Mining progression overhaul (this one is the nerf)

[Rukofamicom]

About The Pull Request

Overhauls miner gear progression, specifically aiming to lock the best gear behind mining points, while ensuring the starter progression available via research is still sufficient for mining ores and getting around without enabling the 20 minute all-tendrils and bosses speedruns.

There was also the issue of despite these speedruns, the point cost of the keys required to open every loot source on lavaland was only about 6000 points, give or take depending on the number of tendrils, so in addition to the direct miner progression above:

• Skeleton keys now cost 1200
• All boss loot chests are also locked now

This brings the total points required for all chest loot to ~10,000 for tendrils and another 7,200 for one of each boss. Due to the increased cost requirement, tendril chest loot has also been dramitically improved via the removal of "useless" pka mods, and the addition of a couple of previously removed items: The staff of storms, which can cancel ash storms, and the lava staff, which can remove lava obstacles. These two items were previously removed in part for being excessively dangerous, so they have been restricted to only working outdoors on lavaland.

---

As one final change: More than a few miners I spoke to talked about wanting to wait for the first ORM upgrade before turning in any ores because the time spent mining ores with gear that hadn't been upgraded was totally wasted if you exchanged for base point value. In response to this I have increased the base value of all ores, but removed the incentive to withhold ores for upgrades.

• Point values for iron and glass have been doubled
• Point values for all other ores have been increased by roughly 25%
• ORM upgrades no longer affect point payouts, only how many materials are generated at turn-in for the station.

Why It's Good For The Game (Research and Points vendor)

Progression makes little sense right now. A plasma cutter is one of the best possible tools a miner can get for both mining and fast exploration of lavaland, but they're available right from the start of the game. By comparison, an AoE pka mod is locked behind advanced research - something which is comparable to a basic plasma cutter for mining, but much worse for exploration.

• PKA AoE mod breaks about six rocks per shot while mining a tunnel, but they're in a wide pattern which makes it slower for actually getting through to the other side of a rock and getting around in general.
• Basic plasma cutter breaks 7 rocks in a line, with a firing rate comparable to a pka that has not been speed modded.
• Hiero staff is often sought after immediately because it combines both of these abilities (and then some) together in one, and has similar use times to both as well.
• Advanced plasma cutter cuts 10 rocks per shot and fires so fast you can just continually walk without stopping.

I conclude that this is change which will not majorly impact the ability for miners to gather ores and will only serve to discourage those that want to skip straight to exploring without needing to turn points in at all.

Why It's Good For The Game (Necropolis Chests)

Players ignoring their obligations to go boss rush has been a problem since the dawn of lavaland. This is more or less the last ditch at forcing them to turn in some ores and contribute to the round. For players who regularly contribute their ores and gain points, this will have no meaningful impact on gameplay aside from slightly slowing down their access to the Hierophant staff.

Regarding non-boss chests: Nobody likes opening a chest and getting a pka mod disk, and they're immersion breaking to boot. PKA progression belongs in the hands of the miners and station, and not in lavaland chests, especially when a handful of players would prefer to ditch the weapon as soon as possible.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots&Videos

Research from the science side

Gear available after basic mining research done

Gear available after advanced mining research done

Staff of storms being used on incorrect z-level, in a non-open space on lavaland and then out in the open, respectively

Staff of lava with similar:

Boss chests:

Changelog

:cl: tweak: basic mining satchel now holds up to 250 ores, 5x more than it previously could tweak: Mining vendor now has both varieties of plasma cutter as well all but three of the PKA mods, including most which were previously only available through tendril loot tweak: ORM gives substantially more points per ore, but upgrades only increase efficiency for the station instead of miner payouts for handing ores in. balance: Mining research no longer includes plasma cutters. Mining AoE PKA mod is now part of basic research instead of advanced, and the repeater and complete AoE mods are now part of advanced research. balance: Tendril chests now have a much higher chance to award desirable loot - all PKA mods except the lifesteal crystal have been removed from tendril chests. Overall these mods made up 40% of the drop table, so keys have been increased about 40% in price to compensate. tweak: PKA Lifesteal crystal no longer has a capacity cost to equip - no more rearranging mods to make room for it tweak: Megafauna now drop locked chests with their primary loot inside of it, in addition to their pile of ores. Ash Drake armor is now included in the Ash Drake drops, and crafting it is only possible for Ashwalkers who stumble onto the corpse. tweak: Megafauna now always drop one crusher trophy, regardless of how they were killed, as a part of their chest loot. add: Staff of storms and Staff of lava are now available as tendril loot, but they may only be used on lavaland. /:cl:

[Kratairo]

Removing the useless mod disks is good, but why add the staff? Its just as useless as the mod disks.

