[v1.3] The Gold Standard - Minable Gold and Unobtainium for profit!

[Dewar]

The Gold Standard!

Version 1.5.2    (2017/06/18)

(Now with full SCANsat and Galileo's Planet Pack Compatibility!)

This mod adds the pursuit of gold and an extremely rare resource called Unobtainium to the game!

• Gold Ore now appears on planets/moons
• Gold Ore can be mined and smelted into Pure Gold with the Smelter
• Return either Gold/Gold Ore back to Kerbin for profit
• Gold is heavier than Gold Ore, which is heavier than Ore
• Full integration with Vanilla drills and scanners
• Vanilla Drills and Surface Scanner available slightly earlier in the tech tree
• Only 8 parts (Under 10Mb download), low memory usage.
• Get over that mid-career fund grind in a fun and challenging way!

What is Unobtainium?

• Unobtainium is an extremely valuable resource that generally spawns on high-G and extremely distant worlds.
• You can mine Unobtainium using the vanilla drills without needing a converter in-situ.
• Drills mining Unobtainium operate much more efficiently with both a scientist and engineer aboard.
• Unobtainium is a little more dense than gold, so ensure to bring adequate Dv!
• Finally a monetary reason to land on Eeloo, Eve, Moho/Icarus, or any of the other seldom visited worlds!

This mod is not meant to be an easy cash cow; rather, a difficult alternative to contract spam.

There is no gold on kerbin, and be careful when choosing a mining site as only deposits of >2% (mini drill) or >1.5% (large drill) will yield gold ore.

The gold ore can be returned for an okish profit, but be aware that gold ore is basically 9/10s ore. So there are obvious benefits to smelting in-situ. The Smelter needs power, cooling, and an engineer to function at its full capacity.

Pure Gold is, by design and irl, HEAVY! 

Feel free to post any working ship/base designs!

Note on returning with your space booty: Land near or on the space center to avoid diminished returns.

Supported mods:

- Scansat

- Galileo's Planet Pack

Downloads

Version 1.5.2 for KSP V3:  SpaceDock

Available on CKAN!

*ModuleManager included and required

Planned Features

• Will be adding one more resource beyond Kerbin's influence
• Community Tech Tree integration
• Further Weight/Cost Balancing (need feedback)

Change Log

Update 1.5.2 
•Packaged the latest version of MM to bring the mod upto 1.3

Update 1.5.1  
•Complete Compatibility with SCANsat and Galileo's Planet Pack  
•Changed the way resources spawn on planets (more small concentrated veins, less large low concentrated blobs). 


Update 1.5
•Improved Weight/Balance/Distribution of resources. It should now be a little easier to make money, and more worth it to make a trip out farther.
•Fixed the Unobtainium texture
•Cleaned up files
•Improved compatibility with Scansat and Galileo's Planet Pack
(Thanks go to Jadeofmaar for helping me here)


Update 1.4.2
• Fixed stupid typo ftw.

Update 1.4.1
• Fixed a value that was preventing unobtainium from spawning in large enough quantities to be mined.

Update 1.4
• Finally got of my butt and updated the mod to 1.2.2
• Added Unobtainium 
• Added support for GPP and Scansat

Update 1.3 
• Updated to for KSP 1.2 
• Fixed a potential problem with unlimited output for both gold smeltery and stock miniISRUVersion 1


Update 1.2
- Updated some part descriptions
- Slightly reduced concentrations of gold on Minmus
- Made orbital scanner unlock earlier (The satellite targeting gui is disabled until survey scan)
- Adjusted Smeltery Output to prevent a very minor exploit

Version 1.1
- Cleaned up textures
- Fixed radial attachment points
- Added Mission Flags

Version 1.0
- Release

License

The Gold Standard is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This license does not apply to the bundled plugin ModuleManager.

This is my first mod so if you have any tips or suggestions don't hesitate to leave a comment below.

Edited June 19, 2017 by Dewar

[ISE]

Indeed helps add to the diverse elements in the game. 

[Senior Slaphead]

Just what I was looking for.  May as well be gold as anything else since who knows how common this is on Kerbin.  Plus... it's gold!

Edited October 2, 2016 by Senior Slaphead

[Starman4308]

1 hour ago, Senior Slaphead said:

Just what I was looking for.  May as well be gold as anything else since who knows how common this is on Kerbin.  Plus... it's gold!

