Lava Mining

[TH300]

Lava Mining

Originally proposed by

Related ideas:

- new mining beacons appearing on former lava flows

Description:

As lava is a relatively rich source of various minerals, a special mining unit could be used to break up lava into ores that could then be trucked to the smelters. While this will provide some materials, it will not be good for everything... You will need to have real mines in order to really provide for your colony.
Could provide rare materials.
Maybe good for Agriculture.

[Jgamer]

Hum... Then this would be some kind of temporary lava mine (like Eden's) where you take the lava out of the surface flow to be processed?
That would require some extensive research given that even the eden's Lava Mines don't really take much of the lava out of where it is, they kinda purify it in a trapped flow, take out the minerals and let the flow go (that's why it can have pressure problems)
But that would be really cool, specially if after some time it can 'clear' a patch of lava for you

[dm-horus]

op2 takes resources from specific points, concentrations of a resource. field resourcing isnt a feature of the game and would require a total rewrite unless you could come of with a plausible way of allowing a robo miner take resources from only discrete points within a lava field; of course that is only if we could manage to get op2 to allow for cooled lava to begin with, which is doubtful.

Note by TH300: the OP3 engine will not be based on OP2. We are coding something new.

[Jgamer]

*pokes horus again* And once again, OP3 is using a different engine from OP2 and it's being coded by these people

[Tellaris]

Good for agriculture?   Doubtful.   It does have many raw minerals, of course, but it lacks every single organic compound that current earth plants actually need to live (Nitrate, Phosphate, ect) not to mention certain forms of bacteria.
And as said before, it'd require a total rewrite of OP2.   However, if the OP3 people wanna do it, go for it.

[BlackBox]

Remember this is OP3

As for OP2, it really wouldn't be that hard to do. You could clear the 'lava' bits on the terrain (you would need a way to determine the 'age' of the lava. I guess you could scan the map every mark or so and see how many marks the lava has been on a certain tile) to remove the lava. Then you could create beacons randomly where the lava used to be.

However, there might be some graphics glitches if you suddenly change the lava bits.

Anyway, getting back on topic now...

Bad for agriculture? Well, possibly. Plants won't begin growing immediately after the lava has cooled. However, after a long time the soil is very fertile and plants will grow.

[Vexhare]

Could you collect the soil with like a scoop... and perhapes use it in your agridomes... like "lava-domes?"

[Tellaris]

After a long time.   Remember, lava becomes ROCK, igneous rock, which needs to be broken down.   And even then, it still does not contain the necessary components for plant growth.   Additionally, there may be excess sulfer present, meaning it'd have to be purfied, along with other undersireables.   Add water to that, boom, sulphuric acid.

[Vexhare]

Then I dunno... No uses for dead lava flows.

[Tramis]

I know I'm awakening a dead thread, but just a thought...

Suppose the lava flow cooled, and hardened.  Now, take into account that cooled-off lava rocks, are very sharp and rough and incredibly difficult to drive over.  This would mean that they would be almost impassable.

Now, suppose it was only the surface that cooled.  You could have a special "lava-rock-tunneler-thing (insert better name here)" that would tunnel through, making a hallway of lava walls that you can drive through quite easily, with the still-hot, flowing magma on the other side of the wall, hidden underneath the hardened layer.  You can also set a small "booby-trap" on certain sections of wall with a StarFlare GP, which would be set into the wall and hidden (invisible).  This would go off if an enemy approached, killing them and setting the lava flow loose again, sealing off the passage.  Also you could build a Magma Well on certain places if say, the surface cooled and a meteor hit it, creating a Magma Vent.

Like so:


End result - very good shortcut through the lava flow.

[Skydock Command]

You could have a special "lava-rock-tunneler-thing (insert better name here)"

(Lava-Con)

I think this is a great idea. Maby the 'lava-con' could clear a large area that you could put some sort of ming field on with pipes conecting to the walls near by in the lava to get raw materials.

For the "lava-Dome" idea Baikon is right. Unless somehow you could genticaly engener a plant to grow in sulfer and with out water. I think you might be able to do that because inst 50% of the colony geneticaly engenered?

[Freeza-CII]

LOL even after the surfaces cools and you can walk on it there is still lava flowing under your feet.  you not going to drive a vec through a tunnel with lava around it because lava OWNS all its f***ing melted rock you can only withstand it for so long.  Leaching ore from a lava flow i dont know about that one once its all flowed out in the open i would thing that even if you could get ore out of it. it would be very very miniscule amounts and not enough to worry about.

youll Argue about the Magma well.  Well i think that is flawed as well because lava is destructive and THICK.  A magma well wouldnt last that long if you ask me be like the tokamaks and how they destroy themselves.  Why would you get more ore from a magma well then a flow one reason concentration.  

[Skydock Command]

I agree but that dosent answer my question.