...it's a D with a colon?

Give me a data entry form and I will enter data, sporadically, tearfully.

>>What skill is checked to display which metals/minerals are in the room? Appraisal? Foraging? Approximately how many ranks are needed to see both of them?

Both along with as perception.

I don't know the exacts, but here's some data on who was able to see what.

Foraging	Perception	Appraisal	See Rocks	See Metals
284	234	279	100.00%	80.00%
402	498	558	100.00%	100.00%
99	207	192	100.00%	0.00%
115	248	284	100.00%	5.00%
159	162	153	99.00%	0.00%
122	219	280	90.00%	5.00%
236	325	377	100.00%	100.00%

Interesting, I didn't figure metals and stones would use different calculations. Thanks for the info. I'll add this data:

Foraging	Perception	Appraisal	See Rocks	See Metals
117	259	318	~30%	~10%

Said person can get certains on the remaining materials, danger levels, etc., just can't see the stones present with any regularity. That would appear to be more a function of foraging skill, or perhaps an average.
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Malkien

I'll add this only because its worth noting, my appraisal, perception, and foraging are all very close to eachother. Theres no real large gaps in ranks between them. My app and foraging are actually exactly equal in ranks.
_______________________
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
-John Milton

>>That table makes it look like it's a skillcheck vs Foraging plus Perception plus Appraisal, where you'd need about 600 combined to start seeing metals, and about 900 combined to see metals 100% of the time

That's generally my feeling on it, but I don't know if its weighted more toward foraging or not. I feel like prospecting teaches foraging better than the others, and I don't know if that's a reflection of how much of the skill is used in relation to the other two.

Oh, it's possible that wisdom may be remotely involved, but in a small way. I know the data gathered in Plat also included wisdom, but I'm not sure if why we decided to include that.

>>Interesting, I didn't figure metals and stones would use different calculations.

It's MUCH easier to see rocks than stones. It kinda makes sense, too, when you think about the size/weight of the stones we can get in relation to the size/weight of the metals.

>>Think also that we've surmised Foraging affecting quality and/or quantity (at least size) of drops. Tool quality and such may be factors, who knows.

That's my understanding, too.

>>As for the rares, I'd say I mine casually for about an hour a day and have found 2 veins of lumium. No kertig/damite veins.

I just want to stress that, AFAIK, finding rare veins is all about the RNG, and nothing to do with skill. Same goes for getting a random drop in a vein of another metal, with the footnote that "common" metals might have a higher chance of giving a random rare. So you're more likely to get a bit of kertig in a coal vein than a haralun vein.

I believe it's perception+appraisal to see materials, and perception(a tiny bit)+forage(mostly) to mine them.

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>Assuming that the data in the previous table is correct, data points 1 and 6 contradict this statement

I went back and checked my notes and forum posts and couldn't find anything that said either way, so I could be wrong here.

---

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Based purely on the skills that move when I do mine, I would say that Perception is the main skill for finding stuff (prospecting) with Appraisal playing a minor role (probably linked to determining how much is there), and Foraging is the main skill for mining, which makes sense to me.

As for rares, I think Syn has already spoken to Malkien in game about her rare finds - I mine very infrequently but what I usually do is prospect through an area checking for rare veins and mine it if I find one. So far I have found lumium, niniam, platinum, darkstone and glaes veins using this technique. I don't know whether anyone else even mines the places I go so I am not sure whether areas reset and generate these veins after a while or whether they appear after someone has mined and cleared an area.

>> I don't know whether anyone else even mines the places I go so I am not sure whether areas reset and generate these veins after a while or whether they appear after someone has mined and cleared an area.

AFAIK they only pop from depleted rooms, but it is possible they can randomly just be assigned, never seen it happen myself though.
_______________________
As good almost kill a man as kill a good book; who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.
-John Milton

Regarding the rares, I am only interested in veins of the super rares - kertig, haralun, damite, glaes, and I suppose audrualn (not really interested in it, but never seen a vein of it). I have hundreds of volumes of darkstone, lumium, platinum, electrum, etc. at this point.

I know, RNG, permutations are independent of one another, etc. etc. I would appreciate some subjective input anyways. Are my chances of finding a super-rare vein 1 in 1000 or 1 in 10,000? That's how a few broad data points would help.
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Malkien

<<Regarding the rares, I am only interested in veins of the super rares - kertig, haralun, damite, glaes, and I suppose audrualn (not really interested in it, but never seen a vein of it). I have hundreds of volumes of darkstone, lumium, platinum, electrum, etc. at this point.

Side topic. I need some platinum if you are selling.

Madigan

>What's the going rate for platinum these days?

