Yeah, it’s me again - who dedicated to asking how to make trouble in the game.
If someone set plots in a rich area of rare resources, it will not only interfere others to collection of such rare resources, but also deceive a lot of footprint rewards in this way.
Is there any measure to prevent?
this is free use of opportunities given by open world
one might think of others and not plot close to such spots
someone else might think more selfishly and do business
there is nothing to prevent there, if there is no direct trolling of other players
there should be enough other resource rich spots on a given world, and if not, there are other worlds and there will be more added if needed
The short answer is: exactly this did happen with Red Gleam in the beta. Gleam was readily available in other colors on other worlds, so this issue was purely a cosmetic one. The devs are aware of this and I believe have learned some strategies to prevent them in the future. You can search for red gleam to get a fuller version of the story on these forums. I believe the user that was claiming them was called ‘nature’.
Longer answer:
Most resources spawn in a type of block as part of a procedural world regeneration algorithm. This replaces mined blocks and will occasionally convert a stone block into a resource block/vein. This regeneration only happens if no player has come through an area recently.
The whole algorithm is fairly complicated, but in short an area that is very frequently visited won’t regenerate at all, and even an area that regenerated, but is revisited regularly will have fewer resources than one that has been unexplored for a long time.
I don’t know the details, but this is crudely how it works. Going to new places is better than revisiting old ones.
This means that claiming a resource-rich area to prevent it from being mined may have some small impact in the immediate vicinity, but ultimately the same resource will spawn elsewhere within blocks that likely have not been mined recently.
Back to red gleam, if all that is true, how did the red gleam get claimed and cause a shortage?
Gleam is (or was, it may be different now) different from other resources. Gleam is a base block type created by the world generation algorithm. Once a block is a rock, world regeneration will always make it a rock (and sometimes it will have a resource like iron or coal in it) but it will never regenerate into a tree. Gleam is like rock, it will always regenerate into gleam. A rock will never become gleam, just like a tree will never regrow as a rock. Because there was only a small amount of red gleam at a relatively small number of locations on one world, it was possible for most of it to be beacons by one user. Because gleam is a main type defined by the world generation, and not added by regeneration, it cannot be changed to appear anywhere else.
Additional notes, the devs have indicated that the world regeneration algorithm can be tweaked on live worlds, so something like iron regeneration can be increased or decreased to respond to gameplay conditions. Again, types set by the world generation (e.g. gleam or a rare wood color) cannot be adjusted (or couldn’t the last I learned about it).
As bubbathegoat said, the more natural resources such as metal, tech, gems etc are mined within a certain area the less they will respawn their (other resources are more likely to respawn in their place) so no one can really keep it to themselves. If they plot it then obviously it won’t regenerate so still a no win situation. Gleam is the only item that respawns in the same place just like a tree would if you cut it down and come back the next day.
But gleam is not a bunch of ressources anymore, so you need tons of plots, just to save. So I think gleam is not blockable anymore, while it is distributed above the whole map.
Exactly, I get the impression most of it will be plentiful enough that it wouldn’t be feasible to plot it all plus a lot will probably be on quite inhospitable world’s where a lot of people will only visit for a short time.
Someone posted a link that shows right in the description that , Players can find rare resources and plot around them. They can share or horde. It is a game mechanic, and been discussed a hundred times. It’s just sad that when we found a person sitting on a resource, it wasn’t us. But it’s a sandbox, and it’s allowed.
If it wasn’t allowed, then there would be a problem, and reports would be sent in. I’m not giving an opinion If I agree with it or not. Just saying it is a game mechanic. I would suggest, hurry and explore and find your money crop.