Tech: Resource distribution metrics

[james]

As requested in a few different threads, below is some raw data about the resource distribution in the current Live servers of Boundless.

We wouldn’t normally share this data publicly because it could be considered to be game breaking. But during this development period I think it’s more helpful for players to be informed about how the game works to then better understand the progress.

In general I think about resource distributions as:

This is no longer fun

• The game should explain to players where to find the basic resources on the spawn worlds. Players shouldn’t struggle to find them assuming they follow the instructions. We need to help new players get going.

• The resources are distributed asymmetrically. Different resources will spawn at different rates per biome. This is to encourage players to explore their home world.

• Some resources will be deep underground, some will be deep in mountains.

• The resources vary per world, with harder worlds having more abundant rarer resources. This gives players a reason to go to other worlds.

• The game will not explain where to find resources on the harder worlds to give more experienced players a challenge and some value to the knowledge.

The RAW data for the number of each resource type in the current Live worlds is here: PDF version, CSV version.

The following animation helps demonstrate how the resources vary across the world. They don’t follow the same distribution patterns. There are dense and extremely sparse areas. The learning would be, if you can’t find a resources try looking somewhere else. The original version is a little hard to see in places so I’ve created a negated variation.

[Pseudonym84]

Pretty much confirms that Therka is terrible for iron and copper, if I’m reading this right? I don’t actually have much of an issue myself, but it does change the starting experience for new players based entirely on what part of the world they’re from.

[Stretchious]

Some good info there - certainly gives players an idea on where to head if they get stuck at the moment. Or will allow for more enterprising players to go gathering and see how much coin they can amass

Out of curiosity, will the resource distribution change over time depending on what settings you give it, or is that what it will always be fixed at unless you take the server offline and rebuild the regen with any new settings?

I remember a while back, it was mentioned that you were aiming to be able to tweak distributions on the fly depending on requirements.

[Dzchan94]

It seems pretty much solum is different from the other starter planets. Kinda explains why I had such a hard time finding coal.

And now it seems amethyst is the hardest to get and diamond the easiest.

Correct me if I’m wrong. But distributions vary according to planets, starter being the same. And the rest each having their own? Meaning like the conditions of where to find them. Say solum you find iron 60y - 80y, vulpto you do 40y - 50y, etc.

Also. Hopefully the number of seams gets balanced on the starter planets.

[TwistedFoot]

Out of curiosity could the difference with Solum compared to the other starter planets be because they use Solum in the test version too or have the other planets been used before. I would hope they would want all of the starter planets to be fairly equal.

[Stretchious]

If I had to hazard a guess, I would say that the current inequality in the starter planets is to basically get stats on how resources are gained, moved from planet to planet and player to player and gauge the speed of progression etc. It’s all part of the balancing process.

[Dzchan94]

Seems about right. Having basically two set of conditions.

Solum seeming to have a bigger population will have condition A and the other 3, kinda matching the number of players, will have condition B.

So doing tests on almost the same quantity of players

[nevir]

Awesome, thanks for sharing this! Really helps my understanding of it

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Also, I hope there’s some crazy achievement for the lucky person that finds the single ancient device blocks on Septerfon & Elopor

[lucadeltodecso]

these cases of single digits counts are 99.999999999999% certain, cases where someone had that resource block within their beaconed space, and the script for regenning and reseeding resources throughout the whole world is not allowed to touch beaconed space and so it was left.

[nevir]

these cases of single digits counts are 99.999999999999% certain

So you’re saying there’s a chance

[luke-turbulenz]

http://img.pandawhale.com/50246-so-youre-telling-me-theres-a-c-RHL9.jpeg

[Sevio]

Thanks for sharing these stats! Definitely interesting to be able to confirm Solum is different from the other starter planets.

For those wondering, since this distribution map contains topaz, this is a map of Epsilo. Looking through the different abundance maps and comparing them to the heightmap, we can see some interesting relationships:

Favors high surfaces (from high to low):

• Soft Coal - fairly even scattering wherever there is enough height for it to spawn.
• Topaz - Even, but rare scattering in medium/high mountain areas.
• Copper - Common in medium mountain areas, the very high mountainous areas prevent it from spawning though, creating a ring/banding effect around the edges.
• Iron - Prefers medium height areas, doesn’t like mountains or low lying areas at all. The banding effect around mountain areas is stronger than copper.

Favors low lying surfaces (From high to low):

• Silver - prefers lower surfaces, some banding but less than iron.
• Medium coal - strongly banded around low lying areas. Almost none in mountainous areas.
• Hard coal - nearly the same distribution as Medium coal, just in lower quantity.
• Gold - prefers very low surfaces, not much banding so a fairly even scatter in the areas where it spawns.
• Titanium - prefers the lowest surfaces, more evenly scattered than gold but lower quantity.

Of course this doesn’t mean height is the only factor in where things spawn, these are just height/ore spawning relationships that I could observe at a glance from these maps.

[Stretchious]

I may as well share this full list here then … just for completeness of resource hunting

[Pseudonym84]

You’ve been holding out on us, Stretch!

[Stretchious]

Just a little bit … I’ve drip fed some of that list in various places, so as not to make it too easy for people

[Scratchnwiff]

Oh @Stretchious that’s amazingggg o____o

[TwistedFoot]

Today while searching for iron on Solum I came across some titanium. Don’t think this would be a huge surprise but I was between 60-70 for altitude. It really kind of confused me to find it so high in a mountain.

[BoaConstrictor]

Awesomeness! One question…Corruption? Is that lava?

[Havok40k]

No, Corruption is… Corruption. It’s that fleshy bubbly looking block that looks vaguely like Zerg Creep.

[BoaConstrictor]

Oh…Growth!