Sedimentary my dear Watson

Sedimentary, my dead Watson

The aim of this activity is to mine the largest pit you can within the given time. This is not an individual activity, and can be played in groups to optimize progress. Mining experience is earned while mining, with small bonuses for completing tasks. Experience is awarded at the end of the session based on a number of factors, including: depth of pit, total weight of mined minerals, safety, contribution and mining level. You do not have to participate from start to finish to be awarded experience: it can be claimed at any time.

The ground to be mined is segmented into layers, distributed at random. These layers can be anything from 2 to 6 blocks deep and each layer will be one of six minerals. The same mineral will never appear twice concurrently, but it is possible to encounter one mineral multiple times before encountering all 6 of the minerals. While mining it'll say "You mine some {mineral name}.", you can also observe the colour change of the layers from the edge of the pit.



To extract the minerals the player must customize their pickaxe for the best performance, and they will receive a rating for the ore they receive. This is similar to the fishing minigame, Fish Flingers. Players must choose the shape and metal of the head, and the length of the shaft. Each mineral has its own unique combination of the three variables, with none of the traits being shared by any of the six minerals (so if the broad head is used to mine slate, no other mineral will require the broad head). The solution for each mineral is fixed per round, and is randomized for the start of each round. Note that the solution is not unique per player.

As mentioned, players are rated based on the "correctness" of the pickaxe for a particular ore (between 0% and 100%). The weight for a particular ore is multiplied by the rating: so if slate weights 500g and you're getting a rating of 16%, you're only adding 80g to the resource pile. At 0% you're completely destroying the resource. If this is too abusable e.g.players join worlds with the intention of destroying everything: then perhaps at 0% you fail to mine it. But given you would still be able to abuse by just mining everything at 16% rating, then this doesn't really avoid abuse.
• You get 0% for an incorrect choice.
• You get 16% for a similar, but wrong choice.
• You get 33% for a correct choice.
• Three things to guess for a total rating of 100%.

Heads:
• Standard and Sharp are similar.
• Wide and Broad are similar.
• Blunt and Rounded are similar.

Metals:
• Brass, Bronze, Iron, Steel, Mithril, Adamant and Rune (similar results are either 10 above or below the correct).
(Alternatively, ditch Brass, add Dragon, make them require the mining level.)

Handles:
• Long Willow
• Long Mahogany
• Curved Willow
• Curved Maple
• Tapered Teak
• Tapered Maple
• Sturdy Teak
• Sturdy Mahogany
(Similarity is in the shape and the wood; each handle has two similar handles.)

In addition to mining experience, construction experience can be gained by making the pit "safe". 50% of the safe rating comes down to whether or not you can get out of the pit. Ladders are only 2 high, so you need to place them regularly else you'll have no way out. You gain 33% based on the quality of the scaffolding; and 16% based on the pit's depth verse the pit's area. You cannot dig any further if the safety rating drops below 50%.

Bonus mining experience can be gained for completing the following tasks:
• Achieving 100% rating for a mineral.
• Achieving 100% rating in all of the six minerals.
• Reaching bedrock.

Reaching bedrock is also a new elite task for the nearby area.

The depth of bedrock has been undecided, but it should be unfeasible by yourself to reach it.

I'm going to steal the mastermind/codebreaker element from Fish Flingers. That being said, I need variables.

Pick-heads:
• Standard
• Sharp
• Wide
• Broad
• Blunt
• Flat

But I need at least two other variables. I thought maybe handle length?

Name TBC? I rather like the working title.

My first thoughts here are that you should try avoid making it an exact mining version of Fish Flingers, but having never played it, I fear I'll be unable to ensure it.


But hmm. Variables. Swing Power? Maybe you could give the player various assistants?

(I liked the working title too, but I thought it wasn't very fitting compared to all other D&D names ).

The basic premise at the moment is a shared means to gain lots of experience. At a place to be decided, there is a large area that can be mined. As you mine, it gets deeper (a la Minecraft). The rocks you mine get thrown in a bin which has a total weight. Every period of time (possibly hourly, 3 hourly, 6 hourly, daily, etc), the geomancer who owns the land will fill it and award all who contributed an experience lamp. The amount of experience you get is based on your contribution to the total weight, and the depth of the mine.

I then decided to make it more of an activity than just a grind fest.

First, there's sedimentary layers (between 4 and 6 types of rocks, such as clay, iron, etc). Each layer requires a different combination of tools to mine efficiently: this solution is the same for all players in a particular world and for a particular instance of the challenge (every time the cavern is filled, the solutions are reset). The weight of the rock you mine is directly proportionate to the correctness of your tools (100% correct = 100% of the weight for that rock, while 0% correct means the rock is destroyed and no weight is added). This is the Fish Flingers style mechanic. Each rock/layer is differently colored. They appear in a random sequence, but once you've found the solution to clay every time you encounter clay it will be the same solution.

