Summary: Where can I find Ancient Tech Components on Therka with the new resource distribution?
I’m pretty new to Boundless and have had a good time so far discovering the basics of the game as well as the exploration component. I have a small 2-plot base on Therka where I want to experiment and get a feel for the game’s crafting progression. I’m at the point where I want to create a Power Core to progress towards a warp upgrade for my totem, which needs Ancient Tech Components. I would prefer to reach the point where I can make a warp to another planet or a portal on my own, without relying on resources other players have gathered off-world
I’ve scoured the forums for leads but with the redistribution of resources it seems that all of the previous knowledge has been invalidated now. I’ve scoured caves high and low, walking north from my base until I came back to where I started. I’ve extensively searched both ice and desert areas in hopes of finding these with no luck.
What I’ve found so far: The more Common Tech Fragments used to be common in the cave near my base under the old system, now they seem to have disappeared entirely from caves. That leads me to wonder if Components might not be found there anymore either. A rare few Tech Fragments I could find on the sides of desert mountains (and one ice mountain with a lot of rock), but no Components and any caves under said mountains had no Tech fragments either.
Unfortunately, this soon after the update it is anybody’s guess. Perhaps @Faelan could give us a clue, or @Stretchious could peer into the holy machine code for answers?
I haven’t had a chance to test the new resource distribution in game yet, but I did take a look at the new resource profiles in the game files.
It looks like tech components now spawn between 70-190. That is the Y axis, so the height. 70-190 is the spawnable range so I would look for mountains with caves that extend upwards into the mountain. The ideal spawn looks to be between 80-160. So worst comes to worst and you can’t find any high caves, just look for a tall mountain and dig a tunnel through it somewhere in these heights and I’m betting you will find what you are looking for.
Thank you for the hints so far. I dug into the side of a lonely ice mountain and did find a couple tech fragments not too far in. That was encouraging, so I kept going and dug out a whole bunch of coal veins that I encountered as well but found no more. I also found a high cave in a desert mountain at Y coordinate ~90-100 with no fragments whatsoever. I have been trying to check high caves in both snow and desert areas before I asked here as well and it seems like most of those caves are very barren apart from soft coal and some fossils.
It seems like at least the Tech Fragments are concentrated in small areas despite their wide spawnable height range. I’m starting to wonder if we’re supposed to strip mine an area when we find Fragments in hopes of finding more Fragments or even a Component.
I have hundreds of little tech fragments and quite a bunch of components if you want some, I am in game now. They are starting to overflow and honestly have been throwing them away (maybe one day they could be used in more recipes ).
I’ve been doing quite a bit of mining trying find reliable ways to find gold on the starter planets… and as far as tech components goes this works… but it is slow. This use to work well enough for gold but so far has had poor results (about 30 gold after mining about 3.5 smart stacks of rock in the snowy mountains at elevation of 151)
It looks like digging deeper for gold is the way to go now. Levels 10-40 according to the profile. Once again, I haven’t had time to check the changes in game, I’m only going by the changes in the game files.
I think I found the file that governs resource generation, I haven’t looked through it entirely yet but I see that the different home_planets have separate resource distributions. There’s home_planet_1 up to home_planet_4. home_planet_1 has a weight of 0 for Ancient Components though, so it must not spawn them… Which one is Therka based on?
If the live game has starter worlds that don’t generate Ancient Components this seems like a situation that needs fixing… Home planets should always have the resources needed to go offworld even if no other player can be found to trade with.
I had to look at this as soon as I read your post. You are right, home_planet_1 has 0% chance to spawn the ancient tech component. 2 has a 0.2 chance, 3 has a 0.3 chance, and 4 has a 0.4 chance. I don’t think there is a way to determine which planet is which.
You are correct, this is a problem. The developers have stated previously that all resources required to travel would be available on the starter planets.
A side note, but it also looks like one of the starter planets has zero chance of spawning gold, while two are sitting at 0.1% and the other is at 0.15%.
That’s possible, the same file defines a “category” which contains 5x home_planet_1 (the one without tech components), and 1x each home_planet_2, home_planet_3, home_planet_4.
That would mean a home planet would have 62.5% chance of having no Tech Components, or 62.5% of the planet surface has no chance of spawning Tech Components, but how could we know when we’re on a part of the planet that does spawn them?
Side note: Did an hour of cave exploration at/near lava level under the Desert and found 22 Gold.
I think something must be wrong with the iron and copper distribution.
I’ve spent a couple hours caving on Therka, traveling south from the desert all the way to the north where the ice biomes start. I’m finding plenty of hard coal, silver, occasional gold all along the way. Unfortunately I’ve had to start ignoring silver because iron seems to be almost nonexistent and iron is needed to make silver tools. All I’ve found at the higher altitudes in the caves are two small iron veins. The rest of the higher caves are barren, only fossils and soft coal veins to be found. Copper veins are similarly rare.
It seems wrong that silver is so much more plentiful and straightforward to find than the low tier metals copper and iron, at least on Therka.
I’m finding a similar experience for lower tier metals, like Copper and Iron. Have loads of Gold, Silver and Titanium but have only found small amounts of Copper and Iron. So far searched Septerfon and Alturnik, various altitudes and biomes…
After a bunch of exploring and caving on Septerfon, I can confirm the same thing. Gold, silver and titanium can be found consistently in the lower caves, but the upper caves have very little. Most of the copper I found came from mountainsides rather than caves and the iron was as rare on Septerfon as on Therka.
On the original topic, I’ve had good luck finding Ancient Tech Components on Septerfon by scouring the giant square stone pyramid-mountains.
I dug into the side of a lonely ice mountain and did find a couple tech fragments not too far in. That was encouraging, so I kept going and dug out a whole bunch of coal veins that I encountered as well but found no more. I also found a high cave in a desert mountain at Y coordinate ~90-100 with no fragments whatsoever. I have been trying to check high caves in both snow and desert areas before I asked here as well and it seems like most of those caves are very barren apart from soft coal and some fossils.
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