Ok, this is a not-official ideas thread. You can use it to kill time, let your imagination run free, whatever.
Please follow the basic rules

You can put minerals, upgrades, anything, but don't make it too far fetched. (I.E. A nuke that blows up mars that costs 100 billion dollars (or whatever))
Please don't put any curses in here.
And please rate the item above you (1-10)
Obviously, no flaming.

And I'll start the chain of ideas.
Rocket Launcher
Cost: $30,000 ($3,000 for normal rocket, $10,000 for super rocket, and $20,000 for ultra rocket)
When fired, it blows up two squares to the left or right (whatever way your pod is facing), but increases your heat by 10 degrees for a while. The rockets you buy separately, and are ammunition. Normal rockets don't break rocks. Super rockets break granite, and Ultra rockets break marble.  

--Last edited by MLUftw on 2007-12-30 11:59:45 --

ELEVATOR/TRANSPORTER: 6/10
Would it trasport you to a random place 10,000 ft below?
I once had 2-way teleporters. But those could be abused and people wouldnt be bored traveling 25,000 ft down.

LASER BLASTER: blasts dirt and rocks 100ft above and below you. Takes 150 L of fuel/battery. 1 blast = 75,000$. (I wouldnt use it, some people would).

ATOMIC MODIFIER: a large intense blast of radiation that reconfigures atomic structure and changes minerals to other minerals. Takes 300 L/MJ, $200,000.

PROTECTIVE SHIELD: an energy shield that protects your hull from harm (lava, magma, rocks, falls). Can be used anytime but drains energy (3L/MJ per second).

Laser Blaster: hmm.. idk 6/10 it isn`t good yet, cause way waste that money, when money is limited?

Atomic Modifier: 7/10 couldn`t it be used on a single ore? like add some mineral that can be transformed

Protective shield: 10/10 YAY no more "OH-NO! 1 long stripe of lava!"
______________________

Perhaps some Ruined pods? could contain some random minerals, and cash, and perhaps and random upgrade.

I'd say the protective shield is the best idea. Laser blaster is pointless. Atomic Modifier could be useful if the item was designed well.

Oh and if its not a bug, i gotta add the following:
When you get an transmission, you still lose fuel and such... it makes sense, but it`s annoyin`..

Rocket launcher>
Seems too compilcated to me. Just call it shaped charge, laser drill or something. But the idea of being able to blast just 2-3 spaces in one direction is good.

Elevator / transporter>
In some other thread I suggested a "Transport beacon", which you could buy and then set up anywhere. Then by using Teleport3 it would teleport you to this beacon. However the beacon would have some probability of being destroyed / moved with every earthquake.

Laser Blaster>
Seems overpowered to me. Make it more expensive / less powerful (50ft seems enough to me). Or make it create and earthquake each time it is used...

Atomic Modifier>
Wow. I vote for this to be added into next update. It should be expensive and affect an area in a way sonic bomb works. Should eat up a lot of fuel and reconfigure everything - lava, minerals, marble and granite, warping them into other things. Will be extremely useful with craftable items / minerals suggested in the other thread.

Protective Shield>
Again, overpowered. 3L a second, can be turned on/off at will and protects from everything completely? Ok, with some training, I can negate any damage for just for 3L or even less (except for swiming in lava. obviously).
Better design would be that it eats up some constant fuel (50L?) on activation and then stays up for some given time / damage amount.  

--Last edited by gASK on 2008-01-02 09:50:27 --

And my idea?
Ruined Pods (broken mining pods)
Mining into them =
+ $ 1-100K?
+ random minerals?
+ or an random upgrade?!

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Pimgd wrote : And my idea? Ruined Pods (broken mining pods) Mining into them = + $ 1-100K? + random minerals? + or an random upgrade?!

I like this one. Broken pod (you already got the image for that one, just make it "blend into dirt". It should be a "random event" - you could get cash (yay!), some random minerals (yay! unless it is 10000lbs of iron), some fuel / energy / items (yay!), explosion (from small "lava" ones to big "nuclear" ones, random upgrade (very unprobable, maybe some funny "easter-eggish" upgrades?), radiation (raging from 1Rx to few thousands of those) etc.

