Long-Range Mineral Scanner Balance

[bipolaron]

I love the idea of going on mining expeditions, but Jade is a terrible thing to find. It's so low of value relative to it's weight that I just end up mining the components instead.

Jade seems like finding fools gold. It still triggers the sensor, but is basically worthless. Gold seems fine because its weight is low relative to its value.

Is this incredibly unbalanced situation intentional? I feel like it would all make more sense if Jade weighed 0.05 but required 10x to craft with. It's basically trash in the context of a mining expedition, but I do not think it is so worthless in real life.

[bipolaron]

It would be infinitely better if the mineral scanner picked up silver, gold, and maybe uranium only. You know, the things that are valuable enough that they have reasonable prices even though they are "small-volume ingredients".

[Telerion]

You dont like Jade? Why?
It is the most beautifull resssource you can build of. A masterpiece of a royal bed is 390 beauty makes your bedroom without anything else very impressive.
Oh and btw, Jade isnt a small ingedient anymore since a17.

Before a17 you are right, now jade is a really powerfull ore to find. Beds, sculptures, tables, everything makes your colony now beautifull as hell.
And the best thing is, you dont need precious ore to build those structures anymore, you can save your gold now for more importent things.

[Thrax]

I don't think its now worth building jade beds or tables, its doesnt add much to the room bonus in a17. Scultures are more important.
Jade scultures are really expensive, and masterpiece jade clubs are strong if you are rich enouth . Jade still worth to take, unless you really miss some pack animals

[Telerion]

It doesent add much? Really expensive?
I dont know what mods you use, but a room with nothing in it then a royal jade bed in good quality makes the room very impressive and it only cost you 50 gold and 110 jade. Not what i call really expensive.
A jade table in your dining room or a jade chest table in your rec room and you get a constant mood buff because your colonist love those rooms. Dont get me wrong here, sculpures are great and i build them everywhere, but an extremely impressive rec and dining room gives you a permanant mood buff.
I never use jade for weapons, because the dmg is crap compared to plasteel.
Before a17 you need way to much jade for building anything, and OP was right, it was crap when you find it with the scanner, but now that you dont need that much anymore it is really valuable and i dont talk about selling it but using it.

[Thrax]

What i am trying to explain is thats its better to sculpt the jade and put the art into the room than make a furniture with it. It need to test it more to be sure tho.
For the weapon you should try a masterpiece jade club if you got too much jade. the damage isn't crap at all .

[Telerion]

I know what you mean, and dont get me wrong here, it is totaly fine to do so. But, a stool needs 15 jade, a table 95, so you can make 1 large sculpture for 135 jade or 1 table and 2 stools for 125. Roughly the same amount of materials ;). The sculpture gives you more beauty in total, but your colonist hate to eat without a table, so the mood buff you get from the sculpture is lost to the negative mood from eating without proper furnitures ;). (not counting the time to build or that it is way easyer to get masterfull furnitures then masterfull art. Constuction is pretty easy to lvl, because you always build, Art needs a pawn to constantly craft sculpture you deconstruct immediatly because they are shoddy in the beginning ;)).

Again, dont get me wrong here, both ways are totaly fine, combining them is of course the best you can do if you have the matteriels. And now we are back to the OP`s problem of worthless jade. Scanning and getting jade is (for me at least) now since a17 great, because i can use it for furnitures and sculptures. If you are like me and dont build "efficiently" but for the "look" of your colony jade is my personal way to go.

For the club thing, i am honest and say, i havent build a club in a17, so maybe it is good now. Build a longsword once out of every material to compare them, and the small volume mats like jade, silver, uranium and gold where all crap compared to steel and plasteel, maybe i give it another try ;). Oh and with crap i mean the amount of mats you need and the availability of them compared to each other and the dmg output they get. Plasteel is actually not that hard to get (dissembling mechanoids) while jade was harder to get thousands of it to make one weapon ;).

[bipolaron]

If it were Amethyst maybe. I judge your choice of color scheme... disturbing. :-D

I think I could get on board with Jade being low value but super high beauty (like 600%/+18, higher than gold) while still being heavy. Common, but beautiful is a sensible idea. But gold, currently, is twice the beauty modifier AND 14x the value per weight, so from a game mechanics perspective it feels out of whack. If the intent was for Jade to be super beautiful but common, it should be higher beauty to make up for the low value.

Gold - Beauty 400%/+16, $142/kg
Silver - Beauty 200%/+6, $100/kg
Uranium - Beauty 50%, $60/kg
Component - $35/kg
Jade - Beauty 250%/+6, $10/kg
Granite - Beauty +110%, $2/kg
Wood - Beauty 100%, $2/kg

My point is more that the long range mineral scanner says "precious minerals" and Jade is not one. This is practically by definition in the game, since it's not a small volume material. But you are correct that it is at least the second most beautiful material, even if its value is terrible. And I suppose you are right that you can at least reasonably craft with it since it is not low volume, so I'll concede that point, it's a good one that I hadn't really thought about. I'm going to shift my artist to use all the Jade at your advice.

But at the very least, the mineral scanner should find you uranium and silver as well, or tell you what kind of mineral was found. Otherwise I'm ending up not knowing whether I can send a dude with cargo pants or need to send an giant convoy with 8 dromedaries.

If the intent is to have it be a random outcome between hitting paydirt and coming up Jade, that's fine. It's a story, and technology that can't tell a valuable thing from a common thing exist. It's just not great for game balance.

[Telerion]

Originally posted by bipolaron:

If it were Amethyst maybe. I judge your choice of color scheme... disturbing. :-D

Hehe. Well, you can install a colored light and make the room darker for your eye if you dont like the greenish color ;).


But back to topic, you are right, Jade is not really a "precious" ore but still rare to find. I normaly play on flat or small hills maps, so i dont get much of it. Dont know if there is more to find on montain maps.


Maybe the mineral scanner is just a test/placeholder for future updates. Like different scanners for different materials. One scanner for high value ores like gold and silver another for crafting materials like jade or steel. Alot changes through development. Uranium for example, before a17 it was only used for spaceship parts, now we can build shield belts with it. Before a17 i sold it because it was useless for me, now i horde it alot and craft with it.
Who knows what we get in the future ;)

[Xilo The Odd]

i usually play on mountain maps and you'll find it sometimes on the surface but mainly from deep drilling more often.

figured i'd say this since i leanred from you guys jade has been changed.

[bipolaron]

I hope we can use Jade in the future for making hippie spirit crystals that instantly heal all injuries any colonist has.

It is true that the only significant Jade deposits I've found were through the remote mineral scanner maps. Usually I'll get at most two or three squares of it on a mountainous map.

[Telerion]

Originally posted by Xilo The Odd:

i usually play on mountain maps and you'll find it sometimes on the surface but mainly from deep drilling more often.

figured i'd say this since i leanred from you guys jade has been changed.

So it is pretty rare to find. Deep drilling makes the scanner mostly useless unless you drilled every ore from the world ;).

Originally posted by bipolaron:

I hope we can use Jade in the future for making hippie spirit crystals that instantly heal all injuries any colonist has.

Yeah and makes them an healthy adult without scars and 20 years old ;). Save the grandfathers and grandmothers form there Luziferium addiction ;).