Acid bombs as a mining alternative

Suggestions
1

If you want the TL;DR, hop on down to “Proposal: Acid Bomb Effect” and read the bold text

Motivation

This idea was prompted by bomb mining suggestion, but takes it in a different direction.

So, as I understand it, the main problem with bomb mining is its efficiency, especially when compared to hammer mining. Additionally, the way it was implemented made balancing the two mining methods very challenging (bombs become exponentially more effective as their radius increases).

Another challenge is that bomb mining gave wealthy players an outsized advantage (compared to other methods): as you sunk coin into bombs & forging them, the result was exponentially more resources gathered. This also (I’m pretty sure) flooded the market with far more resources than the game was balanced for.

However, many players really enjoy the unique approach to mining that we had before: being able to “erode” basic blocks to reveal resource blocks is certainly pretty unique to this genre. It also broke up the monotony of mining by adding a step (dig, boom, collect, repeat), making the process much more enjoyable.

Having alternative ways of mining is also great in that if you get bored of one approach, you can explore others.

Goals

With all this in mind, I think there are a few core tenets that alternative mining approaches need, in order to be viable:

  • All mining methods should have approximately the same efficiency. An easy measure: gems/hr on a given world.
  • Each method must have fine grained control over its efficiency, so that devs can balance the different methods with relative ease.
  • Methods should have similar input costs (e.g. price of hammers/bombs). We don’t want wealthy players to have an outsized advantage in mining

Proposal: Acid Bomb Effect

I think we can accomplish the goals above by introducing a new bomb effect: acid. The effect would behave as:

Acid bombs apply a damage over time effect to all blocks in their area of effect. It does not stack.

Converting bomb damage into a non-stacking damage over time allows the devs to tune acid bombs so that they are similar efficiency to other mining methods.

…note that this assumes that its technically feasible to apply a DoT to blocks, or perform some similar effect…

The damage over time duration is inversely proportional to the bomb’s area of effect

In other words: large bombs take exponentially more time to melt through blocks than small ones. A small bomb might take a few seconds. A 7-radius bomb might take minutes

This ensures that large bombs have similar efficiency to small ones. It also enables the devs to balance bomb efficiency relative to bomb size.

Additionally, it also adds an interesting sandbox mechanic: want to tunnel quickly without risking resources? use small (concentrated) acid bombs. want a more laid back approach? use a big bomb. Want to speed up the process, and maybe gather some regular blocks? use a hammer in conjunction with a big bomb

Acid destroys regular blocks (and their xp?), but reveals resource blocks

Because bomb mining requires far less active effort than hammer mining; this is an attempt to compensate for that. It is also pretty key to what makes bomb mining feel so unique.

6 Likes
2

Sure it must drop resources from seams instead of just reveal seam blocks. It also could convert drop items into original state like “hazardous rought ore”, which will be required additional refining before using.

Bombs could have different types: one type will destroy coal and can be used only for gems and metals, other one will vanish metals and etc.

1 Like
3

Unique idea, nevir. I like it!

1 Like
4

I think this idea could be expanded to function with different types of blocks, such as trunks and foliage, soil blocks, etc. and omit other certain blocks. So with trunks and foliage and other things that trees have, it wouldn’t destroy the blocks other than what makes up a tree.

The thing is, we need different gathering methods to get our stuff other than high end tools that can rip a block apart in 1 or 2 hits.

It’s definitely a good concept approach to introducing more gathering methods for blocks and making bombs more useful overall. So if you were able to blow up a tree and the blocks were left afterwards (including what drops from a trunk block or foliage block) then there would be a point to using he magnet boon on items.

EDIT: Now that a topic of adding different Boons to bombs has been made like this, this also means that we could potentially get new tools as well if the devs like the idea enough. Instead of using only a hammer we could get a drill. Instead of using only an axe we could get a chainsaw. Instead of using only a shovel we could get a tiller. It could just be a much more effective tool to gathering stuff and have other Boons, Quirks, and Defects specific to the tool so there’s a lot more diversity in what players are using.

There’s a lot left to be desired with the Centraforge since it’s the only way to modify our items.

1 Like
5

Ignoring techincal implementation considerations (I think it might be intensive to achieve, but don’t know), In the whole post this is the only thing I’m not convinced about. I absolutely agree that radius being able to modify acid speed is a great way to tweak the balance between bomb sizes, but I do think large bomb radius should at least be a little more efficient… else why would you want it forged onto your bombs?

1 Like
6

Yeah, sorry! I was thinking that in my head - large bombs could be more efficient, but at least the devs could control by how much (maybe a 5m bomb is only 25% more efficient than a 2m one, or somesuch)

1 Like
7

Yeah… my hunch is that “block debuffs” would require a fair bit of refactoring, and cause a whole host of downstream challenges. And similar, having the bomb tick in a radius allows it to be gamed (you could throw a bunch of bombs). But the devs would know the best approach :stuck_out_tongue:

8

Maybe the could tick in an area around the bomb, but instead of the tick being tied to the bomb, it would have to be a global tick that found all bombs covered by a one-or-more bomb areas, and then just damages those blocks once. That could get around both issues… I think.

But I do agree, I like to think about how it might work but also definitely draw a line as I’m not software developer to that level.

1 Like
9

Even if the acid speed damage is less on larger radius bombs, you’re basically applying the acid speed to a larger number of blocks. There for regardless of what the actual values are the larger radius bombs are better out right because they affect more blocks than smaller radius. It’s why max radius bombs with a max range magnet tool made for a nice combination around lava enriched areas.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a Boon or Quirk or Defeat or something that you can put on a bomb that makes it so that you simply apply a small time limit debuff on blocks that make other tools deal more damage to those blocks. So even if you only have a 1x3 block breaking hammer, shovel, or axe, you’re still able to cleave through the blocks faster with a weaker damaging tool.

Having more options and gathering setups is a good thing. It makes it so that any nerf to DPS bombs to blocks wouldn’t affect Gathering style bombs. It also creates a market for a variety of different forged tools as well, some with 1x3 AOE Boon, some with 3x3, some that just hit really fast against single blocks, etc. Same goes for bombs.

I seriously hope the devs add a lot more to the Centraforge. There’s a lot to be desired with it.

1 Like