Market's bottomed out, I'd estimate 2 plat per volume, perhaps.

---

Weapons for Sale:
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Combat Balance List:
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>>Side topic. I need some platinum if you are selling.

I am selling. I probably have 400 volumes just in deeds on my person. My AIM is DiminishedSeraph.
*******
Vibrant orange flames seem to flicker in the Solomon's GM eyes, capturing your attention with a mesmerising stare.
You feel a calm wash over you, but you think about internet arguments and nerd rage, and it goes away.

Cool. I only need 100 volume. I'll drop an IM.

Madigan

>>For data purposes:
>>My prospect file has over 950 entries and I've never found a vein of any of those metals. My mining data file has over 600 swings recorded and I've never found a rare nugget.

Thanks Hanryu, more data's good data. I haven't recorded swings (maybe I should start), but...

I have found 10 veins of platinum, nine veins of lumium, six veins of niniam, 12 veins of darkstone, and 3 veins of electrum in 630 recorded rooms. (I only record rooms once I've mined them out and they repop for a "true" probability reading). The proportion of these cannot be weighted too heavily, as I have switched mines - and rock types - several times now. I have also found seven random pops of damite, six of haralun, and two of glaes. The lower proportion of glaes is primarily due to me quitting on igneous after a relatively short mining period.

On a general level, however, it has been my experience that darkstone, niniam, lumium, and platinum are all roughly equal in probable appearance, with electrum occupying some level between these and the super rares. It's quite possible that in my short period with igneous data I was simply unlucky, and electrum is equally as probable as niniam.

Curiously, I have found no kertig random drops, whereas a friend of mine has found three with less metamorphic data. This could just be the nature of the RNG beast, but I suspect that the probability of random pops of rare nuggets differs between different mines.
*******
Vibrant orange flames seem to flicker in the Solomon's GM eyes, capturing your attention with a mesmerising stare.
You feel a calm wash over you, but you think about internet arguments and nerd rage, and it goes away.

Some more Data if it helps, if you are still looking at them. I altered my mine counter script to grab the prospect information. Some of it is off, due to prospecting to see if any materials are left to keep mining. I will reset everything and change how it grabs, I had it triggering just off of prospect instead of "Studying the geology\, you are certain that continued mining will be quite safe\.$"

Skills of right now:
Appraise: 268
Forage: 183
Perception: 205

Stone Seen: 68
Metal Seen: 13
Amount Seen: 81
Total Prospects: 105

I guess I can set it to keep track of how much it finds overall, to get a general sense of that. Right now it is just storing the mined materials in local variables.

>>Keep in mind. That is a GOOOD several hours. A lot of times I'd do same amount of swings and find exactly NOTHING. Finding a vein of the SUPER rare stuff? So far after likely 200 hours of mining 1 SMALL vein of Glaes. Thats it. Fair amount of mid rare stuff however Luminum, Gold, Plat etc.

That's not a vein of glaes, that's a couple random pops.

Just thought I'd throw in:

With 120 appraisal and foraging, and 180 perception, and mining entirely in one mine (though moving rooms):

6350 overall swings
652 normal nuggets (haven't been recording volume)
155 'rare' nuggets/shards/etc. (no volume recorded)
Of those rare:
9 were damite (one 8 lump vein, one random drop) - totaled 23 volume
8 were electrum (one vein)
2 were haralun (two random drops)
21 were lumium (two veins and one random drop)
23 were platinum (three veins of 7-9)
92 were silver (veins of 7-11)

I've found all the normal metals, but in order of rarity: coal, lead, tin, oravir, copper, iron, covellite, nickel, zinc.

I see the rock type maybe 70% of the time (gut feel, no data recorded), and the metal [maybe] 5-10% of the time.

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I'll be mining a lot more in the coming weeks - any suggestions for data to record? I'm going to add in a volume accumulator. Should I collect by room type? By actual room (roomid in genie)?

That seems like a lot of rares, about 20% of your total nuggets. Which mine were you using? I may just have to go there...

I was wondering about the 'rare' status of silver - I only flagged it as rare because that's what it was in Elanthipedia. :)

That said, I've added a fair number of data points (skill levels of appraisal, forage and perception; actual size of found metal; what stone it's found with; whether I saw the stone and/or metal in the prospect; how often I hit dangerous conditions in a room; how many nuggets/rocks I find before the room empties) to my logging, so we'll see the results of that in another week or so.

The mine I'm in is largely metamorphic, with the occasional spawn of igneous and a lesser spawn of sedimentary. These data points will also be logged. :)

If you can think of anything else that you'd think it would be nice to collect data about while mining, please let me know. If my plan works out, I'll end up with a nicely parse-able log file.