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[Leon Czolgolz]

I was hunting for minerals last night, and I was bothered by the massive network of tunnels I was digging to find veins. We know that Dwarves live underground, and are master miners. These people make their entire livelihood from stone. Surely there are some skilled geologists among them?

I'd love to see a geologist profession with a geologist's workshop. A geologist dwarf would go prospecting, looking for hints in the rock formation concerning the possibly presence of gems and minerals. Maybe he could bring mined rocks back to his shop for testing. When he thinks he has found a possible site for something worthwhile, it would be marked on the map.

This would not be a perfect system, of course, since prospecting isn't an exact science. Cheap minerals / gems would be easier to discover then more valuable ones, and there would always be some false positives and missed veins, or predicted locations that are close, but not dead-on. As a geologist increases in skill, the success rate would increase, or more valuable veins would be discovered, or the range he predict would increase.

None of this would change reality, of course - veins either exist or not, and nothing the geologist would do would ever change this. It might not even be more efficient in time, as prospecting in a region might take as long as blindly digging. But it would probably be more efficient in resources and in space.

Mechanically, I'm not sure how this would work. Would the player designate a region for prospecting, or let the dwarf wander on their own? Should it be possible to prospect for one mineral only ("Find me some iron ore!")? What sort of range should an ability like this have? Should this also point the direction to underground water and magma?

[Entropy]

Perhaps a noble?  Some sort of cleric of the earth?
He just spends his time wandering the tunnels and surface (why dont you have enough tunnels?) and giving you an indication of where to dig.  Noble mandate could be to dig in a particular spot.

[madpeople]

just letting them wander instead of designating an area to look might be better, then when they find somewhere let them designate it some how.

perhaps they could designate some squares to be mined (though you would have to approve their mining first, though an auto approve option may be funny/chaotic)

[Railick Stonemane]

You could have one of your miners go into a fey mood when he smells a certain ore and just go crazy trying to dig out the entire vein until finally he causes a cave in on himself. Might go hand in hand with a noble like that, because if he's going to include the ability to sense and locate certian ores might as well give miners a more job related fey mood action eh?

[Nite/m4re]

quote:Originally posted by Serondal:
<STRONG>You could have one of your miners go into a fey mood when he smells a certain ore and just go crazy trying to dig out the entire vein until finally he causes a cave in on himself. Might go hand in hand with a noble like that, because if he's going to include the ability to sense and locate certian ores might as well give miners a more job related fey mood action eh? </STRONG>

Wow, that would be really annoying. A Miner going crazy and mining out all your carefully designed bedrooms  

[Align]

Well, as long as there're no engravings involved you can just rewall...
But who makes rooms smack in the middle of an unmined vein of valuable ore anway?

[Greiger]

Pfft, its just copper...shame Miner Bob here is infatuated with the stuff.  Guess the nobles will be living in the barracks til their walls are rebuilt.

I can see a geologist noble mandate you dig out an area...especially if it hides the mineral detection in it as well. The geologist mandates that you dig out a location that just happens to have his favorite material in it.

EDIT: Might also make you very happy to have a noble that likes iron or platinum.

[ January 04, 2008: Message edited by: Greiger ]

[Slappy Moose]

That would actually be a really cool thing to have. A noble would be good, too many geologist jobs would make finding stuff much too easy, although it's really up tot he player.

Maybe directing the geologist to "look for diamond" or something could be possible, so he doesn't find unwanted or unneeded minerals at random.