Update: This Idea is currently being developed by http://www.gamesas.com/user/786452-aezeal/. Currently he is posting his progress in this thread, but if he chooses to create his own, i will link to that from here.

Original post:
This is an idea I had a while back, that I wanted to do, alongside a few other rp-friendly immersion mods that would give your characters a better npc experience. However, the day the CK released, I got a job after a year of unemployment, so my time is much less free than I had expected it to be. If I get around to working on this, it will be on my two days off each week, so progress could be slow. This post will have explanations of concepts though, which might inspire other modders to pull this off, since it is very easy in concept.


The Living Mine


Concept: Playing as a smith/miner in Skyrim is currently a broken system, since you always have to resort to buying materials due to the lack of good ore locations in game. If you know where all of the mines/ore locations are, you can fast travel around mining them, I suppose, but this kills the immersion of enjoying the experience of playing your character. This mod intends to fix that by creating a mine system that the player "digs" himself.


What will happen:

• While exploring, you will come upon a lone miner in the overworld, trying to dig at a very shallow mine (the size of a closet).
  
• The miner will tell you of his belief that this location is rich in metals, and offer to sell you half of the claim for an investment of 500g.
  
• If you buy the claim, you can choose to sell it for 1000g in a nearby town for a quick profit, but then you'd lose out on the growth of the mine.
  
• After buying the claim, the mine will slowly begin to grow.
  
• After 48 hours, the closet sized mine opening will be a little deeper, and will become an area transition to an interior cell. That cell, too, will be very small, but will contain an iron node. It will be shaped like a mineshaft.
  
• Another 48 hours, and a new section will be dug, opening into a chamber. The chamber will have a few more iron nodes, and the beginings to two mineshafts that can be dug, either left or right.
  
• Talking to the miner will give you the option of choosing a direction. He will also recommend you gather more miners.
  
• Each miner you hire (by finding disgruntled miners at other mine locations) will reduce the dig time of new areas by 6 hours.
  
• Each miner found will also add a new small shack outside the mine.
  
• As you direct the miners which direction to mine, and they reveal new areas, they will uncover higher and higher quality ores. They can also uncover other things while digging, like digging into an underground lake, or a haunted tomb.
  
• The mines will extend quite a ways at each fork, and once an entire mineshaft has been dug, the foreman will have the miners start a new shaft from the entrance.
  
• As the mines grow, your character will also receive a small amount of money for what ores the mine is "selling off". For the purpose of the story, the mine is actually producing an ore that is completely useless to your character, yet is sold by the npc for profit (you never see it, it's just a tracked stat that grows as the mine does)

For Mods (How it works)

• The entire mine system is mapped out as an interior cell, complete with all monsters/ores/other stuff already added.
  
• Walls are then added at regular increments (every 12 feet) starting from the far ends of the mine shafts. These are there to deny deeper access and show mining progression. All are enabled to begin with.
  
• Upon receipt of the mine claim, a timer is started. Once that 48 hours is up, the wall that is blocking the area transition on the overworld mine entrance is disabled, allowing access to the transition leading into the mine. This makes it appear that the miner has dug a little deeper.
  
• Once inside the player sees only the mineshaft and the next wall that denies him access. When the player first enters this cell, the 48 hour timer is once more started, which disables the next wall when the countdown is complete.
  
• This leads into the first chamber. Talking to the miner gives the dialogue choice to go left or right, either of which start the countdown, then disable a wall.
  
• The more walls disabled, the more the base price of the deed rises.
  
• Hiring a miner will subtract 6 hours from the the base dig timer (default 48), and will also enable a small shack outside the mine entrance.
  
• Digging into a water filled chamber will raise the water level of the mine interior cell. A way to lower the water level could be added, or possibly require an argonian miner to continue digging that shaft (at a much slower pace - 96 hours)
  
• Possibly add the ability to increase mine yield/speed by upgrading equipment for the miners.

Nice idea. Sounds really good.

Why on earth is this an "immersion mod"? It's just content (interesting though).

Amazing idea !

This seems amazing, more stuff to do is always good. Also, I like the idea of a little village growing by it. Oh, and why not make it bandits will try to take it over when it is really big? I know this all is enough work already, but it's just an idea for the future.

Yes! I'm actually RP'ing as a Miner right now, and I feel like my game is basically done now since I have visited every mine in the game and there is not much more to do.

I'd couple growth to the ore mined, only growth of the ore that has been "discovered" is actually mined. (only working in a mine actually enlarges it.

OR

put some sort of ore vein against the wall that needs to be disabled and disable it after mining it. (maybe only enable those specific "growth" vines after a specific time or it would be able to unlock the whole mine directly).

Right now my Significant Other is playing Wurm Online, where you can dig your own mines (similar to Minecraft). She spends hours doing this. And I know she's not alone. I'm sure there are a whole lot of players who would love and cherish a mod like this. I sincerely hope somebody takes up this idea.



I've never thought of doing that, it sounds interesting. I suppose when you run out of mines to visit you could roleplay that you have a kind of regular route of mines. When you get to the end of the list you go back to the beginning. I guess you could roleplay that other miners have dug deeper into the mine in your absence, exposing new ore...or something like that...

I may try this myself. Thanks for the idea!

It's actually intended to help out those roleplaying npcs/non-adventurers. A lot of people who have played through the game normally, turn around and play through again with more specific characters which they place limitations on to make for a different experience. This mod goes along with my cremation mod, and another mod I have in mind as adding immersive elements for playing as an npc. The other mod idea is one that fleshes out hunting, and makes it a viable skill, and would also add a house plot where you actually build a house (once again, enabling and disabling in order to make the house be built in stages).

