Okay, this is a bit of a brainstorming on Minecraft modding, specifically about mining. More of a mental exercise than actual modding... but if it was to make a mod it probably would be for MC so I'm putting this here.
Anyway, one thing that rubs me the wrong way, and is maybe the cause of every single player out there relying on automated quarries / frame quarries, is the way Minecraft handles ores. It's also a bit how Dwarf Fortress handles ores (comparisons to real life are mandatory, but this isn't about making the game "realistic"), you make tunnels and tunnels fishing for tiny blocks of ore, until you have such a ridiculous honeycomb or just hollow a 50x50x50 cube trying to get every single speck of it. A "vein" of ore (no such thing in Minecraft tho, unless playing TFC, where it lasts something like an hour of mining, you scoop it up and hope it's enough for a breastplate).
In real life, when someone finds metal ore, they construct a mine that can last for months or years (not talking post-industrial here) and have tons of constant output, until the day it runs dry. I'm not an expert, but it doesn't take hollowing out a cubic mile of terrain to get enough metal to make 20-30 tools.
How would you go around making mining less grindy? I'm thinking veins should be some sort of entity, or like a chest, mining a block doesn't remove it instantly, there's an amount of ore that can be obtained from it gradually. Advanced machines wouldn't involve fishing for ore in an entire chunk, but actually placing it next to an ore block until the entire contents are emptied. This probably would reduce server load compared to making a Quarry kill 9 chunks over a few hours...
Does this sound ok? Is there a reason this wouldn't work? Any other alternatives / suggestions?
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Topic: Minecraft - Mods Thread (Read 984193 times)