Coal and Salt Mines

Does anyone know if there are current plans to have at least one salt mine and at least one coal mine in the game?

 

Has not heard a pip or a pop from any source yet

What we need is a grass-root movement - like the #chickenforfeathers campaign.

 

Well, my personal thoughts are that we need at least one of each. Entire themes of a nearby village could be build around each particular type of mine.

 

Definitely want a salt mine... maybe refine it to curing salt? (I'm still not sure why curing salt is 4x as expensive as salt)

 

It hasn't come up often but the devs have said in the distant past that everything should be harvestable. Part of the reason they aren't right now is that all the areas aren't in yet.. and they want those areas to be logical. ie sulfurous ash deposits near volcanos etc..

So eventually we should be able to mine coal and presumably salt and whatever other resource should be mineable. I would expect that stuff to come online over the next few months as more and more areas come online.

 

Thanks Bowen. I hadn't come across anything, so I was just wondering.
Noric, I hope we mine salt crystals or something that we can process one way to get curing salt, or refine it further to produce cooking salt.

 

Yeah I don't think they've posted anything on the forum about it and it's been a long time since it's come up in a hangout. It was talked about a lot more in the early days.. stuff like being able to harvest wax from bee hives.. in fact, back when crafting merchants went in I *think* they were intended only to be temporary. That could have changed of course but I'm pretty sure the thinking that everything will be harvestable is still part of the long term plan. They've talked about how the current resource spawns were limited due to the lack of appropriate areas.. but now we have a few more world builders on the team.. hopefully the wait won't be too much longer.

 

Maybe a little off topic, since we don't have the resources in the game yet.. but it would be nice also to see other types of caves... like limestone caves with stalagmites/stalactites which you can harvest, or sandstone caves in the desert, which could also have harvestable resources...

 

To which I would ask what you would use those resources for.. but you could build variations of pretty much anything you could build with granite.. which itself could be interesting.. at which point I would also like to see different types of marble somewhere down the road.. EP2 or EP3 perhaps. Great materials for pavers or any décor really that can be made from stone. Though craftable marble pavers might diminish the value of the ones in the store..

 

Limestone could also produce quicklime, which has some other purposes, though of which I'm not sure we'll see in the game.

As for housing and pavers, I wonder where they're going on the reskinning houses for different biomes thing...

 

Lime is what has historically been used to produce the effect of the.. er.. darklamps, btw..


Hence, the term 'limelight'.

 

At some point, coal was indeed harvestable from iron nodes.

And only recently granite nodes were added.

I think the fuel nodes are on their way.

 

The nodes make no sense, they should consult with the several geologists/mining engineers we have here (<-- like me), but I mostly jest. 'Tis but a game, real world logic need not apply.

 

Not going to lie, I was psyched to see the ash nodes at the hot springs of nightshade.

 

Although it was some time ago now, I had imagined crafting would be implemented somewhat differently than what it has become. It just seems to me there are now far more distractions and barriers between the gathering and refining stage to make it feel far too sterile and artificial, and not at all a fluid experience I remember from previous ultima experiences. To get from the "coal face", so to speak, back to the refining table - we now likely face almost certain combat situations, at least one if not multiple zone loading screens, and then have to either leaf through a recipe book or play a guessing game dragging items inside a window. I just hope it all comes together in the end to resemble a satisfying experience.
I can deal with being accosted by skeletons while leading my overloaded packhorse back to town, but it would be nice if I could get there without losing the sense of immersion in the world.

 

with you all the way on that Siriustar. I think though that the immersion of the world is already in peril. I hope I am wrong.

 

I am still on the positive side mind you, I still think a lot of the content we see is still in a placeholder form and "proof of concept", at least more so than people would think. I've not heard anything from Chris, Richard or Starr to make me think otherwise.

 

Crafting skill trees in general still need a LOT of work and it's been a very long time since they've openly talked about craft specializations. Like a lot of other systems it's been 'get it functional first.. flesh it out later'. But like a lot of other information if they don't repeat it at least once a month people forget. Still, for those of us crazy enough to want to do everything all on our own from harvest to product we're going to need a lot of patience I think. Most I imagine will look to the player market.