Mineral Overhaul V1.10

Mineral Overhaul changes how mining resources works and feels. Different classes of minerals have been implemented with different difficulties of harvesting. New attachments have been added to the Laser Cutter to make each level of mining meaningful. The goal with this mod was to make mining feel a little more diverse and less point and gather like it is in vanilla.

MAIN FEATURES:
All minerals have been assigned Levels based on their rarity and it is reflected in the deposit name:

Level 1: Common
Level 2: Uncommon
Level 3: Rare
Level 4: Exotic

Damage required to destroy has been increased for every mineral based on their real life hardness- Based on the Rockwell Hardness Scale and the Moh’s Number Scale

This has the effect of mining on a vein for longer then a few seconds, making it feel more like you’re really mining
Ex: Iron by default requires 20dmg to be harvested. Now it is 160dmg
This is because Iron is a decently hard metal in real life

I based this off of hardness and not melting point because I interpreted that the Laser Cutter is meant to “cut” the stone and not “melt” it

Amount of harvestable resource veins in a single instance has been increased in descending order based on hardness- This means mineable veins will spawn
on top of each other making it so to clear a vein you might actually have to harvest 5 times before it’s tapped

This also means you are rewarded for the time that you put into a single vein by getting more resources

Min / Max spawn values for resource veins has been adjusted- values have been adjusted per hardness level of resource

Ex: Iron can spawn 1 – 6 veins max, Tungsten spawns 1 – 3

Laser Cutters now come stock with a “semi conductor Lvl 1” internal mod- This attachment is required to mine all Lvl 1 resources

Can be upgraded up to Lvl 4 which gives access to every resource in the game

Semi Conductors can be crafted at a weapon bench under specific conditions- Level 1 requires a single Aluminum to craft but comes installed stock on every cutter

Level 2 requires common resources and Geology rank 1
Level 3 requires common and uncommon resources and Geology rank 2
Level 4 requires uncommon and rare resources and Geology rank 3, additionally Lasers rank 1
I tied this to Geology more than Lasers to give more meaning behind investing in Geology as a skill, I also felt like it was more relevant to Geology than Lasers, even though you are crafting Laser parts.
Rank 4 does require at least 1 Laser rank because I wanted it to feel like in order for your character to really squeeze the most out of their tools, they have to know a little bit of the science as well.

Damage TYPE required to harvest minerals has been changed per mineral class (common, uncommon, rare, exotic)- Ex: an uncommon resource will not break or be harvested if using a cutter with a level 1 semi conductor attachment.

likewise, a level 3 cutter can cut level 3, 2, and 1 resources, but NOT level 4

Semi Conductor levels also boost Cutter Stats (Minerly* haha get it?)

Each rank of Semi conductor increases Energy damage by 2 points
Each rank also decreases the Full Recharge Time of the Cutter
This was done so that when you ARE mining a vein that is really tough and takes awhile to harvest, you’re spending more time mining, and less time recharging your tool
Installing the Semi Conductor from Lvl 2 and up increases weight and value of the cutter a little bit

OTHER THINGS:
I mostly left minerals tagged as “unique” alone. They have been adjusted for hardness levels but the damage TYPE required to harvest them is level 1- I did this to ensure no quest breaking happens (Think the Caelumite at the beginning of the game, or the “heart of Mars” chunk o’ Titanium)
I added a level 2 installed Cutter to the mine on Vectera next to the original cutter crate- this is to ensure you CAN mine the Berylium in the tutorial (which happens to be level 2)
note that you might have to grab both cutters, the one in the crate and the one on the ground to progress the tutorial stage
For Now I gave the Rev 8 all of the proper keywords allowing it to mine all levels. I may look into doing my own vehicle laser upgrade system in the future. I’d like for this to be as compatible as possible with other mods. Please let me know if you have any issues with this.

Credits:

AsteroidLeaf