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[Greiger]

Howdy, I'm sure everybody knows about the current difficulty finding ore in .19.  Well while posting in another thread I may have come up with an interesting solution.

Adventurer prospecting tools.

These tools when used will give the player a general idea of the site's composition with comparison to skill level.

At lv 0 it tells you the top layer of soil composition and what the topmost rock layer is.  Basically what you can find out just by looking around.

At lv 1-3 or so it just outputs the current embark screen prospecting data.

at 4 it starts getting useful.  Outputting a combination of of embark screen info and what the layer stone/soil is down 10 z-levels.  Enough for an experienced player to identify likely ores paired with shallow metal.  (Or deep metal if used from in the caverns)

4+ every skill point above 4 increases prospecting depth by 3 it stacks with the bonuses for higher skills as well.

at 9 skill it also outputs what ores are actually present on each layer.

1t 15 and up (legendary) It outputs the embark data, layer stone composition, ores present, and exactly how much of each type of stone/ore/gems there is in the currently loaded adventure mode chunk.  Basically what DFHack's Prospector does, only limited to yer current prospecting depth.

at 20 (legendary+5) it finds traces or a super hard unknown black stone deep down if the spoiler is present, regardless of prospecting range.

Find something interesting?  Awesome! Retire your adventurer in the nearest hamlet and strike the earth!

Thoughts? Rotten tomatoes? Epiphanies?

[Taricus]

Sounds good 

[agatharchides]

Could be fun. Alternately, you could just let adventurers take a pick and root around a little bit like dwarves, though that might be a little unbalancing. (Has never played adventure mode)

[Greiger]

I think it's actually in the dev plans for adventurers to eventually be able to dig.  But it's going to be time consuming or something like that, not nearly as fast as dwarves do it.  So even once adventurers can dig, it may still be useful.

[Taricus]

We just need a way to mark the location.

[Neowulf]

We just need a way to mark the location.

Maybe as part of the prospecting skill, build a set of claim markers that will show up in the embark map as a note.

[NW_Kohaku]

Ah, you went ahead and made a thread about it, I guess this should have been here, then:

I just thought of something....

Toady always seemed to like the idea of sending an adventurer to a potential site first to scout it out.

Currently doing so will let us know what the soil is and maybe the top layer of rock or so, with what the lower levels are if you can manage to spelunky your way to the site in the caverns.  Combine that with shallow metals and deep metals and some basic geology, and it gives a fairly reasonable idea of what will be at the site.

Once DFHack offsets are found, we could use that with prospector and get a detailed idea of a site before embark.

Just think, adventurers sent by the mountain home, not to save the world, or kill monsters, but to prospect sites for ore!

Yes, but that's... kind of boring for players who don't really want to use Adventurer Mode to be forced to make an adventurer just to prospect for ore for Fortress Mode.

"Adventurer Role: Prospector/Cartographer" (as an extension of "Explorer") might be a good idea - instead of completely leaving areas of the map blank, you just have the contents of the land, aside from potentially basic things like "HERE THERE BE MOUNTAINS!" until explorers hit the spot.  Explorers and Cartographers might make money selling this information on minerals back to the kingdoms of dwarves, and give Fortress Mode players some more information on the areas...

However, there needs to be at least some information on the areas, at least within the "reach" of existing dwarven civilizations, and the sphere of influence of friendly trading partners on the lands and their potential mineral wealth to represent the explorers and prospectors that came before.

That way, at least the areas near the home civ are very well-detailed.

[Greiger]

That actually seems like a good idea too.  Bonus points if having having explored an area for a civ, but not having placed a fortress there, the civ gains access to resources from that area they didn't have before.

[NW_Kohaku]

• Adventurer Role: Explorer
• Mapping and obstacles
  
  • It should be possible to optionally hide sections of the map during world generation
  • Store region names by entity, not all places would have names, ability to give names to the regions/rivers/peaks etc. that you discover
  • Should not be able to cross every river square from travel map unless there's a bridge
  • Fording rivers
  • Ferries
  • Ports and boats (even if they are just used to teleport to other ports at first)
• Lands and beastiary
  
  • More overland map features and local variations
  • Scrap good/evil lands for lands with more variety
  • Randomized critters in other categories (vermin, roaming creatures, soil critters, plants, etc.), naming them
  • Being able to look at a list of all known creatures you've seen and where
• First contact
  
  • If you are exotic enough, leader might be interested in speaking to you even if you are a stranger
  • Might be able to exchange gifts between civ leaders and accept and give gifts yourself
• Animal people and other protectors
  
  • Being tracked and hunted if you kill creatures in places you shouldn't
• Scouting and rewards
  
  • Tracking information about new locations and being able to share it with civ leaders

So, basically, we can tack on adding data onto the site finder function, and also have worldgen-era explorers out trying to do the same thing.

For example, rangers might roam and report back all the things they have seen, and also bring back information on the world's minerals if they have some experience with surveying.

Traders can sell survey information between civilizations, so that dwarves in remote mountains may buy survey information from a large human civ, and try to mount an expedition far from home.

Then maybe, if you find some of these things, your retired adventurer might be the expedition leader of the new fortress, striking the earth where he saw promise.