[Rukofamicom]

Removing the useless mod disks is good, but why add the staff? Its just as useless as the mod disks.

Not totally Storms can remove ash storms as they're brewing, and lava can remove lava.

Both also have very strong applications for Ashwalkers especially, who will also be motivated to use them offensively in addition to this, and I have more in mind for another PR related to that if this one gets through.

[Kratairo]

Removing the useless mod disks is good, but why add the staff? Its just as useless as the mod disks.

Not totally Storms can remove ash storms as they're brewing, and lava can remove lava.

Both also have very strong applications for Ashwalkers especially, who will also be motivated to use them offensively in addition to this, and I have more in mind for another PR related to that if this one gets through.

Well the thing is, whats the point of removing ash storms and lava? You should be ash resistant at that point anyways (arent you also making the ash walkers storm resistant?) and the only use I could see on the lava staff is MAYBE to remove lava thats in the way for a... like 5 second time save?

And I will be real, I dont really get why you even consider ash walkers at all, its mostly a griefer role to annoy miners and I hate then a LOT.

[Rukofamicom]

And I will be real, I dont really get why you even consider ash walkers at all, its mostly a griefer role to annoy miners and I hate then a LOT.

That is quite literally their role, yes, and that's why I like them. They offer otherwise very lacking player interaction and also a challenge to overcome backed by human intellect instead of being a memory test against a health sponge timer like megafauna are with their predictable AI.

and the only use I could see on the lava staff is MAYBE to remove lava thats in the way for a... like 5 second time save?

Being able to remove lava becomes pretty helpful if ashwalkers are able to place it because they happened to acquire their own staff. There's a river of lava with no way around it that you have to cross if you want to face the legion. There are alternative ways around it, but having another one isn't particularly bad. It's definitely the weaker option of the two regardless of conditions.

Well the thing is, whats the point of removing ash storms and lava? You should be ash resistant at that point anyways (arent you also making the ash walkers storm resistant?)

There's a bit of an issue with your thinking here - you're speaking only for the miners who can easily kill an ash drake which is not representative of all miners by a long shot. A tendril takes much less experience to be able to topple and, again, having additional ways to negate the hazards of lavaland isn't a bad thing. Additionally, while being able to negate the damage of ash storms is possible via drake armor and station help, being able to totally negate the vision obscuring effects isn't possible with anything other than the staff.

And yes, ashwalkers will be immune to ash storms, but they can again make use of the staff offensively against invaders if they acquire it.

---

To elaborate on the change I'm planning with ashwalkers, it's to give them their own fairly limited drop table from the chests if an ashwalker is the one opening it. Loot doesn't actually exist in the crate until after a key is used on it, so by checking the species of the person using the key this can be done. Before that happens I'm going to be looking at further expanding the loot in general for both parties though. I need more loot ideas in general.

Feel free to suggest anything that are either useful to miners or flavorfully match the theming of lavaland, anything with ash, fire or eldritch theming. Items that have especially high pvp potential, or exlusively pvp applications will probably not be considered. The problem is most "useful" niches have already been filled, sometimes by multiple options, so that leaves mostly wacky or fun items that people won't just groan when they find.

[Rukofamicom]

And if you want to kneejerk against ashwalkers getting their own variations on loot - imagine how much more rewarding it will be to take down an ashwalker when it actually has its own unique loot and drops instead of being almost entirely worthless items.

Making ashwalkers more than just a setback is half the goal of this idea.

[Kratairo]

And if you want to kneejerk against ashwalkers getting their own variations on loot - imagine how much more rewarding it will be to take down an ashwalker when it actually has its own unique loot and drops instead of being almost entirely worthless items.

