Iron Vein Yields Too Low, They Should Be Double Their Current Amount at All Stages

[DougLefelhocz]

The current iron system continues to encourage Eves to look around for a potentially long time for iron veins. As a recent example, I ran 1500 tiles left of my spawn spot as Eve Earthman before I found a spot with two veins AND a nearby swamp for clay (I've played in camps where they have a few veins, but no nearby swamp, and they basically don't work). It's not feasible to check the entire grid in one's band, because even figuring out the top and bottom spot of one's band can result in homesickness. It's also very easy to miss good spots that may have been 40 or 80 tiles north or south of where one was when one decided to run further west to find a suitable spot. In a second life as Eve Earthman again, I found a not too bad spot about -250, -80 from apparently the same spawn spot (someone else was at the spot where I had died, and s/he was 1500 left of my spawn spot), since I decided to scour the grid systematically north and south even if it looked like doing such was unlikely to yield anything.

It was better when an Eve could basically find a spring with a swamp near, and go for it. Things were more about crafting and/or communicating with others rather than looking around the map for a suitable spot or running around trying to import resources to a poor spot.

But, as it stands, an Eve that knows the entire tech tree, realizes that the family needs the output from at least 2 iron veins to get enough iron to get to a functioning (running on kerosene) diesel iron mine, and diesel water pump. Whites giving/trading away their iron doesn't and shouldn't happen, except very, very rarely, for a few reasons.

1. Whites might not exist. Trading/gifting among families presupposes the existence of other families, but it is necessary or at least desireable that families of a given race don't exist at some point. No game is good if players get expected to do impossible things, or if players are expected to fail, because of a priori conditions that they cannot overcome. Gamers are smarter to give up playing if any game puts them in an impossible position.

2. Whites might be too young to trade/gift iron meaningfully. Giving or trading iron in an Eve camp when there's no cart or shears doesn't make sense. Latex and sulfur have no value for a while. Food or seeds for peppers/tomatoes could be nice and somewhat useful, but getting a cart (assuming no scavenging) for moving soil around or getting more clay/other resources likely has more value.

3. Whites might be far away. A 3k east long lived white family isn't a good trading partner for iron.

4. Whites can and sometimes do only have one iron vein themselves. They aren't a good trading partner if they only have one vein. If they only have two veins, trading for iron with whites still doesn't make sense.

5. Unless playing shortly after an arc restart, there's likely some ghost camp (no people living there), where not all of the iron veins have gotten exhausted. Finding that is just much easier and less time consuming than going to whites.

If iron veins had double the amount that they do currently, then Eves could spend a lot less time looking for a suitable spot or players having a poor spot with iron near, but no or barely any clay. Also, later generations wouldn't have to run around so much scavenging for resources. That would mean more time crafting or spent interacting with people.