Non-Random ore concentration- higher = better?

[KerikBalm]

I'm wondering if I've just gotten an unlucky roll in my KSP career game, or if what I'm seeing is common.

Every place I've tried to mine except minmus has no ore at low elevations, and only has ore at high elevations.

* Gilly - The ore is in the highlands, at the highest points on gilly

* Kerbin - no ore in deserts, grasslands, or highlands... only the mountaintops have ore (the shore biome seems to have ore below the surface of the water... maybe its matter of just being farther away from 0)

* Mun, no ore in the bottoms of the large craters... good ore concentrations around the high edges of the crates

* Minmus... I think I have 1 flat that has ore in one spot... the rest... nope..

* Duna - No ore at all in the lowlands

* Ike... I forget

* Laythe - only at the tops of the taller islands

 

I was trying to setup a mining+refuelling base on Kerbin... as an alternate place for craft to land, so they could refuel and return to KSC (if capable of that at all...) ... only to find that the only place that has ore is basically inaccessible... the mountains... where it is very very treacherous for craft to land... no way am I landing planes or tallish rockets there... basically... Kerbin has no accessible ore...

Have I just gotten unlucky, or is it common that the lower elevations are completely devoid of Ore?

How would I re-roll the ore concentrations... effectively no ore on Kerbin seems harsh...

[Superfluous J]

I can't answer any of this except what is hopefully the most important question: How to reroll.

First and foremost. BACK UP YOUR SAVE.

Then open it (persistent.sfs) and look for ResourceScenario

You'll see something like this:

	SCENARIO
	{
		name = ResourceScenario
		scene = 7, 8, 5, 6
		RESOURCE_SETTINGS
		{
			GameSeed = 1148806290
			MaxDeltaTime = 21600
			BIOME_LOCK_DATA
			{
				PlanetId = 13
				BiomeName = Midlands
			}
			BIOME_LOCK_DATA
			{
				PlanetId = 3
				BiomeName = Midlands
			}
...and on and on for a while

You want to modify this line:

			GameSeed = #

That "#" symbol up there, put in an actual number. I don't know what to use but try a few. If you find one you like, save it and you can put it into other games.

You shouldn't need to re-scan the planets you've already scanned.

Edited May 31, 2016 by 5thHorseman
I had originally made it much harder than it really should have been.

[Geschosskopf]

7 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Have I just gotten unlucky, or is it common that the lower elevations are completely devoid of Ore?

How would I re-roll the ore concentrations... effectively no ore on Kerbin seems harsh...

Ore concentrations get randomized every game.  In stock, ore concentrations are tied to biomes, and every biome has at least a trace amount except a few that are hard-coded to have zero.  These are the sun, Jool, and the oceans of Eve, Kerbin, and Laythe.  But you get what you get in that game and can't reroll it later.  Normally in stock, ore tends to concentrate most in the highest and lowest terrain elevations.  Thus, there's usually decent ore on Kerbin's shores, which is where KSC is.  So if you're using stock, and don't have ore at KSC, you got unlucky.  I have had games where Kerbin was practically devoid of not only ore but every other resource used by the various mods I had at the time.  INCLUDING water, believe it or not.  So yeah, you can get hosed sometimes.

Now, if you have SCANsat, it's a whole different story.  First off, SCANsat allows you to reroll the resource concentrations.  But beyond that, it has options to break the tie between ore and biomes.  If you do that, then there's no telling where the ore will be, and no guarantee (like there is in stock) that a separate piece of the same biome will have about the same concentration as a piece of that biome you've already seen.  I recommend reading SCANsat's OP in detail to understand what all its resource settings options do before you mess with them.