Making ashwalkers more than just a setback is half the goal of this idea.

I dont mind the idea of making ash walkers more of a menace to fight, but please restrict their abilities to grief. For that end please dont add the lava staff or make it so it cant be on the MINING station. Its not fun gameplay to come back to the base seeing the shuttle console has been destroyed by a random ashie who came in when no one was there (which is most of the time) or having the mining station/shuttle be surrounded by lava you cant cross cause haha funny mining antag being a dick.

[Rukofamicom]

I dont mind the idea of making ash walkers more of a menace to fight, but please restrict their abilities to grief. For that end please dont add the lava staff or make it so it cant be on the MINING station. Its not fun gameplay to come back to the base seeing the shuttle console has been destroyed by a random ashie who came in when no one was there (which is most of the time) or having the mining station/shuttle be surrounded by lava you cant cross cause haha funny mining antag being a dick.

I already changed it to be restricted to only being usable outdoors on lavaland, which means not in the mining base (or inside of any ruins, notably). It is still possible to completely surround the base and there isn't anything I can really do to stop that. There will always be a ring around the base even if I add a grace area. Unlike before however, you can easily get around the lava by asking for assistance from the station if this happens. An RCD can make a path right through it and you shouldn't have too much trouble convincing somebody you need one if you explain why in a situation like this.

Those same restrictions apply to the storm staff as well, so no storms inside of shelters.

[ilikesaying]

based gear relocation

[Tsar-Salat]

Ash Drake armor is now included in the Ash Drake drops, and crafting it is only possible for Ashwalkers who stumble onto the corpse.

So if ashlanders don't spawn on lavaland that shift then there is little use to ash drake hide? Its entirely locked out? You including this in the changes log but not explaining it anywhere is kinda sus in my opinion. This directly goes against what you said earlier about how this pr will not effect miners who do their job instead of boss rushing. Locking non-ashwalkers fully means there would be absolutely no progression to obtain this. Please Elaborate

tweak: Megafauna now always drop one crusher trophy, regardless of how they were killed, as a part of their chest loot.

What is the reasoning for this? To make it easier for miners to use a crusher whilst not using a crusher to kill? Explain your thoughts.

Honestly, in my opinion, this feels like two PRs sandwiched together. One that does what the title says and the other that does something different. I am excited for the first one, no so much for the second.

[Rukofamicom]

Locking non-ashwalkers fully means there would be absolutely no progression to obtain this. Please Elaborate

Re-read exactly what you quoted slowly.

Ash Drake armor is now included in the Ash Drake drops

now included in the Ash Drake drops

As in a set of armor is in the chest. I specifically moved it to ashwalker crafting only because it's one of those things that makes little sense for a miner to just up and craft, but removing that key item from their arsenal wasn't particularly great. There will only be one set per kill now though, but ash drakes can spawn multiple (or even zero) times as it is. It is not a vital item, just very convenient, and this convenience may also be matched via staff of storms now being obtainable again.

Leaving the drake or its hide on the ground also gives the potential for ashwalkers to stumble on it and use the very powerful armor against miners. Go sell it to cargo or something.

tweak: Megafauna now always drop one crusher trophy, regardless of how they were killed, as a part of their chest loot.

What is the reasoning for this?

To greatly reduce the necessity of a crusher user needing to be the first person to every boss in order to effectively upgrade their tool.

[Sapfearon]

Read this pr as "i doubled price of useless lootboxes and locked loot for which you worked/died behind paywall" Thanks, i guess? It is kinda funny how every round i played i ended up with 30k spare points yet i still see "boss rush miners bring 0 mats to station". No, dead miners bring 0 mats to station and your pr addressed nothing about it. If anything, you made miners more likely to die since they HAVE to use points on keys instead of meds. Then again, we have like what, 1 miner main left? with 2 more sometimes playing? instead of 30 before lavaland nerfs? No playerbase to lose here anyway, do your worst.

[Rukofamicom]

I'm not even responding to you specifically this time, I made my point in the other PR. You never respond when your concerns are addressed, and as is apparent from the majority of your comments, you do not even fully read PRs before making remarks anyway.