Best would be if the game kept track of your previous deaths and put the pods at random into newly created games at positions where you died previously...that would add a nice touch of continuity (Nethack, anyone?)

Ok, a couple more from me:

1 - "Invisible minerals", by that I mean so rare minerals that they are found in trace amount in dirt itself! Gamevise: minerals, that would look exactly like dirt, you would mine them only "by accident".

2 - "Detector" - an item that would higlight gas pockets and invisible minerals, while eating up some fuel constantly..could probably detect more things, that could be introduced later..

3 - "Volcano" - no, not an item...but another event to mess up with your pod. Once in a while a stream of lava would come from under (some lava "cache") and start protruding upwards through dirt, rocks and minerals, one tile at a time...slowly, but deadly...

4 - "Datapads" - you would find them in Ruined Pods or just lying around (the image would be a human skeleton with a datapad near it or something similar)...they would serve multiple purposes:
- give hints (such as how much Rx does a certain mineral have>"21/4/2235 - we have conducted some test and one lb of plutonium is able to deliver 15Rx of radiation...Bob says we should head back, but we talked him into one more day...what can go wrong?", where to find certain minerals>"Sunstone (C2H5Ni2OH3) is a very rare mineral, used in spaceship engines as a control crystal. In nature it is found around 9,500 feet and takes form of large crystal caches consisting of several hundred of small, three-inch crystals.", what do certain pieces of equipment do>"I bought a teleport a week ago, but it was today that I tried it for the first time - and it DID NOT WORK! I called tech support and they told me how terribly sorry they are, but that in the manual it is clearly written that it does not work BELOW 8,000 ft! Like anyone reads those things!", or some other important things>"Oh why have I bought the ultrafan? It eats up my fuel and now I am gonna die here!"
- net some cash ("To whoever finds this will, I bequeath my whole fortune, which contains of one broken pod, thirty tousand dollars and my pet squirrel, Robin.")
- give player some recipe (craftable minerals / items, see the other thread about ideas)
- easter-eggs / references / jokes

EDIT: Hm, a way to make shield less powerfull and more balanced would be make it as a "one-use" item. Eg. you can buy up to 10 shield generators, then use them by pressing certain key. Upon use, the generator begins running and run for 20 seconds, using up some fuel each second, absorbing all damage dealt to you. After it finishes, one generator is used up...easy and useful, I think  

--Last edited by gASK on 2008-01-02 13:33:33 --

Invisible minerals: 3/10
Detector: 3/10 (Unless the invisible minerals are worth a lot, it would be useless. BTW you can see natural gas normally)
Volcano: 7/10 (I like dangerous things. Just make sure that it only lasts for a little while. Does it annihalate everything it touches? Game-term correction: Lava doesn't move. Your talking about magma, right?)
Datapads: 8/10 (The hint idea is good, like if you find them you could get advanced tips. Also the humor in them is funny. One problem: how would the skeleton survive the pressure at like 20000 feet?)
About the rocket launcher. The main usage of it would be to blow a hole sideways in your shaft so you could get some mineral.
My new ideas:
Fuel Wormhole
$1,000,000
It prevents your fuel from dropping for as long as you have it activated. It costs money, though. The cost is: $depth/50 per second (I.E. at 20,000 feet it would cost $400 a second to use it). It would have two modes, auto and manual. In auto mode if you run out of fuel it turns on. In manual mode, you would be able to turn it on/off with the Alt key.
Meteor Engine
$6,000
(Only buyable after you purchase the jet booster)
Its like the jet booster, but in reverse. It makes your falling acceleration double, and quadruples your terminal velocity. It takes 50L of fuel to initiate, and costs no extra fuel afterwards. The problems are 1. that if you hit the ground, you would take massive damage and 2. you can only stop with the jet booster (when you press up, you will initiate the jet booster, slowing yourself down). You woud activate it with Shift+down arrow.
Meteor Shield
$10,000
(Only buyable after you purchase the Meteor Engine)
Its a passive thing (always on). When you activate the Meteor Engine, this shield will go around you. When you hit the ground, you won't take damage, instead, you'll slam through the ground (I call it Meteor Slamming). If you do this, the shield is lost (you have to rebuy it). You are completely invincible while slamming through ground. Neither your hull nor drill is hurt.
(Each block is 10 ft.)
Distance fallen   Slam distance
0-16              0(blocks)
0-160             0(feet)
17-32             2(blocks)
170-320           20(feet)
33-64             4(blocks)
330-640           40(feet)
65-128            6(blocks)
650-1280          60(feet)
129-256           10(blocks)
1290-2560         100(feet)
257-512           14(blocks)
2570-5120         140(feet)
513-1024          18(blocks)
5130-10240        180(feet)
1025-2048         24(blocks)
10250-20480       240(feet)
2049-3000         30(blocks)
20490-30000       300(feet)
(Of course you can't fall more than 3000 blocks. 3000 blocks is 30,000 feet, the depth of the game.)
Obsidian
Value: $30,000/nothing
When you freeze magma below 20,000 feet (using an Ice Bomb), instead of turning to dirt, it turns into Obsidian. Obsidian is tougher than marble, and cannot be drilled or blown up. There are two ways to get rid of it. One, use the tractor beam to haul it in. Two, you Meteor Slam it, which destroys the rock and makes it worthless.
Whew, long winded.

