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[nunix]

So, I'm expressing some ignorance here on actual mining practices, and am going off the usual phrasing we hear whenever a mine is mentioned: very large deposits of a particular ore, stone, or gem.

Now, at the moment, we can do stone mining, because those are your basic layers (granite, obsidian, salt, etc). Ores and gems are relatively random, however, and small. You can't really have an "iron mine" as much as you might mine out 3-5 veins of it at wildly different coordinate levels (x/y/z).

Are there plans at some point for a different model of ore distribution? I'm sure multi-z veins will come in, but also longer veins, or several veins close together? Something so that you could expect to open an iron mine that would last 5-10 years, as opposed to a season?

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can already simulate this kind of stuff, by making layers out of normal ores. It has several drawbacks currently, though.

And I think something of the kind will be imlemeted at some point. I don't think it is altogeter hard to do, it's just that it isn't in the current dev plan which Toady attempts to precisely follow.

[valcon]

I've always thought that gems, instead of having an entire tile of space, should be embedded in invisible layers throughout ALL tiles, and should have a small percentage chance of being uncovered in the process of mining out the stone.  Seems a lot more realistic and, that way, once you've done some exploratory mining and see that some diamonds or something similar had come out, you could send more to that area to do strip mining or otherwise.

On the other hand, the way it is seems to work out okay, it's just a teeny matter of preference imo.

[Dasleah]

First post. Yay me.

Anyway, I like the idea of being able to find and exploit rich veins of various materials. More realistic and would certainly add more tension and excitement to the game. Imagine this scenario - you've established your Fortress, and after a few not-so-careful Prospectors have lost their lives to various nasties, you find  rich vein of diamonds - however, it's far outside your established defences. Do you build a mine and a mini-fortress around it? Dig a long and slow tunnel out to it? And oh noes! Approaching armies! Do you abandon your Mine or defend it to the last for the precious resources within?

Sounds like fun ^_^

[nunix]

Sean: yeah, ample time in the raw files has shown me how to kludge it with the current system - simply turning most of the veins into clusters would certainly make things a little different - but I'm more curious if this is in the devplan somewhere, or if the current geological model is the more-or-less final one.

[Janus]

quote:Originally posted by nunix:
<STRONG>Something so that you could expect to open an iron mine that would last 5-10 years, as opposed to a season?</STRONG>

If you find iron in the form of magnetite (instead of hematite or limonite), it's in huge clusters which can last 5-10 years.
In my current firtress I've had a metal industry with 6 magma smelters continuously cranking out steel for about 4 years and only cleared out about half of the nearby magnetite cluster.