[PerishedFraud]

i doubled price of useless lootboxes

the loot pool was made nicer.

i ended up with 30k spare points

so you realize that having things to spend points on is good, yes? note the new additions to the vendor.

boss rush miners bring 0 mats to station

yes. some people are selfish pricks. now they'll get punished for being selfish pricks by getting no loot. note that playing as an ashwalker is still there if you just want to hunt stuff, and would be better than before.

If anything, you made miners more likely to die since they HAVE to use points on keys instead of meds

survival pens unchanged. other meds won't save you in combat anyway. you still start with a pen. if miners die it's their own damn fault.

1 miner main left

yes, and as someone with enough job experience I fully back these changes.

Anything else?

[ilikesaying]

It is kinda funny how every round i played i ended up with 30k spare points yet i still see "boss rush miners bring 0 mats to station". No, dead miners bring 0 mats to station and your pr addressed nothing about it. If anything, you made miners more likely to die since they HAVE to use points on keys instead of meds.

Hear me out what if they hauled the locked chest to the base to buy a key at after bossfighting instead of splurging on keys before bossfighting?

[PerishedFraud]

Hear me out what if they hauled the locked chest to the base to buy a key at after bossfighting instead of splurging on keys before bossfighting?

He probably wants to speedrun the boss while carrying an ore box. Clearly his time in cargo was not remembered as you can still just push the chest into the base like a techie :)

[Kratairo]

Hear me out what if they hauled the locked chest to the base to buy a key at after bossfighting instead of splurging on keys before bossfighting?

He probably wants to speedrun the boss while carrying an ore box. Clearly his time in cargo was not remembered as you can still just push the chest into the base like a techie :)

Literally doesnt work though, waste of time to drag the chest (also everyone just gonna steal it and you cant kill people who do it for some reason)

[Rukofamicom]

Wait, do you actually play Beestation with that mentality @Kratairo? It's a dick move to steal someone else's stuff but god damn that's some absurd escalation you seem to think should be allowed in response.

You can kill boss while not having a key then stash chest until you get one and most people are probably not going to touch it. If you're doing this to multiple bosses before you can even afford keys, you're just being a selfish cunt for trying to ensure nobody who actually cares about providing resources to the station even gets a chance to fight the bosses when it's more appropriate to do so.

Boss-rushing actively punishes players who actually care about their obligation to provide ores to the station. It needs a deterrent.

[PerishedFraud]

While I don't agree with the mentality, I will say that literally all it takes is putting the chest in the toilet. You really think someone's gonna check the lavaland toilet for treasure? Just do that.

[Rukofamicom]

A couple of the miners willing to explain their motivations for rushing brought about one more small change:

Miners are motivated to withhold ores, not just for the sake of being a dick like I've been presenting, but because the point returns for an non-upgraded ORM are totally ass, especially considering how much more work it is to gather ores before any upgrades have been gotten. From the point of view presented, it just makes far more sense to spend the opening ten minutes rushing hiero for a decent mining tool, and then mining some ores to turn in for points after the ORM gets upgraded and the returns are worth the effort.

In order to both make that initial period a little more bearable (especially considering hiero is now also point-locked), but also ensure miners aren't directly motivated to withhold ores until midgame, I've substantially increased the starting payout per ore but removed the impact of upgrades on miner payouts. Upgrading the ORM will now only benefit the station so there is no direct motivator to sit on your ores for more points later.

While adjusting this I also found two separate oversights:

ORM upgrades do not affect point and sheet efficiency equally, as implied by the wiki: Laser upgrades affect exclusively points, and matter bin upgrades affect exclusively ore to sheet efficiency. I've updated both to affect ore to sheet efficiency in accordance with the information on the wiki.

Titanium currently rewards a base value of 50 points per ore when it should have been 30. This is the only ore that actually lost point values due to correcting this before giving it a 25% boost.

New base value for ores are mostly increased by 25%, with some rounding up. Iron and Glass were doubled.

