Unless someone has already beaten the game, or at least got close to the end, I don't think we can say for sure. I'm way too far away still to have any kind of feel for the late game economy.

If it's possible, at some point, a randomizer for the mines to have a differing percentage of reduced income over time, but never run out at all might be interesting.

Originally posted by elderiii:

Unless someone has already beaten the game, or at least got close to the end, I don't think we can say for sure. I'm way too far away still to have any kind of feel for the late game economy.

If it's possible, at some point, a randomizer for the mines to have a differing percentage of reduced income over time, but never run out at all might be interesting.

Agree to that randomizer would be intresting if possible, otherwise i would recommend sepperate it in diffrent mods like 15%, 25% or 35% everything above is to much imo.

It's a bit tricky, because of how they also work in relation to loyalty, which can affect the income quite a lot. As the mod gives you all the time you need to do the quests that raise loyalty for the related settlements, later on mines do get very powerful and no doubt the income is gonna become pretty OP. Earlier on, however, the income is usually quite low, so lowering their base output wouldn't feel good either and could discourage players from going after the mines as a primary objective (won't feel like mines are a priority if in the beginning they only give me something like 1k: the western mines at 1/4 the base output would only net you something like 600$ per day until you increase loyalty, which is a VERY uninteresting amount).

Can't really tell a good estimate as - like most other people - I've still only experienced the early game, but I guess the best way to approach that will probably turn out to be either to leave the decaying mechanic on but limited to something like 20/25% output (and then it stops decaying), or to do it kinda like the older games, where SOME mines would run dry and others (I'd say the ones deeper into enemy territory and harder to get) won't. I personally would go the former, as I feel the latter still might feel a bit like unwanted railing by some.

In any case, let's keep in mind a mod such as this is aimed at players that don't like time limits in their games (which the decaying mechanic effectively is), so people who like to turtle, take things slow, develop their mercs and see all of their potential combinations in a single playthrough, etc. This of course can make the game much easier if you so want (just like grinding and overleveling in any rpg game), but there's quite a few other things that can make this game a cakewalk (for instance, stealth & snipers are broken OP and one could easily dominate the game simply by specializing in them), so who cares, it's up to the players to decide how they prefer to have fun.
Thus I'd say the mining income should still potentially be enough to help maintain the large merc team these turtling players are most likely trying to assemble without having to worry about rushing. Mining alone shouldn't of course nearly be enough to pay for the whole upkeep of a full roster of like 12 elite mercs (plus the free ones), so that the player still feels the need to run after shipments and other profitable endeavours, but it should still be a solid help.

Decaying to 25% in the late game (or any other solution that ends up netting you an equivalent income), with all the mines owned and dried to their minimum output, means something like 50k per week: which is just about enough to pay for the 12 absolutely cheapest mercs, or only a couple of the pricier legendary ones. So, basically, it lets you run with all the Barrys and Foxes you want for as long as you want without having to grind shipments like a madman, but one Magic and one Scully and that's it, everything else is on you. Seems a reasonable balance to me, at least looking at the numbers here. Other variables in the late game I don't yet know about might screw this up completely.

Imho, if no mine can run out, they should produce less income.

I don't want to get rich, i don't want to get rushed. So finding a good solution can be tricky.

maybe you could reduce the income everytime a mine would have run out? to represent the mine being not as rich as it used to be?

IMO a nice solution might be for mines to "decay" but never run out, that way you don't feel as rushed but you're not swimming in money either, and controlling more mines remains useful.

Also, a perhaps easier solution would be for mines to have diminishing returns (like your 2nd mine onwards doesn't give as much as the first, and so on).

I like playing slow, but i don't want to not even think about money either.

as different players have different tastes and preferences, best would be to have options either by making different workshop items or adding a menu for selecting how the mines should behave like:
normal initial production, no depletion
lowered initial production, no depletion
lowered production after depletion (selectable between for example 90% 75% 50%, 25%, 10%, etc.)
vanilla behaviour but not all mines run out, or only one runs out
lowered production but not all mines run out, or only one runs out

Pretty good suggestion yacc

How about on depletion it drops by half and resets timer so that it can deplete again and again and again etc

This way the mines dry out gradually over time as it get harder to mine and harder to find

I still early game, trying to play and test lot of mechanic and my only mine just decay, and i'm short on heal. I'll probably go for a game over, and i think the decay mine tutorial must come yet we leave the first island. 'Cause the bad surprise just definitively kill my game.

For me the best solution is the same propose yacc : an option in the menu.

I hate the way mines work in JA3, I liked the way they worked in JA2.
It was tough to get enough money for your mercs in the beginning but becomes easier the further you progress.
In JA3 it feels like you are getting punished the further you progress forcing you to intercept almost every diamond delivery which is not fun at all.

So having one mine - or a few of them - running out after some time is fine, or at least lower its income while keeping the later/bigger ones running forever would be good.

I am 16 hours into the game now and conquered my third mine where 2 are already depleted. This just doesn't feel right because I still can not afford more then 4 mercs + the Imp and/or train militia.
But it would also be to easy when you start sitting on millions of cash though.... Tough thing ;-).

i dont know, i never played this game

I agree with Yacc, on different options.

lowered production after depletion (selectable between for example 90% 75% 50%, 25%, 10%, etc.) sounds like a nice way to keep the sandbox going.

the setup I'd like to see would be if it could handle being "normal" for the first month or two of operations, then every month the base output is RNG into a 5%-75% output (dont know if the loyalty can also be calculated with it or not), this way the amount you get per month is not always going to be high and encourages ownership of more mines instead of just holding only the best one as that mine could drop to a very low output and you'll need to hope that another one will have higher yield, and it also means you can recover from a dry spell when the RNG finally goes your way.

to me this makes a bit more sense in a more real world, as they mine the areas they find bigger deposits some months and smaller deposits on others, so your bad mercenary mojo was not the reason all the mines that have been operational for years dried up from walking past them while also not allowing an overflow of money.

this might be a bit of a stretch to ask for too but if it could be tracked in the background like if a mine keeps RNG outputting high more often then low then have it be more probable for it to produce a low out put (as well as low to high), this way the player is never starved of all resources while also presenting the player to have to save the high output for when stock crashes and all the mines are just producing low output for a few months.

Originally posted by Aviticus Dragon:

I agree with Yacc, on different options.

lowered production after depletion (selectable between for example 90% 75% 50%, 25%, 10%, etc.) sounds like a nice way to keep the sandbox going.

I like this option too. I imagine that having selectable percentages for post depletion lowered production would require starting a new game?