Realistic Mining DLC

[Brain]

Hi,

CapLab and its predecessors were trying to be kind of realistic simulation of Capitalism itself, competition, demand/supply and other economic science has been applied, although simplified. I would like to suggest some changes to the natural resources system that would enrich the game realism. A few of the suggested features would be enabled by the City Economic Simulation DLC only, else some plain factors would be applied.
[*] Underground resources would not be on the map by default, or just very small deposits. The players would have to pay a fee to the city administration for a prospecting license, and have an prospector office in their HQ (or a specialized building per city) to start prospecting.
[*] Resources also would be located slightly more realistic depending on natural features. For example gold tends to be found on surface near riverbeds but also in mountain cracks forming veins. Oil tends to appear more often at the boundaries of continental plates at various depth.
[*] Prospecting will lead to suggested sites for mining with estimated amounts and quality, known to the player only, but this information can be shared/bought. More experienced prospector teams will speed up returning with results. Longer prospecting increases the accuracy and reveals resources deeper in the ground. Prospector Technology could be researched or bought to further improve accuracy.
[*] The prospecting result will be a map overlay showing the concentration of resources per type in the city, another one would show the depth of the resource. This could be done in a isometric map, but if the game engine is not ready for that, just two maps side by side.
[*] Mines can be established anywhere on the map, but the city needs to give concessions to companies to establish mining, and can decide to ban mining in certain map areas. These concession fees would be added to the property cost when establishing a mine, replacing the price premium feature which seems to be not realistic and is just there to reduce the chance of a resource monopoly.
[*] Mines would not provide resources on the first day of setup, but require time to drill initial shafts (exception: surface mining resources where available)
[*] Mines do not just run empty from one day to the next, but the output drops with time, or costs rise with time up to the time it would no longer economically feasible to mine that resource
[*] Mining comes with by-products. An example would be Copper ore which is often accompanied by Silver in reality.
[*] A mine could expose unforeseen resources and could have more than one type of output
[*] Events that could render a mine unusable or temporarily unproductive, or at least partially. Unforeseen resource byproducts
[*] A mine contains more types of units, you would have one or more surface pits or shafts, then ore separation units wich define the main and byproducts, then the usual inventories and sale units.
[*] The mining concession defines the property under which mining is allowed, and the property can be extended with further concessions under city consideration.
[*] A mine shaft unit has a target depth property. All resource layers up to this depths within the property boundaries would be available to the mine. The depth of the resource affects the extraction by a correlating monthly maintenance cost.
[*] Ores do not longer have a quality. 87% coal would more or less mean the concentration of coal in the mined ore and by that has a linear effect on the costs generated at the ore processing unit.
[*] Ores are processed in Refineries, not factories. The ore processing unit in a refinery will be configurable in the purity of the end product, and this would then be the known quality property. Higher output quality comes with a higher price too. Think of Gold coming in .99, .999 or even .9999 quality. Chemical minerals might be suitable for cleaners or medicine depending on the purity. I don't think the existing quality for products recipes needs to be modified, but similar to the Digital Age Software DLC features, recipes might require a minimum quality of a resource.
[*] Corporations can develop Mining technology which increases mining efficiency and reduces maintenance cost. A mine that was no longer feasible but was not shut down might become economical again with a technology investment, a player might buy mines from other players lacking the technology. I suggest a technology as maintenance cost modifier and one as a efficiency modifier, affecting the ore output speed.
[*] In Summary the price of the mine end output is defined by:
- Mine maintenance costs (defined by managed property size and shaft depth, negative correlating with known technology)
- Ore concentration (estimated by prospectors, realized by miners, dropping by mining it)
- Demanded end product quality (as set up in the ore processing unit, increases exponentially with purity)

[saffgee]

How about adding "I like some but not all of these ideas" ?

[Brain]

What do you not like so much?