• Iron: 2
• Glass: 2
• Copper: 6
• Plasma: 19
• Silver: 20
• Gold: 23
• Uranium: 38
• Titanium: 38
• Diamond: 63
• Bluespace: 63
• Bananium: 63

I don't wholly agree with the sentiment that starting values aren't worth it at all, but I have always thought Iron and Glass gave way too little to be worth the time and I only go after them because I know the station needs them in pretty high quantities on most rounds. I also know I'm probably in the minority in thinking those starting rates are good enough, so I didn't have the heart to simply remove upgrades without some sort of concession to point rewards.

I have always known upgrades yielded better points, but never really considered this was a super strong motivator to withhold ores, and in retrospect it's a pretty terrible design choice to motivate this sort of behavior.

[LemonmanPartyman2]

17 days.

Destroying lava is very useful for luring megafauna or traversing through the FUCKING LAVA RIVERS, so thanks! Staff of storms seems useless tho, I want it replaced with some other drop that helps out a role outside of mining. Storms are here to make the miners go back home and drop their ores, and it's easily survivable through any structure. Thank you for making the trophies drop with any tool, mining newbs that wanna practice with PKA on a hiero can thank you for that. Got some questions, ones that are not about the PR are marked by "/":

1. If you can butcher the ashey yourself and totally know that ashwalker tiders will try to kill you whenever possible, can you just hoard all the ash drake scales so nothing would stop your killing spree?
2. Will there be any fix to bubblegum's dash? He never completes it fully. ///
3. Will there be a policy for giving away potentially dangerous loot like cleaving saw or meathook away? ///
4. Will legion trophy and achievement be finally fixed?
5. Can ashwalkers mutilate the mining base and can they camp outside of it? Can they freely bring in a collosus or a bubblegum to threaten miners?
6. Will storm staff have a CD on summoning storms, or does it only stop them?
7. Will something be done about the swarmers? Nice idea, but fighting them with a crusher is a pain. Plus laser swarmers seem strange, because their whole idea is to consume and restrain anyone who resists them. ///

[Rukofamicom]

If you can butcher the ashey yourself and totally know that ashwalker tiders will try to kill you whenever possible, can you just hoard all the ash drake scales so nothing would stop your killing spree?

Nope, in fact this is more or less what I'm encouraging miners to do - keep it out of the hands of natives, or don't at your own peril.

Will there be any fix to bubblegum's dash? He never completes it fully.

In a later PR perhaps. I'm not making anything aside from minor fixes until my existing PRs get reviewed and merged or closed. It also might be related to mob movement port. Make a bug report here on github about it in detail.

Will there be a policy for giving away potentially dangerous loot like cleaving saw or meathook away?

There already is more or less - dangerous weaponry carried around on station is liable for confiscation by security. As a non-antagonist you're more or less expected to comply with security and not cause major issues for them.

Will legion trophy and achievement be finally fixed?

Since you don't need to do crusher damage for the trophy, likely yes. Since you do for the achievement, likely no.

Haven't explicitly checked either since they weren't objectives of this PR specifically.

Speaking about asheys. Can they mutilate the mining base and can they camp outside of it? Can they freely bring in a collosus or a bubblegum to threaten miners?

Again a question for admins, not for github. I'm not comfortable answering this one in any capacity.

Will storm staff have a CD on summoning storms, or does it only stop them?

Already had a cooldown and it keeps that cooldown.

Will something be done about the swarmers? Nice idea, but fighting them with a crusher is a pain. Plus laser swarmers seem strange, because their whole idea is to consume and restrain anyone who resists them.

Not at this time, no. They're a superb source of bluespace crystals and provide some motivation for using tools other than crusher (aside from being new and not experienced enough to go melee).

[LemonmanPartyman2]

Github messed up the numbers a little. and I used "asheys" as a slang for walkers and drakes. Sorry. Cool PR, merge it or I'll fly to lavaland as a headrev.

[github-actions[bot]]

This pull request has conflicts, please resolve those before we can evaluate the pull request.

[Rukofamicom]

Ahh, didn't mean to request re-review sorry. I was just getting the merge conflict out of the way.

[PowerfulBacon]

Ahh, didn't mean to request re-review sorry. I was just getting the merge conflict out of the way.

~~I don't look at it since its literally just all PRs anyway~~

[Rukofamicom]

I'm clearly not going to be able to make the necessary time to finish patching this up at this point. Branch will remain if someone else wants to polish it up.