Devlog #10: Pickaxes, ore veins and the first real crafting chain

Last time we built towns. This round we went underground, or at least as far as the rocks lying around the map. You can now take a pickaxe to the boulders scattered across the world, mine five kinds of ore, and smelt them into the things you actually need to survive: metal, brass and gunpowder.

Rocks you can mine

A copper-veined boulder in the hills above an old motel

Rocks work the same way our trees do. Most of them are plain stone, and some carry ore. Hit one with a tool and it starts to wear down. Each hit gives you a share of what's inside, and the rock visibly shrinks as you go. The last hit breaks it apart and pays out a small bonus. A medium rock takes about 8 to 11 hits with a pickaxe.

There are six rock types:

Stone: the plain grey boulders, and the most common. Used for the furnace and stone building.
Iron: rusty red veins. Smelts into metal plates.
Copper: blue-green veins. Smelts into brass.
Sulfur: yellow crust. Half of gunpowder.
Saltpeter: chalky white crust. The other half of gunpowder.
Gold: bright metallic veins. The rarest and hardest to mine.

Every ore rock also gives some stone, so a mining trip is never wasted.

Close up: the copper streaks running through the rock

The ore rocks use the same grey stone as everything else, with coloured veins running through them. Up close you can tell them apart easily. From a distance they're harder to spot, which we'll probably tune later.

Tools matter

Pickaxe: full mining speed.
Hatchet: works, but at about a third of the speed. Fine in a pinch, not what you want for a real mining trip. (This number is set but hasn't been tested in play yet.)
Bare hands: you can punch a rock if you really want to. You get nothing out of it, and it hurts you.

Rocks come back

A broken rock comes back after 30 minutes. If you give up halfway, a half-mined rock heals itself after 10 minutes with nobody hitting it. We haven't sat through the full 30-minute timer in play yet; we've only tested the respawn by forcing it.

Spread across the whole map

We placed 436 rocks in 107 clusters across the main map. Each cluster is 3 to 6 boulders:

58 clusters are plain stone.
14 iron, 12 copper, 9 sulfur and 9 saltpeter.
5 gold clusters, all on the highest ground.

Ore clusters always have a few plain stones mixed in. Every rock sits on open, fairly flat ground, clear of buildings, roads and props and above the water line. We checked the layout from above to make sure nothing was bunched up or left empty, and checked a sample of rocks up close to make sure none were floating or half-buried.

Dust, chips and a proper break

A pickaxe hit kicks up dust and rock chips

Every hit now throws a small puff of dust and flying chips, and the rock gives a little knock. When it finally breaks, it goes in a cloud of dust and thrown chunks, and bigger rocks make a bigger mess. Each hit and break has its own sound: a sharp pick strike, and a heavier crumble when the rock goes.

The breaking hit: the rock goes up in a cloud of dust

Punching a rock gives a much smaller puff and a dull thud instead.

The pickaxe

The scrap pickaxe now has a proper model: a rusty iron head on a wooden handle, with a cloth-wrapped grip. It sits properly in the hand when drawn. For now it uses the same one-handed swing as the other melee tools. A proper overhead pickaxe swing is on the list for later.

Smelting: where ore turns into gear

Mining was only half of it. Until now, metal only came from scavenged scrap, and nothing on the map gave you gunpowder. That's changed:

The furnace now smelts charcoal, metal plates from iron ore, and brass

At the furnace:

10 wood → 10 charcoal
10 iron ore → 5 metal plates (the same amount you'd get from 10 scrap)
5 copper ore + 2 scrap → 5 brass

At the workbench:

2 saltpeter + 1 sulfur + 3 charcoal → 5 gunpowder

New materials: charcoal, brass and gunpowder

Ammo now needs gunpowder

All bullets now need gunpowder:

Handmade ammo (workbench): scrap metal and gunpowder.
Standard ammo (advanced workbench): brass casings and gunpowder, plus metal plates for heavy rounds and shotgun shells.
Satchel charges: mostly gunpowder now, with some chemicals and electronics.

That gives every ore a job. Iron makes metal, copper makes brass casings, and sulfur and saltpeter make the powder that fills them. Gold still goes into bullion and coins.

We ran the whole chain in a test session: put raw ore and wood in a player's bag, then crafted charcoal, metal plates, brass and gunpowder in turn, and finally 20 handmade rounds. Every step took the right materials and gave the right result. All the amounts are first guesses and will change once we've played with them.

Smaller fixes

Two of our town houses, one burnt-out and one caved-in, had lost pieces of their roof and walls. They're complete again.
The pickaxe was showing a grey placeholder pattern instead of its real textures in the hand. It now shows the real textures.

What's next

We stepped back and looked at what still stops a full survival loop, from spawning with nothing to building a base and working up to better gear. A few gaps are left:

Better tools. There's only a scrap pickaxe and hatchet so far. Iron versions should mine and chop faster.
Crafting complete guns. You can make gun parts, but full guns still only come from loot.
A full fresh-start run. Spawn with nothing, scavenge, chop, mine, craft each bench and build a small hut, writing down every place it gets stuck.
Bed respawn and base basics still need proper testing.

Mining is in. Next is making it all add up to a full game loop.