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AlmightySquid

Prospecting Skill Tweak

22 posts in this topic

I was browsing the forum and stumbled upon this thread http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/7775-sulfur-and-prospecting/, and I just noticed what Kitty said about the prospecting skill increase.

 

So it's obviously kinda prone to abuse how you can spam click the propick anywhere and level up your skill. Even though it's very slow, and I myself don't abuse this system, people probably can and do, slowly but surely.

 

With that in mind, I was wondering if the skill increase requirement could be changed from right clicking anywhere to right clicking where there's traces or

a larger reading of an ore. Since finding these spots where the propick picks up a reading is much rarer than any dirt block ever, the skill increase could be boosted to compensate. Of course, I'm thinking what you're thinking, this can still be abused, in a way even more so than before (considering the rate of leveling increases). So I was thinking, once you get a reading from a specific block and your skill from that reading increases, could it be made so that the specific block doesn't give a skill increase after that one first time? Like I said before, if this can work it could be made so that the skill increase is a bit (or more) higher than it is right now, to compensate for the smaller chance of finding an ore.

 

I personally find this a bit more believable, as well as rewarding. I know the system we currently have is not how it is in real life, or at least not completely. But I don't find it logical that examining the same block of dirt/stone in the middle of nowhere over and over could eventually (even after all the "hard" work) make you a master prospecter. I mean, there's only so much you can learn from examining one same part of stone forever, right?

 

I'm not too good of a coder to know if this would work and how taxing it would be on the client to log all of the blocks, or if there is even a way to log them efficiently. But yeah, that idea just crossed my mind so I decided to share and discuss. What do you guys think?

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There is no way to log what blocks players have already scanned without completely lagging the game out.

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Damn, figured. Here's another idea, possible workaround.

How about making it so that you don't get a skill up from random stone and dirt, like I said above, but make it so that you do get a skill up (slightly increased) when you prospect a traces+ reading. But instead of allowing you to spam the same reading over and over, make it work on a sort of cooldown system, where once you stumble upon a valid reading you can work up your skill up to a certain point, or up to a certain number of readings. Just an example, not suggesting these actual numbers: after you raise your skill on 20 blocks (which give off readings) a cooldown starts that makes you wait an ingame day or so until you can get a few skill increases again. The key in this would be finding a good number cap to start the cooldown. In my personal experience (and I'm not really that good at propicking even), it takes me about 15 readings until I get to the actual ore vein, sometimes more.

 

This way, finding a good number could potentially make this mechanic go unnoticed gameplay-wise, allowing players to level up the skill normally, but also prevent abuse at the same time.

 

Again I'm not sure if the cooldown thing is possible either, I'm assuming it's much more possible than logging every seperate block for every player though?

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A cooldown really isn't feasible either. In the reality of things, trying to implement a system that stops players from abuse is really only going to hurt the players who don't abuse the system. The prospecting skill isn't the only one that can be abused, it's just the easiest one, which is why it takes longer to increase.

 

For example, with the cost of fuel, hammer durability, flux, and the occasional ceramic mold, players can increase their general smithing skill by just using 4 ingots to make a double sheet, then melting it back down and smithing it again, over and over and over. Players can plant onions, the fastest growing crop, and break it once it reaches the stage before harvest to increase their agriculture skill quickly, and as their skill increases, they'll start getting more seeds, meaning they can plant more onions, and increase the skill even faster. At 7oz of food per sandwich, players can use up their food supplies to constantly create sandwiches for the sole purpose of increasing their skill, with no intention of actually eating the food. Players can fish or go out and hunt squid to increase their butchering skill as well.

 

 

The skill system has been written in such a way to avoid "Do X action Y times to unlock Z" as much as possible, but we can really only do so much to avoid it. If players want to try and abuse the system because they feel that the reward is worth the effort and wasted resources, there's really nothing we can do to stop them. Those kind of players are determined, and they'll always find a way to abuse mechanics.

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Sort of a different take, but what about giving skill increase for mining an ore block. The concept being that the better you are with pro pick the more efficiently you can find ore. Believability could be the more veins you find and mine the better you are at understanding vein formation and signs of ore/mineral deposits.

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One option might be to give bonus XP for the first time you get a specific message of a specific mineral? So there is no need to store info about the specific blocks, but each character has an invisible list of minerals and virtual "checkboxes".

Basically something that would be something like:Bismuthinite: Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

Native Copper:Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

Native Gold: Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

Magnitite: Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

and so on, and the first time you get the matching message, you get a big chunk'o' XP for that skill.

To compensate, further decreasing the amount of XP gained from poking at random rocks. That way, while you could in theory still spam it, it's much less beneficial than going out and finding different ores!