I then went further to say that the experience you get at the end is also based on how safe the mine is. You can't just stand on the spot. Scaffolding should be placed around the edges of the cavern, and ladders to climb out. If you cannot climb out, the safety is capped at 50%. Ladders can reach blocks high, so you can't just dig all the way down and then place a ladder: you have to place them periodically. I haven't decided whether a ladder should have a maximum height of 2 blocks, or just that each instance of placing a ladder will only go up for 2 blocks: i.e. you mine down 2 blocks, place a ladder, mine down 2 more, place another ladder and you have a 4-block high ladder; or, after mining 2 blocks down, you have to move to another block (creating stairs, sort of).

You can also mine sideways, once you've gone down once: so you can do whole layers at a time.

You cannot mine tunnels. The sky always has to be above you.

I haven't decided if it should be one rock per block, or multiple.

Total weight and depth cannot both be achieved by a single person very efficiently.

The activity features a modified inventory (similar to Fish Flingers), with all required tools (including ladders and scaffolding) just being available in your inventory.

Mining experience is gained every time you swing your pick, and minimal construction experience is gained for the scaffolding.

*waffle waffle waffle*

How about metal? Handle-length, head shape and head metal.

Strength of swing is good too.

Two problems.

1. Ditch the idea of blocks. Too many minecraft parallels will draw criticism. Just have new areas load every time a certain amount of progress is made (kinda like dungeoneering, but it needn't be so square)
2. "But once you've found the solution to clay every time you encounter clay it will be the same solution." - so people will end up just looking at a guide for the correct combo for clay and doing no thinking? No, it's gotta change otherwise it'll be a grind fest.


I really like the idea of adding construction into this with the support beams and ladders. But why minimal XP?


Other than that, you've written a pretty darn good suggestion pretty darn fast.

Rounds last for an undecided amount of time. The solutions are unique per round (per world), but are the same for all players in the round. Share if you find the optimal solution as you're working together. Every time the round is over and the geomancer fills in the cavern/quarry, the solutions are all randomized. Each layer could be anything from 2-6 deep, so it might take a while to find all 6 solutions (especially since the sequence random and you may encounter a second clay layer before your first granite layer).

I only said blocks for simplicity. Visually, I was thinking more if you mine one block down you automatically smooth off the edges (so you've got a 9x9). If you use props at a diagonal edge, it flattens it to make a corner. But I'm interested in how you'd handle hollowing out a cavern.

And cheers.

Minimal because construction is currently a money-sink, and I'm not sure how players would appreciate a construction minigame. I'd happily make it good exp.

Brilliant. I really like this suggestion already.

As for construction, building a house is a money sink. Training construction needn't be though, it's just that building a house is the only real way to train right now.

So what minerals should there be?

How about?
• Clay (dark tan)
• Iron (red)
• Granite (light grey)
• Coal (dark grey)
• Sandstone (light tan)
• Copper (green)

Should the mining level be required to mine it?

Perhaps it would be better to come up with entirely new minerals? Just a thought...

Well if you can come up with 6.

(Granite is the highest requirement at level 45, that doesn't seem like a bad requirement for an activity. Ivy requires 60something, I tihnk).

Slate, lead, bauxite, turquoise, basalt, and platinum, for example.

I'm just writing up a more detailed passage in the main post.

I'm thinking a 41 mining minimum requirement, unless we don't require the mining requirement to use the pickaxe. I suppose we could select the weight of the head, rather than the metal... *shrugs*

Main post updated.

Read through. Loved most of it, two points for improvement:

1. "You do not have to participate from start to finish to be awarded experience: it can be claimed at any time."
This rings alarm bells in my head because it could be abused by freeloaders. Activity bars and XP proportional to time spent in the mine would be needed to resolve this

2. The similarity table seems a little hard to understand. Maybe I'm just being stupid, but I'm fairly sure my IQ is above average, so perhaps additional clarification is needed

The xp you get is already based on your contribution. I merely meant you don't have to spend three hours there/be there at the end to get xp. Not that you can just go in and get xp.

For bait selection in Fish Flingers you have shape and colour, which as a player you can see the difference between. Problem is, strength has no visual indication and colour isn't relevant to performance... so I need to change this variable. I will need to either pick something other than metal, or pick better things to compare (well, things a player can observe in their inventory when selecting the correct things).

Or, if you meant how it works, the point of it is that you need to find the correct combination. If you've ever played mastermind/code breaker, it's the equivalent of "right but in the wrong place". If you use Rune and get 16%, then the metal you need is similar. Try adamant or mithril: one will drop to 0%, the other will increase to 33% (which means correct). Of course, when trying to guess all three you only see a single rating... 33% might mean 2 x 16%/similar, rather than 1 x correct choice.

So yeah, I need to overhaul the metal part.

I suppose I could just make it like length. You pick one, and the "similarity" is just down to being one above or below the correct.

I could always redo the handle section to be comparative to the Fish Flinger's "Bait". Shape/Strength of the handle.

Handles:
• Long Willow
• Long Mahogany
• Curved Willow
• Curved Maple
• Tapered Teak
• Tapered Maple
• Sturdy Teak
• Sturdy Mahogany

You now have similar wood and similar structure. If you pick a Sturdy Mahogany Handle and you get 16% rating (meaning similar): try Sturdy Teak or Long Mahogany.

Yeah, I like that.

Feel free to make up new woods, Slayer.