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BTW you can see natural gas normally

I noticed that. I forgot to add that with detector ingame, gas would have to be undistinguishable normally.

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Lava doesn't move. Your talking about magma, right

Of course. I confuse those two in this game.

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how would the skeleton survive the pressure at like 20000 feet

How would a diamond as big as a whole pod exist? How would the rocks during earthquake fall through dirt? This is a game and requires certain simplification and such. Make it a man in a suit then - the suit protects him. Or whatever - the skeleton was just a suggestion, the datapad was the main idea

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About the rocket launcher. The main usage of it would be to blow a hole sideways in your shaft so you could get some mineral.

Yeah, I like that. But the rocket pod + rockets concept is a little complicated, plus the name suggests that the rockets would fly through air until they reach dirt - which would require some additional coding. Make it a new type of explosives - shaped charges or something. Same effect, easier purchasing, easier coding.

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Fuel Wormhole

The idea of device that starts using your cash instead of fuel once you run dry is good. However in later stages of the game, when you have tons of cash this could be abused...it has to be balanced somehow. Plus it would totaly make watching your fuel irrelevant...which would make the game less chalenging...

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Meteor Engine

Increase the price. Make it so that each hit takes of 50% off your hull (thus being dangerous even to those uber-hull pods of late game). Than it would be good. However I still prefer to let my pod fall, switch to work, wait till I hear crash, switch to MLU, dig, dig, dig, teleport up and repeat....this way I can get some work done

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Meteor Shield

I do not like that as much, although it could be good, reasonable and useful when balanced. As it is designed, it seems too powerful to me.

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Obsidian

Hm, why not make it so that each time you freeze lava, it has 33% of becoming this indestructible obisidan. It can be tractor beamed, but weights 1000 lbs (or so).

Shield (my idea) does not have to take 3L/sec, it could take 1L/sec. So that its reasonable but u wouldnt keep it on al the time. It could be used as a sneak attack on the magma when u dont wanna freeze it but u want a valuable crystal to which u can get by only submerging into it. That way u turn it on, then mine the mineral quickly while in magma then dive out and turn off the shield.
I think because of the game being static, time shields would not be as good as player activated ones.
Volcano: I was once considering making a large streams of magma flowing horizontal. Decided against it cause u would always have to freeze it. I could have a super-hot magma (about 1 per screen) that slowly melts ground around it turning it into more magma. You would really need to freeze that sucker quickly.
Invisible Minerals: If there are invisble minerals there could be invisible gas pockets or other dangers that always damage you.
Atomic modifier: Could solve the most frequently complained problem: shortage of minerals. You buy one blast, detonate and collect the minerals at the surface. Of course you wouldnt get diamonds at the surface, probably bronzes or silvers.
GRAVITY POD: $150,000. Activated when u exit the base, diactivated when u press a key. When the ship achieves terminal velocity it turns into a super heavy black-hole thing that falls down very fast and breaks everything on its way (flooding tunnels with magma if u not careful).
Abandoned/broken mining pods: good idea. Should be very rare though, like 1 per 500ft.

