Ore System - Density

[Methes]

Each Ore Block has different Density. Density determines how much Ore does the Ore Block have inside along with other values.
Density is divided into Levels:
Level 1

• Lowest density, basically stone
• Can be mined by one lower PickaxeLevel
• Drops small pile of Ore or similar (nuggets?)

Level 2

• Low density
• Can be mined by one lower PickaxeLevel
• Drops dust Ore or similar (nuggets?)

Level 3

• Intermediate density
• Can be mined by the same PickaxeLevel
• Drops regular ore (eg Iron Ore, Gold Ore)

Level 4

• Higher density
• Requires one higher PickaxeLevel
• Slower mining speed (using pickaxe)
• 4 Mining Stages before depleting
• Each stage drops regular ore
• Possibly changes texture as it depletes

Level 5

• Very high density
• Requires two higher PickaxeLevel (Iron Ore now requires better than Diamond Pickaxe)
• Even slower mining speed (using pickaxe)
• 10 Mining Stages before depleting
• Only 4 Stages can be mined by pickaxe. Attempting to mine remaining Stages will destroy the Ore Block.
• Each stage drops regular ore
• Possibly changes texture as it depletes (4 texture stages)

Level 6

• Ultra high density
• Cannot be mined with a pickaxe
• 20 Mining Stages before depleting
• Attempting to mine the Ore Block will destroy it
• Each stage drops regular ore

Level 7

• Pure Ore
• 40 Mining Stages before depleting

Level 8

• Enriched Ore
• 60 Mining Stages before depleting

Level 9

• Highly Enriched Ore
• 80 Mining Stages before depleting

Level 10

• Superawesome Enriched ore
• 100 Mining Stages before depleting

As you can see, levels 6 and up would require machinery to mine them. Also level 5 iron level is not mineable by diamond pickaxe. Therefore I'd suggest adding config option to disable Level 6 - 10 Density Levels and making Level 5 mineable by diamond pickaxe completely (all 10 Stages)

[Kaethen]

Hi!

I'd even suggest dropping level 5 to 10 entirely because simplicity in game design is king and just make level 4 ore the highest tier. Consider that it would be counter intuitive if pure iron ore woudl be harder to harvest than low density ore because in reality, exactly the opposite is true,

Also, there are almost no metals in nature that appear in their pure elemental form. Even the majority of gold deposits are more or less dissolved in the surrounding strata of stone. Nuggets are more or less the exception.

Cheers!

[Methes]

Those are all valid points. That is one of the concerns I had when posting it here - it's not really realistic system. My goal was to create Veins that are capable of having A LOT of resources while still being in reasonable sizes, considering MC world size.
That's why part of the whole system are Ore Blocks that have multiple Mining Stages (I call it "Density") that are only harvestable by advanced machines, harvesting them slow but steady. That way you create actual Mine. More of this system can be found here: http://forum.industrial-craft.net/index.php?page=Thread&postID=163691#post163691

[Kaethen]

So what you have in mind are mines slowly creeping along rich vines of ore? I quite like your idea!

Then just make level 4 and level 5 ore minable in stages (ultra hard because ultra compressed) and drop the remaining five stages, because simplicity is always king. Of course different textures for the different mining stages are mandatory then.

If I understand it right, your mod will replace all vanilla stone anyways, right? Then consider this: In the real world, deep rock layers consist of a hard mineral called olivine. If you make the lower layers of the terrain consist of hard to mine olivine and embed the rich ore veins in there, I think you would get the right feeling of mining in shafts instead of excavating everything. Bonus points if you make it so that the Buildcraft Quarry won't stop only at bedrock but also at olivine! :D

e/
I just looked it up: Olivine is the main component of the upper mantle, which lies right below the outer crust that we live on. So it would make sense to have an olivine layer as the deepest rock layer.

[lawremi]

I agree with Kaethen that 10 levels of density is too complex. I wouldn't go beyond 3-4 densities. I'm not sure if the density of the block should require a stronger pickaxe. Currently, the pickaxe level is used to create metal tiers (in many mod designs anyway). But yielding multiple ores per block is an interesting idea. It seems to clash a bit with the vanilla convention of "harvest a block, get the block". COG has always tried to encourage infrastructure investment by creating larger veins. There is a limit of course, but I'm wondering if we could somehow strike a balance between vein size, return on infrastructure investment, and encouraging the player to explore and find additional ore deposits.

Olivine is a mineral, and it's the primary constituent of peridotite, which PFAA is already generating at the bottom.