I can't help but think that the logical conclusion for an idea like this is to fill a huge empty space with ore-like structures that you can mine, but which disappear as you do so.
Allowing you to actually MINE the mine, not just watch it expand every few hours.

... Just like Minecraft ...

What a great idea, exactly the type of mod I'd install without hesitation. Good luck, I'll be watching out for it.

I was actually thinking it would be better to just have the ore veins reset at the default rate, so that once you have the mine completely open, it would still be useful.

If you go for the dig your own mine thing there is one other (time consuming?) idea that would really make it great.
Make generic squares: 4 pillars on the corners and 4 walls between them. Onactivation (you'd need to make them activators) you could remove a wall.
Then set it so you can only remove one of those wall every 4,8 or 12 hours. that way you could basicly dig your own way through the mountain. (minecraftish?)

Then you add rewards: since players have no idea where they are going you can just put ore, enemies or whatever in these squares.

(of course you could intersperse these with larger caves for variation and to allow a larger combat)

How is this not an immersion mod? I very much like the sound of this. Previous Elder Scrolls games introduced these elements, but Skyrim made them actually useful, but only slightly so it still feels empty.

I look forward to updates and the release. Sounds like an instant download for me. Good luck to you. I'd also be willing to test it out for you if you need it.

I think this is a good idea. The term immersion has been used so much I'm not sure it has any real meaning anymore.

I might use the idea (and then my version as described above) in my mod. Unless the OP has serious problem with it (then let me know before I've put to much energy in it).

Go ahead, Aezeal, work has been preventing me from doing this.

Do you still play skyrim? I could let you have a sneak preview into the mine, it's not large yet but it is working as intended now. (the script I needed took some time). I'd love to have your opinion on the the mechanics of the mine.

This invitation is for others too.

The mine is in my "Aezeal's Floating Fortress'" mod which is on steam. That is a housing mod (with some nice features if I say so myself) but the mine is completely seperate and not yet connected to the world.

coc aezealmine will get you there though.

I'm mostly wondering about how you guys think the general mechanics are working.

Why not make it a quarry instead of a mine? Building stone could be a sensible byproduct, and yet would not muck up the economy of the game. Maybe a vein of granite intruded into the local rocks, and a building project at the other end of Skyrim to use the rock you quarry. You could also quest for different types of rock, and have two or three potential mines for different stone. Maybe to build a new, massive, shrine to Talos raising a finger to the thalmor?

It is not a bad idea but quarries are often open air and not dungeon type right? The idea is an excavatable mine. I could do stone but I'd have to make the actual granite as misc obeject and as vein.. and I can't do that.

Atm I have added 2 miner who walk around.. they basicly help you dig (or so they say; I don't actually have those animations and it would take time I just have the walls an stone disappear now).
After a few days the talking miner asks you for cash to buy some furniture and you can a small living quarters. Atm this is linked to time but I think that if I do more of that I'll get a second counter to keep track of total mined sections so that you can only expand this if you have actually worked there.
I've placed all sorts of ore in there and some enemies, but fairly low level.

I do see merits in this idea but since I've put it in my housing mod (large fortress with some inhabitants too) I'm not gonna do a whole new village. I will make room inside the mine that can be bought (as I said only 1 so far) with later maybe a smelter and smithy too...
The bandit attack is certainly a good idea, I had similar idea's my self but maybe old fashioned bandits are better than more elaborate enemies.. my mod has some of those already in the housing part.

I still think a variation on the "special mine" might work. Useful (although not always for weapons) materials not currently mined in Skyrim include Copper, Zinc, and Tin. Mining Copper and Tin would let you create Copper, Tin and (using some of each type of ingots) Bronze ingots as products. Those would, in turn, be a good saleable item for making a statue as I suggested earlier, but now keeping the "mine" idea instead of "quarrying". Slightly re-tinted orchalcum and quicksilver ores would be fine for copper and tin respectively. The "profits" from the "sale/transport" would in turn fund expansion of the mine, employing more miners, etc. (and also boost your own income as mine owner maybe)

This idea is good too. Fact remains that í can't do anything with textures and models . If I could do this I'd skip the cheap metals though and let the player mine diamonds and other gems. These exist as misc items but I'd still need to have a "ore vein" variant for those.

Atm I'm not adding a specific income from the mine. If you want cash you have to mine it yourself (another reason to have some expensive materials in there). I do intend on letting you buy a smelter and blacksmith so you don't have to walk half the world to sell it all .

The thing is to find a balance between reality and not making mining it to tedious so only die hard miners want to use the mod .
(I've hidden a dragon skeleton in the deptsh with some dragon bones and scales) I'll get a hidden treasure there. There is a small dwemerhallway you can stuble upon. On the highest level you can dig into another starting mine of which the other exit has collapsed.

I've also added enemies, the problem obviusly being that not much creatures live in solid dirt so I have to be a bit creatuve there (ghostly creatures and skeletons can of course be explained, skeevers arén't really logical but they could have some hole there.) I'd love to have a troll but then you'd need another exit for his cave and I don't really want that.

yesterday I've expanded the mine a lot and if you'd play it now I think you would
1 be busy many many ingame days to dig through it.
2. get dark quickly because I still have to add more lights (which enable after digging)
3. get some low level combat
4. get lost or disorientated more than you'd think.


PS wordsmith I love your input

Lots of mods in Oblivion and at least one or two in Skyrim have the option of gems being mined randomly from regular ore veins, particularly the more vaiuable/exotic ones. You wouldn't need special meshes/textures if you went that route.