New Mining Idea

[Wulfston]

I have no idea what you all have planed for the future of FreeOrion or how the finished game will be, so I'll just post my idea and see what comes up.

Mining is very basic as it stands right now so here's something that can really add a new dimention to game play.

Instead of just "minerals" there can be a whole list of different ores and materials that can be mined from planets and asteroids. I was thinking around maybe 12-15 different minerals of various rarity could be obtained. And as such structures, ships, and mods would need different materials in order to be produced. The bigger the ship or the more powerful of the module, the more it would take in materials and rarer materials to make.

The mining value of any colony would indicate how much is mined each turn. Also, as the values increase over time as they do now, the mining value would also indicate a higher and higher chance of mining the rarer ores and materials.

This would bring a whole new concept of "cost and value" to ships that you are building and the mods that you have customized on them. So right now when one of my ships gets destroyed I say "Well that only cost me 300 minerals.", I would say something like "Dammit! That cost me 200 Zortrium!".

This would also be a basis for a real in-game economy for trading and possibly even raiding enemy colonies just for materials(or perhaps NPC pirates and pirate outposts?)

There's a whole slew of ideas for this kinda change and I know it would be a BIG one. But here a just a few.

Thanks for your time and attention.

[eleazar]

This kind of idea adds to the complexity of the game (12+ stockpiles!) requiring that the player keep track of more variables, but does't seem to increase your strategic options in any way. We're trying to make a game that doesn't allow micromanagement: a strategy game , not a detailed galaxy sim. So this would move FO away from the plan.

However search for "strategic resources" for some discussion on incorporating more "resources" into the game in a way more consistent with the vision.