SmedBlog: Harvestable Resources

[Phisionary]

Originally Posted by Kail

New element

A good way for this is dynamically spawned nodes that need harvesting - Auraxis's core is a little unstable and randomly explodes resources upwards. First empire to sucessfully harvest and get the transport back get's a nice resource boost.

Incidentally, it would be super cool if these nodes actually spawned as a mini eruption. Imagine running in the middle of nowhere and you're screen starts to shake...

I was thinking about this concept... ways to dynamically introduce a new mining or resource site without breaking game immersion or lore too much. I agree some sort of geologic pseudosciencing could make some cool effects. Eruptions from the ground, lava, or something else, would be spectacular. Or, some other strange physical effects... I was thinking, glowing rocks (I'm imagining battling over a luminescent landscape, lit up by it's own illumination at night), or maybe some antigravity... you know, there was a suggestion of some floating islands in another thread... 'Unobtanium', anybody?

Another idea I was thinking (and this has been suggested before), is meteor strikes. They're too rare on earth to be much use, but real meteors are supposed to have high concentrations of platinum group metals. So maybe meteors could have value as a resource.

Or, and this is the idea I prefer, meteors in PS2 could actually be fragments from ancient Vanu technology or something. This tech would be a new resource, either because it was some un-reproducible substance, or because it is actually technology. A 'technology' resource could be used as a justification for the introduction of a new tier of weapons, vehicles, etc., sometime along the '3-year plan' for PS2.

Anyway, they could manifest as this huge fiery ball that streaks across the sky over a continent. Hundreds of players might see it go over. Those that did would know there would be an epic battle at the end of that trail, and would immediately be trying to pinpoint where the meteor(s) had landed. They would need to make plans to occupy a nearby base to have a chance at harvesting the resource, if it wasn't in their territory already.

Maybe this kind of event would happen a couple times a week, realtime, per cont., to which this mechanism applied? Rare enough to be special, but often enough that you'd have a chance at that play if you're a regular.
I believe that idea has a lot of potential.