Mining Observations from 2 weeks of hard core mining

[Guest]

The last few weeks, give or take, I have been mining for several hours per day on Siege. I have also been reading these forums and noticed lots of questions.

Here is what I have noticed/timed.

1. Ore nodes respawn about every 10 minutes (timed it from computer clock)

2. Elves get at lease twice the colored ore and gems and blackrock that humans do, if not more. (I changed my miner from human to Elf about a week ago)

3. Even though the chance for an Ore Elemental to spawn is 1%, I seem to average about 2 per garg pick. (I have burned thru several hundred garg picks)

4. Valorite spots just move around, by this I mean, I have been mining an area in Illsh that covers about 24 screens or so, and there are always at least 4 spots that are Val or can be upgraded to Val with Garg pick and or Prospector tools. As soon as I loose one, I just need to go searching and I find a new one.

5. the smelt rates and the RNG really need to be looked at, I should not fail to smelt gold, at 105 mining, 3 times in a row ( that is a 1 in 1000 chance, I know possible, but not probable) and I should not fail Verite 5 times in a row ( about a 3 in 1000 chance if memory serves and both happened tonight) odds of both happening 1 in 100,000, where is my lottery ticket?

6. Siege should be double resources everywhere, we have no trammel. (just a tiny rant, hehe)

 

[Basara]

I'm beginning to think that the increased ore for Elves might only be working on SP if you're seeing it - because it's sure not happened on my shard.

I've had to help a number of miners switch back to human as they saw negligible difference, even before the randomizations. They saw more gems, but not more ore (colored or otherwise) - especially since some of the spots they were hitting (through selecting over years of mining, culling the bad spots) produce 80-95% colored ore every visit (and still do, even if the ore's not the same each time, or they have to whack it with a PT to get DC from it).

 

[Guest]

If you are interested, I can keep track of, and post some hard numbers (post smelting) for some of my runs with Prospector tools and Garg Picks.

It would include the Ore from Elementals, and assume ALL spots were upgraded at least with the Prospectors tool, and most with Garg Pick too. I am low on DC, so I am not upgrading that to Shadow atm.

Let me know.

 

[ZippyTwitch]

Elves dont get increased ore. They get a better chance of finding the colored ore than humans. And they get a better chance to find more gems and blackrock than a human. But not double the ore over the humans.

 

[Guest]

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Elves dont get increased ore. They get a better chance of finding the colored ore than humans. And they get a better chance to find more gems and blackrock than a human. But not double the ore over the humans.

[/ QUOTE ]

If you read what I wrote (2. Elves get at lease twice the colored ore and gems and blackrock that humans do, if not more. (I changed my miner from human to Elf about a week ago) )

I never said Elves got twice as much ore, overall, but I did say they got twice as much colored ore.

 

[Basara]

Actually, it's not "twice as much colored ore" as much as it is "half as much iron ore" (or +20% to the standard ore percentage for the resource square), if my theory is correct.

All of my marked spots produce 60-95% colored ore every time for a human, regardless of the ore type it is changed to. As the elves that have hit the same spots don't get 100% colored ore every time, it's likely that the bonus takes the form of reducing iron instead of adding colored - unless I've been bugged on those spots for 3 years before ML existed into getting hyper-amounts of colored ore.

If you already have set, high-color-payout, ore spots that you always hit, being an elf won't matter. The elf bonus appears to be to make marginal color spots worth mining for the colored ore.

Note that SUPPOSEDLY, one is supposed to get 40% colored ore from spots when human, 60% if an elf, but if that code ever existed, it was never active. Mining spots have always been ratable, from testing and observation, to have their OWN percentages, independent of miner race &amp; skill.

Otherwise, a human wouldn't have been able to go to a spot twice a week for 3 years before ML came out, and get 18-20 colored ore out of 20-25 total ore EVERY TIME in Trammel.

There's no way you can work "average of 40%" into a consistant 65-80% yield over 5 years (almost 3 years prior to ML, almost 2 years with ML and static ores, and about 8 months with the ore merry-go-round, hitting the spot with a prospector tool when it comes up iron on the first dig).

 

[ZippyTwitch]

OK I do stand corrected. I did misread that line. I think that major fact noone is really understanding here. I really don't know if its education or what not. But random means random. It doesnt mateer what the devs post are the (staticstics if you will). Everytime a person digs for ore it randomizes what that person gets. Its random if you get a gem. Its random if you get a piece of blackrock. Its random if you get 2 valorite ore or 20 valorite ore from that vein. Its all random. Their 40% or 60% chance to find something is basically broken down like this...... The game rolls and invisible d100 die. If it rolls 40 or higher thats the 60% chance part of it. Basically the game comes down to D&amp;D as far as the randomness of the game. It rolls a die just like D&amp;D. You jut dont see the die. Its in the programming. That is the random number generator that is always talked about.

 

[Basara]

The big issue is that we've seen the 40%/60% numbers bandied about elsewhere, and I've yet to see any evidence supporting them, and amost all evidence indicating otherwise. You just don't get a regular 80%+ from a vein, trip after trip after trip, with a 60% chance, let alone a 40% one - while on another vein, every time, be lucky to get 10% colored, every time. if there was a set percentage being rolled against, based on race alone, you'd average 40% or 60% at both sites.

Either those numbers are bogus, or something else is affecting them.

 

[Guest]

I have an elf miner (also on Siege Perilous).

I have been trying to get regular iron ore to make regular ingots to raise blacksmithy skill. I notice that it is very difficult to mine and find a spot that does not have colored ore. I get excited when I DON'T hit a colored ore spot.

Also, gems have been fairly plentiful. Got 2 Blackrock and probably mined less than 2 hours total time.

I am in no way an uber miner although I've played UO off and on for 10 years and have had several miners during that time.

 

[Basara]

I've noticed an increase since the change in the number of colored spots, with my human miner, as well. But, in every case, my guildmaster (who is an elf) mining the same mountain face 20 minutes behind me is getting the same ore 95% of the time that I did, and it's typically a change between colors, not a change to iron or from iron that is noticed.

If the "elven bonus" applied to making iron spots produce colored, we'd have noticed it by now, by me getting iron only from a spot he got the same colored ore from 20 minutes prior and 20 minutes after.

I think the way the "ore randomization" code is working, it has a lot lower chance to change to iron, than the original percentage that divided spots between ore and colored. As a result, more and more veins are turning colored ore as a percentage of all veins, and straight iron veins are slowly becoming more and more rare for everyone.

 

[Guest]

The way I interpret the "Elf Bonus" working, is not in making Iron ore spots produce color, but in getting more colored ore on average out of the non iron spots.

Example: On Average!!!!! if a spot was, lets say Shadow without any prospecting or a garg pick, and a human mined it, they would get 8 shadow ore and 12 iron ore (on Average). And, if an elf mined the same spot 20 min later, they would get 12 shadow and 8 iron (on average).

I know some spots produce almost all colored ore, or all iron ore, wether you are elf or human, thus the on average

 

[Basara]

Yeah, but when you mine high output areas almost exclusively it's hard to see it. It's interesting to note that the high output areas do stay high-output even if their ore type changes, so all those marked spots we had for specific ores are still good for large amounts of random colored ore (though you SP players have to gate between them).

And anything close to official I've seen gives that 40% &amp; 60% numbers that supposedly applies to all sites, that any experienced miner can state that they do not. It really needs to be a FOF question....

 

[Guest]

Interesting point you bring up about the high output spots. I have seen those too, on one Val spot I got all colored or, about 25 Large and no Iron.

I would also like to see the addressed in a FOF.

/signed