The reasoning would be simple, in that the more different minerals you've learnt to recognize and study, the better you get at recognizing them :P

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Sort of a different take, but what about giving skill increase for mining an ore block. The concept being that the better you are with pro pick the more efficiently you can find ore. Believability could be the more veins you find and mine the better you are at understanding vein formation and signs of ore/mineral deposits.

 

I like this idea, I'll think about it and run it by Bioxx for approval.

 

One option might be to give bonus XP for the first time you get a specific message of a specific mineral? So there is no need to store info about the specific blocks, but each character has an invisible list of minerals and virtual "checkboxes".

Basically something that would be something like:Bismuthinite: Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

Native Copper:Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

Native Gold: Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

Magnitite: Traces [ ], small sample [ ], large sample [ ], spot-on hit [ ]

and so on, and the first time you get the matching message, you get a big chunk'o' XP for that skill.

To compensate, further decreasing the amount of XP gained from poking at random rocks. That way, while you could in theory still spam it, it's much less beneficial than going out and finding different ores!

The reasoning would be simple, in that the more different minerals you've learnt to recognize and study, the better you get at recognizing them :P

 

Not really feasible to implement, especially considering it would likely mean players would have to find like 90% of the checkboxes in order to hit master status.

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@Kittychanley: Wouldn't that depend on how much XP you got? Would be possible to tweak it so you'd only need to hit, say 70% for master? which to me sounds reasonable to master status...

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There are currently 29 different ores that generate in the world, and 6 different readings per ore (Found, Traces, Small, Medium, Large, Very Large), for a total of 174 different "checkboxes" that would be possible. At 75%, that's still 130 different readings that you would have to come across. Plus you would have to keep in mind that different ores/minerals have different average sizes, meaning that for some it might be impossible to ever find a "Very Large" sample, while for others finding "Traces" might require actually mining out the majority of a vein first.

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Sort of a different take, but what about giving skill increase for mining an ore block. The concept being that the better you are with pro pick the more efficiently you can find ore. Believability could be the more veins you find and mine the better you are at understanding vein formation and signs of ore/mineral deposits.

While it's obviously more important that Kitty and Bioxx like this idea, I just wanted to join in and say that I really like it too. It fits with both common sense, and the other skills. You don't get butchering skill by swinging an axe at nothing or casting a fishing rod into dirt. You don't get smithing skill by just banging on an ingot. You get the skills when you successfully kill something or make something. So it would be nice if you gained prospecting skill when you actually mine some ore.

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On another note...

 

Make it so that with each level of skill, the precision of readings are increased. For example(made up numbers):

0 pt: Found traces of xyz

80 pts: Found traces(0~25) of xyz

200 pts: Found tiny sample(15~30) of xyz

450 pts: Found tiny sample(10~20) of xyz

800 pts: Found rather tiny sample(15~20 of xyz)

1400 pts: Found 16~18 ores of Rich xyz and...(next reading)

2000 pts: Found 18 ores of Rich xyz and...

2400 pts: Found 18 ores of Rich xyz, nearest 6 m down, and...

3000 pts: Found 18 ores of Rich xyz, nearest 10.00 m 37 deg down, direction 53 deg left

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While it's obviously more important that Kitty and Bioxx like this idea, I just wanted to join in and say that I really like it too. It fits with both common sense, and the other skills. You don't get butchering skill by swinging an axe at nothing or casting a fishing rod into dirt. You don't get smithing skill by just banging on an ingot. You get the skills when you successfully kill something or make something. So it would be nice if you gained prospecting skill when you actually mine some ore.

 

Unfortunately Bioxx has turned down this change, however he does agree that we need to find a more elegant solution for gaining prospecting skill.

 

On another note...

 

Make it so that with each level of skill, the precision of readings are increased. For example(made up numbers):

0 pt: Found traces of xyz

80 pts: Found traces(0~25) of xyz

200 pts: Found tiny sample(15~30) of xyz

450 pts: Found tiny sample(10~20) of xyz

800 pts: Found rather tiny sample(15~20 of xyz)

1400 pts: Found 16~18 ores of Rich xyz and...(next reading)

2000 pts: Found 18 ores of Rich xyz and...

2400 pts: Found 18 ores of Rich xyz, nearest 6 m down, and...

3000 pts: Found 18 ores of Rich xyz, nearest 10.00 m 37 deg down, direction 53 deg left

 

No. Just No. Not even real life prospectors can find ore with that much certainty. The skill system in TFC still relies on the skill of the person sitting behind the keyboard. We will not, and will likely never give players this much information or hand them the exact location of ore. The prospector's pick is not a divining rod, and it never will be.

