Stone as a resource and ore deposits - my opinion

This is my opinion on stone as a source of resources. In SE 1, you could mine stone and process it for a small bit of iron, silicon and copper (if I remember correctly.) This can help bootstrap a player with building resources when first starting the game, especially if resources are not easy to find.

Backstory Example

This was especially useful when I started a fresh adventure in SE 1 while waiting for SE 2's Survival Mode. I had a very bad start - plateau with sheer cliffs, no way down except falling or crashing death, ores buried at least 60+ m down, mostly Gold and Silver deposits and only found Cobolt and Iron deposits much later, ice and other ores nowhere to be found. Had to create a flyer to go to the mountains to mine snow or even eventually find a frozen lake on a neighboring plateau. Would have been digging for a long time with the hand drill had Stone not provided resources. Even a mining rover wasn't working - the terrain was too flat or too shear for it to be effective and only found 1 stone with a resource (Iron) in the entire area. I have no idea how much stone I hauled with my backpack just to get the basic initial base started, plus enough for a mining drill to reach Cobolt so I could build an atmospheric miner

That being said, I think people are right in that Stone gave players too much for resources. One of the reasons for hunting down Iron, Silicon, Copper and other deposits is that they provided much more resources by volume.

The following are my thoughts on how the game could be adjusted to compensate, depending on the approaches taken.

Resource Scattering

When the resources are re-scattered by future updates, scatter smaller deposits of resources closer to the surface, with larger deposits found deeper down. By smaller, I mean that the deposit only gives you 1-3 kT at most before running out. This can let players bootstrap up using the hand drill and some shallow drilling. You could also scatter the occasional large deposit among them for variety, but if the players want a lot of resources, they'll need to build a drilling platform or atmospheric miner to dig deep enough to get a lot of resources.

Doing this could allow players to not rely on Stone as a source of Iron, Silicon or Copper.

Stone, gravel and concrete could then be produced or not depending on whether the players want to use them as part of construction or decorative projects.

Reduce and Randomize Resource Amounts Given

If players choose to gather and process stone, reduce the amount of ore received from stone to a very small amount, for example 1% or less per kT depending on the ore type. Maybe 10 silicon, 3 copper, 1 iron per kT. Also, you could randomize what is given - sometimes more silicon is received and no copper or iron, sometimes a bit more iron but very little silicon or copper. And on rare occasions, you might get some cobolt or magnesium and maybe very little or never gold or silver.

The randomness could also vary by region. Desert regions produce more trace silicon and cobolt but rarely iron and magnesium. Mountain regions provide trace iron, copper and magnesium but rarely silicon. And so forth.

Restrict Processing

Another limitation can be what machines can process stone. For example, the Survival Kit might be the only machine allowed to process stone, and it can only do so slowly. Backpacks can never process it because processing is too energy intensive. Other machines, such as smelters, won't process it because it is not worth the cost.

Damage Over Time

Grinding up stone to process for resources could also be very damaging to machines, requiring players to use resources to keep repairing it. For example, if half or more of the scarce resources had to be fed back into the Survival Kit to keep it repaired, it would not be worth doing over the long term.

Other Machines for Processing Stone without Resources

Grinding Factory (not to be confused with the Grinder tool or ship component) could be required to produce gravel or concrete and would never spit out any other resources.

Cutter could be used to produce stone blocks which could then be used as a construction resource, but the machine would also not spit out any other resources.

My Personal Vote

Add stone as a source for gravel or building/texturing resources but not have it produce any usable resources. Instead, scatter enough small ore deposits near the surface to let players bootstrap up their bases and ships while preparing to dig for larger deposits.

The ore scanner and hand drills could be adjusted to roughly estimate the size of the deposits, with upgraded tools or ore scanners providing more accurate readings. For example:

• Level 1 - 100% error
• Level 2 - 50% error
• Level 3 - 25% error
• Level 4 - 5% error

Level 1 tools would not be very accurate on volume but would help players find initial resources. Level 4 tools, on the other hand, would be very accurate and allow players to focus on larger deposits and skip over the smaller ones.

This would also encourage players to upgrade their tools and ore scanners with better versions, so they can get a better picture of how much is located where.