Thanks for your opinion.
I forgot to put it in, the obsidian is supposed to weigh a lot.
Ok---im gonna reform my ideas
The rocket launcher
It should be a shaped charge instead for coding reasons
The fuel wormhole
Maybe instead of being depth-only, it should deduct more depending on how much cash you have. Like it deducts using a table:
0-3000: 2% per second
3001-6000: 4% per second
6001-9000: 6% per second
9001-12000: 10% per second
12001-20000: 14% per second (up to 200,000 burned per second)
20001+: 20% per second (up to 1,000,000 burned per second)
Basically, what that would mean is that once you run out of fuel, you burn cash. The deeper you are, the more cash you burn.
The Meteor Engine
When you hit the ground, you slam through (following same rules) but you take 4% hull damage for every 1000 feet fallen in this way. You can't stop.
(That makes it fun, because if you don't do the math and fall 25000 or more feet using it you die instantly.)
The Meteor Shield
Maybe not cool. The smashing through the ground should be done without it.
Obsidian
Yeah, it weighs like 1000 lbs. The chance though should be 25%, and if it does turn into obsidian, then all adjacent pieces of magma do, too. I still like Meteor Slamming it, though.

EDIT:To alexxz4->If the "gravity pod" smashed through everything, shouldn't you take damage while smashing (hull and drill)?  

--Last edited by MLUftw on 2008-01-02 21:15:04 --

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Basically, what that would mean is that once you run out of fuel, you burn cash.

Yeah like its a hyper mega-inflation, where a case of crisp dollar bills is worth a match box. So u burn the money, literraly. I think deducting money seems not very realistic. Whose taking the money? Dwarf-leprecauns?

Obsidian: Maybe the lava would turn to obsidian and magma to granite or marble. I think because lava is more solid then magma it should become harder than magma when frozen.

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If the "gravity pod" smashed through everything, shouldn't you take damage while smashing (hull and drill)?

Yeah you could. I could make it so that you can only fall down (not be able to move left-right), so that you should be carefull when to use it.

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SHIELD

Ok, I was misunderstood - I think it uses way TOO LITTLE FUEL. I am not a skilled gamer or anything, but since every damage happens at "single point" (except for magma), you could just turn it on the moment before the rock falls on you / you take damage from lava / gas pocket / crash into ground / detonate a martian bomb and it would take 1L of your fuel while making you virtually indestructible.
I say make it effective only against lava (some sort of LAVA SHIELD?). Then it is justifiable to have it eat as little as 1L / sec while preventing all damage FROM LAVA ONLY. Othervise it will be not too balanced. Unless it costs 30 millions or such.

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INVISIBLE MINERALS

They should of course be rare as well as realy expensive and appear almost anywhere. The detector would be expensive as well, again forcing player to search again through areas they already mined when they buy it. Invisible gas pockets and other dangers (rare, of course), could be introduced as well.

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ATOMIC MODIFIER

Well, the way I understood it, the modifier would not create minerals "out of thin air" on the surface. It would have to be used near existing ones (or rocks), making every rock / lava / mineral turn into some random rock / lava / mineral. This could of course turn diamond into sunstone or turn sunstone into granite...this would be more fun in my opinion.

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BROKEN PODS

Yeah, 1 per 500ft or even more sounds reasonable for me. Make one of five harmful, one of five giving you "super" item / cash and three of five "moderate", eg giving little cash, some minerals or such.

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DATA PADS

If we have enough of the texts, they would add to replayability greatly. If there would be an average of 30 pads in a game and there would be around hundred of texts (or even more), then every game you would find something new

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METEOR SET / WORMHOLE

I still do not quite like a combo that allows you to just fall dawn, slam through dirt. I like the digging (although the falling was a little boring).
But if you make it significantly damage your pod each time you slam through ground it would be maybe good. Or just heat up your pod, +50F each time you slam through one tile, this heat should wear of in time (10F a second or so), this should do the trick as well (eg you can use it to slam the occasional barricades made by earthquakes on your way down, but not to smash through hundred tiles at the bottom).

Yay, my ruined pod idea is doin` great