like that too.


  • MelodieMelodie Port Saint Lucie, Florida
    Skye said:
    Sarapis said:
    Lode generation has absolutely nothing to do with when comms are used.
    Not gonna lie, this is actually one of my biggest disappointments with the mining and commodities system. :(

    @Melodie remember that what'shisname who drove the price of obsidian down by selling his own product in batches of 100 at decreasing prices? Yah don't forget there are people who will do stupid things like that too.
    Oh my god that made me so mad. The lack of logic on that just absolutely ruined the obsidian market forever. It still never really recovered. They did it with other commodities too, like stone and a few others, but it alllll started with the obsidian. :(
    And I love too                                                                          Be still, my indelible friend
    That love soon might end                                                         You are unbreaking
    And be known in its aching                                                      Though quaking
    Shown in this shaking                                                             Though crazy
    Lately of my wasteland, baby                                                 That's just wasteland, baby
  • Taeltwo said:
    Grandue said:
    Valkyn said:
    Then I think something needs to be done about that, as it's a bit annoying that someone can use that to manipulate getting all of one commodity and control the entire market.

    I feel like a lot of that stuff would still provide a pretty huge advantage independent of the randomness of spawn times.

    And once everyone figures out the spawn times, you won't be able to hire someone to distract them during the node spawns anyway.

    Although I do wonder whether it might be possible make the spawns periodically randomised rather than just more random in general - keep the current system, but basically reparametrise it every few months or something.

    It could, though I wouldn't do it anymore. Not worth it. The whole point of there being a high possibility that you could control a commodity (which for the record is only being done on two commodities) is so you can dictate the market price to ensure it is a profitable venture. There are currently more commodities being mined than commodities being used, by a LOT. This means that even if you mine in the most efficient way you would have to sell at a loss on some commodities because people sit around with 10k raw commodities that aren't selling (because there isn't a demand for it) and they need the gold to float their next mine so they lower the price in hopes to sell quick. If you have 10 different people doing that constantly it keeps going down and down and down until the point that it is impossible to mine that commodity and break even at the end. 


    Take silver for instance. I'm not going to give you real numbers for proprietary reasons, but look at it like this:


    A large silver mine produces 4K silverore and costs 400k gold to operate (construction price + upkeep). This would mean that to break even you have to sell silverore at 100g. However, let's say there is 30k silver mined annually but only 20k of that silver is used annually. This means that someone is going to not sell their silver that year. That extra 10k silverore cost a million gold to mine, which means people are going to try to at least cover some of their losses, so they'll sell at a loss in order to recoup some of their gold, this pattern continues until it is literally impossibly to mine silver profitably because every year there is a 10k surplus that will be sold at a loss in order to stay afloat. You see this happening with ice and gold. 


    However, if a single mining group is able to mine all of the silver they can set an agreed upon price that will make it profitable, but that price cant actually be 101g before they start turning a profit. Here is why, they are mining 30k silver, but only 20k of it will ever sell, so they are spending 3 million gold to sell 20k silver, this means silver has to sell at 150g just to break even in order for the economy to remain stable. Because silver takes so long to mine it has to sell at an even higher price in order for it to bring in an hourly revenue equal to what you would have made had you just mined an easy commodity like coal. Let us say coal sold at 15g per brings in a profit of 2k gold for every hour you mined it, for silver to bring in the same amount of gold/hr it would have to sell at 200g each. But that only puts it on equal ground with coal which doesn't make it worth the risk of having a mine that could be assaulted and you lose so much gold, it would be better to mine coal and sell it at 15g than it would to mine silver and sell it at 200g, especially when you factor in that coal lodes produce much more rare minerals. In order to silver to be worth the added risk it would have to sell at a price that would bring in 3k gold/hr. Which would raise the price it would have to sell at to 250g or whatever it works out to. It is literally the only way to run a successful mining operation. Currently there are lots of people who are just hoarding their commodities in hopes the market eventually changes and they'll be able to sell at a more profitable rate, however there are too many commodities being mined for that ever to be a reality without mining operations like ours to restrict the flow of commodities into the market so the price can rise to the point where people can sell at a profit. 


    The answer isn't to make mining spawns completely unpredictable, the answer is to lower the amount of commodities mined every year to be close to the amount of commodities used every year (or even lower than the commodities used for a little while in order to eat up some of the surplus commodities sitting on the market and in people's rifts). How many people claim to have figured out the spawns? It is nowhere near as easy of a task as you may think, and even if you figure out the main chunk of it it still requires constant observation because there are things that change it from the normal pattern. Let people figure it out, there will be planned rushes for commodities similar to the real life gold rush in the west. There will be more coordinated assaults, there will be more deals struck and contracts written between mining communities in order to keep the economy stable. Let people put in the work and RP necessary to get to the top instead of cutting the legs out from under those who have. It will still be fun when others put in the work and figure out the spawn rhythm, more fun I think. It will open up avenues for RP that don't currently exist and will make it a rush and more coordinated effort to get the spawns as they pop up. 


    There are people who feel entitled to get these more profitable mines without putting in even 1/1000th of the time, effort, or gold that some groups have. They don't realize that the second other people start grabbing these lodes is the moment these commodities are no longer the more profitable mines. It just doesn't work the way they think it does. Do you know how much ice is on the market? Over 40k ice.... This doesn't include what is sitting  in people's rifts. How much ice do cities use each year? None. There is over 120k bone on the market. How much bone do cities use? Combined, all of the cities together use 12k bone annually. There is ten years worth of surplus bone on the market... ten years worth... for ALL of the cities. Lol. Imagine if 20 different people held all of that bone, you would see a price war that would drive it to the point where bone would be the most unprofitable commodity to mine. Im hoping all of this doesn't fall on deaf ears. Seriously, just a single massive lode being taken by someone outside of the mining group controlling that specific commodity results in a massive loss and a big drop in price. Been watching it for almost 20 years. 


    People whine because Grandue and Josoul "always" get the most profitable comms but don't understand that those comms are only the most profitable comms because Grandue and Josoul always get them. Look at obsidian, ice, carbon, stone, iron, etc. They're all shitty things to mine because less than half of the yield is used annually and three dozen people are undercutting each other trying to squeeze some kind of gold out of the market. Platinum used to be a loss, so was gems and gold. They're just now becoming profitable to mine and the only reason is because we're helping someone else control them and we're intentionally not flooding the market with the tens of thousands of those commodities that we have stored up. This system only works when it is done properly and the way it is done properly is the way we're doing it. Anyone can make it to the top, earn your stars and stripes like everyone else. Put in the work, put in the money, be intelligent and make wise decisions and you'll get there. 

  • All I know is I can't master the descriptors I want to because you people are mean. :(
  • edited February 2016
    Yeah. Raising the silver price to 300g does not justify anything you've said. If it were at say 200g, which by your own admission is more than profitable, I wouldn't be complaining as much, but cities use a lot of silver and you're cutting into a huge portion of the city budget each year just so you can keep raising the price, and the price has been going up up up. If you'd kept it reasonable, people probably would have stayed quiet, but you've gotten greedy in letting it keep rising.

    To take a mine off you I'd have to attack it and lose probably half my combat squads, squads that have taken 8 years to train. That's not reasonable.

  • I haven't even read this thread, however back off my obsidian. MINE MINE MINE. 

Sign In or Register to comment.