[saffgee]

It's not so much that, it's just there is a) I want it all and then b) tell me what you like and then c),d),e) are simply I don't want it in lots of different ways. I just thought there need to be more grades in this poll, as you can't really expect everyone to write what they like or don't like on each point. Many just want to vote and leave it at that.

Since you're asking though, I think some ideas are easier to implement than others and also offer more playability, so this:
[*] A mine could have more than one type of output
sounds quite fun, whereas this:
[*] Underground resources would not be on the map by default, or just very small deposits. The players would have to pay a fee to the city administration for a prospecting license, and have an prospector office in their HQ (or a specialized building per city) to start prospecting.
[*] Prospecting will lead to suggested sites for mining with estimated amounts and quality, known to the player only, but this information can be shared/bought. More experienced prospector teams will speed up returning with results. Longer prospecting increases the accuracy and reveals resources deeper in the ground. Prospector Technology could be researched or bought to further improve accuracy.
doesn't really sound like CapLab and would simply be far too much detail in that area relative to others. I'm all for complexity, but it needs to stay high level and fun to be properly implemented I reckon. Yes there are limitations to the gameplay as it stands and a lot of unrealistic nonsense, but that is also part of the charm to a degree (eg. the product limit in retail outlets for example).

[colonel_truman]

I´ve read your proposals and I like them all. Unfortunately I have no idea about their feasibility.
Just so you know...

[Brain]

I would love to read their source code to discover such feasibility. Worst case scenario would be to extract the algorithms that are there and pack it under an UI that would match today's standards

[David]

Worst case scenario would be to extract the algorithms that are there and pack it under an UI that would match today's standards

Did you mean developing a new game with a new UI focusing on mining? Personally, I think it is an interesting idea.

What programming language do you use? Are you into game development?

[Brain]

The idea was more if the game is not that easily extendable, we scrap the useful algorithms of the existing game core and wrap it into something new and make it look a bit more shiny.

I am not explicitly a game developer, my background is Java coding for backend servers with focus on performance and code quality. So if one would look for an MMPOG backend, no problem. I have other coding languages on my list (Python, C++, Scala, VB etc) but Java with longest background (15yrs). I have not done programming with OpenGL, Vulcan or DirectX. But I can create some nice web interfaces and have it browser based for example. And I am still skillable

About gaming, I am playing Capitalism, as I have a thing about complex games that require a lot of system thinking. I play it roughly since 1996, although not for the last 10 years or so - it's UI is not feeling so comfortable anymore. I like to play other games like City simulations, and my current favorite is 'Oxygen Not Included' as it is all about running into resource limits and mitigating them

Cheers,
Kai

[David]

The Realistic Mining DLC has thus far gathered more than 27 positive votes, which is one of most favorably voted DLC ideas.

Perhaps it is now the time to resume discussions on it and have the community help iron out more implementation details so that I can recommend it to the dev team. What do you guys think?

[iJordyM]

Some ideas to add to the discussion:

I would like to give you some suggestions that are more endgame focused. So really looking at the (end) products and the way they could influence the overall game

[+] A stronger connection between politics and business, allow governments to provide subsidies to, in this case, but not limited to, fossil fuel/metal industries. But also the other way around by adding excise taxes. The latter is especially interesting when battling the environmental concerns in cities (which is insanely hard, if not impossible, currently). Also governments should be able to put import tarrifs on fossil fuels and metals and should be able to embargo certain materials.

[+] Add lithium to the game and make electric alternatives and renewables possible. Especially in later stages of the game this will be crucial to the succes of the cities and the nation (again considering the almost impossible environmental problems when you hit 2030-2040)

[+] Fossil fuels/metals should be able to run out or become scarcer in later stages of the game (depending on utilization) forcing businesses to diversify or adapt (to for example biofuels, electric, renewables)

[+] It would be incredibly cool if there would be a recycling factory/unit which can recycle metals (so not oil and gas, which makes these ideas a lot more feasible, because there are already some alternatives available in the game like biofuel and solar energy).