 

http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/16-do-not-post-the-following-suggestions/

 

Prospecting Pick

Any threads suggesting a change to the Prospecting Pick to make it easier or more accurate will be summarily terminated. In any system that I implement, I try to do justice to the folks that do these things for real. Prospecting takes years to learn and master. As such, prospecting in TerraFirmaCraft is a skill. It CAN be mastered. In fact there are quite a few people who have already discovered how to use it to great effect.

This is the nature of TerraFirmaCraft. Not everyone will be good at everything. This is by design. I don't WANT everyone to be masters at everything. Please accept this. Thank you.

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I'm curious if he gave an indication about why he didn't like the idea. It could help for further suggestions. This idea was based on what I remember of MCMMO.

I can think of a few reasons, such as other players gaining prospecting skill from a previously discovered/developed mine. The main benefit of my suggestion is that you can't really cheat it, since ore can only break once. This means that even if you are using known mines you still need to find quite a few as I wouldn't expect the skill gain to increase from its present rate.

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[...] No. Just No. Not even real life prospectors can find ore with that much certainty. The skill system in TFC still relies on the skill of the person sitting behind the keyboard. We will not, and will likely never give players this much information or hand them the exact location of ore. The prospector's pick is not a divining rod, and it never will be.[...]

thanks - that would be so unreal! And prospecting isn't that hard, it is actually really fun to do as is!Maybe make the prospector's pick last a little bit longer for the experienced one so he can make more picks - he knows how to handle it better than the inexperienced one.Or having the option to pick different locations (the corners) of a block with eventually distinct readings.But - please - no prospector's pick with radar [:-)
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I also wonder in a skill level condition could be added so that you could get information on all ores in area. I don't quite understand how the code works presently, so not sure if possible.

In non-Java.

Prospect code invoked.

IF reading is nothing of interest, output, END.

IF reading is an ore reading save value as temp string variable, output.

IF skill is expert then roll for the output again. ELSE END.

IF nothing of interest, END.

IF ore save to to temp variable and compare to first value. IF they are equal then END. ELSE output reading.

IF skill is Master then loop again, ELSE END.

Not sure if my logic works or if possible. Likely would have to replace the less false negatives. Very different suggestion, but within topic. It can be split off if it should be its own topic.

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I'm curious if he gave an indication about why he didn't like the idea. It could help for further suggestions. This idea was based on what I remember of MCMMO.I can think of a few reasons, such as other players gaining prospecting skill from a previously discovered/developed mine. The main benefit of my suggestion is that you can't really cheat it, since ore can only break once. This means that even if you are using known mines you still need to find quite a few as I wouldn't expect the skill gain to increase from its present rate.

 

The reasoning was primarily because mining ore is not prospecting. It's entirely possible for a player to only mine exposed surfaced veins without ever using a prospectors pick, and those players should not be rewarded with the prospecting skill benefits.

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The reasoning was primarily because mining ore is not prospecting. It's entirely possible for a player to only mine exposed surfaced veins without ever using a prospectors pick, and those players should not be rewarded with the prospecting skill benefits.

The devil's advocate argument might be that there's precedent in the other skill types for proxy skill-improvement - fishing isn't butchering (though I guess you would have to clean the fish) and picking wild plants is hardly agriculture. Further, finding ores in exposed rock faces is prospecting, you're just doing it with your eyes and not the tool.

 

If wacking a squid with a mace is butchering, then spotting ores on a mountainside is prospecting.

 

To then counter my own argument, though, there is game balance to consider. Bioxx might want to allow for the butchering "exception" so that it's not so brutal to gain butchering skill. Players can go a long way without getting meaningful amounts of meat from livestock, what with finding, familiarizing, breeding, etc. The same is not true for the pro-pick.

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Fishing was added to the butchering skill solely because of cleaning the fish. It's fairly easy for a lot of species of fish to screw up cleaning, so you get less edible meat as an end product. Picking wild plants and domesticating them is basically the definition of agriculture. Agriculture means recognizing plants, and knowing the correct time to harvest them, as well as which part is harvestable. It doesn't matter if the plant is on "wild" soil, or in the middle of a farm. Whacking a squid with a mace is not butchering, but taking the dead squid that you just murdered and getting the edible calamari off of it is.

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Not exactly in the same lines of the arguments here but for me the only change I would like to see for the prospecting pick is the ability to show more than one ore per reading. For example if I am close to 2 different ores, the reading should say traces of copper and large vein of Gold on the same reading. It is realistic and it would not change the gameplay balance. It is just very anoying when u looking for a mineral and get interference of another. I would understand if it would always show the closest one. but sometimes u are at the large and start getting traces from another before u get the very large.

I wish it was possible to get all readings.

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or maybe have a chance of finding a small ore when prospecting? the ore that your searching for

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