I dunno; gold would go part of the way towards explaining how hilariously dense Kerbin (and the rest of the Kerbol system) is.

[Dewar]

Thanks for all the replys guys.

If you do try out the mod I would love to get some feedback on balance as well as any screenshots of missions/ship designs. Specifically, what you think of the part costs and ore wieghts. I tried to make it a significantly difficult accomplishement to bring back large amounts of gold, so please advise if it is too easy or difficult.

Cheers!

[Senior Slaphead]

Looks good so far... I've been busy making different drop modules for my lander: Scanner, Hab & Power, Gold Mining Rig, Loot Container etc.  I'll post some vids and feedback when I've been at it for a bit.

GOLD MINING RIG:

CREW HAB, POWER & LIFE SUPPORT (KERBALISM):

 

 

Edited October 3, 2016 by Senior Slaphead

[Senior Slaphead]

I did have an issue getting the tanks to attach radially with the logo pointing outwards... but maybe that's just becuase my VAB knowledge is lacking. Any tips welcome...

[Dewar]

49 minutes ago, Senior Slaphead said:

I did have an issue getting the tanks to attach radially with the logo pointing outwards... but maybe that's just becuase my VAB knowledge is lacking. Any tips welcome...

Thanks for pointing this out. 

This is an issue with the stock texture (which I used as a base). I'll reposition the logo for the next update.

[Wildcat111]

@Dewar what is Gold used for?

[DStaal]

3 minutes ago, Wildcat111 said:

@Dewar what is Gold used for?

Money.     (Return to Kerbin for cash.  That's it.)

[Identitools]

Do you plan putting it on CKAN?

[Dewar]

Just now, Identitools said:

Do you plan putting it on CKAN?

@Identitools I don't use CKan personally, so I will need confirmation, but I think when I gave permission on spacedock the mod was added to their database.

[Dewar]

I will be uploading an updated version later today that includes some texture tweaks and radial connection improvements for the material containers (including a patch for the vanilla small ore tank texture). If there are any other bugs or fixes, please let me know.

Edited October 3, 2016 by Dewar

[Nick233]

Looking good! To the test!

Also, will you work on your own models? Yes it`s harder than just editing cfg and textures, but it worth it!

Edited October 3, 2016 by Nick233

[Dewar]

1 hour ago, Nick233 said:

Looking good! To the test!

Also, will you work on your own models? Yes it`s harder than just editing cfg and textures, but it worth it!

@Nick233 Thanks for the encouragement. As for my own models, I have always intended to make my own. But as I have no experience in model making, I can't really give you an eta. 

The purpose of making this mod for me was to learn about modding/game design in general terms. To that end, learning how to create models does seem like a good next step.

[Elkram]

It's cool really, I'll give it a try soon.

[Dewar]

Updated to Version 1.1

- The textures are drastically improved

- Radial attachment points for canisters are now fixed

- Added Flags

Edited October 4, 2016 by Dewar

[Eskandare]

@Dewar, Oh so much fun! So much AU to be found. Perhaps make silver, and... er.. platinum and palladium too? Different values based on rarity?

[Dewar]

3 hours ago, Eskandare said:

@Dewar, Oh so much fun! So much AU to be found. Perhaps make silver, and... er.. platinum and palladium too? Different values based on rarity?

@Eskandare Great idea, but I think if I was to go this route I would need to add fuel switch compatibility. 6 tank parts per resource seems excessive.

As it stands now, I'm thinking of knocking back the availability of gold on minmus a bit. Any ore more valuable than gold wouldn't be available within the kerbin system. That way it could give a reason to go to eeloo, tylo, or any of the relatively seldom frequented locations.

[Senior Slaphead]

12 hours ago, Dewar said:

Updated to Version 1.1

- The textures are drastically improved

- Radial attachment points for canisters are now fixed

- Added Flags

All fixed, cheers.

If you learn how to do partical effects can we have glitter sprinkles on the drill?  Because... well just because.

Edited October 4, 2016 by Senior Slaphead

[Eskandare]

42 minutes ago, Dewar said:

@Eskandare Great idea, but I think if I was to go this route I would need to add fuel switch compatibility. 6 tank parts per resource seems excessive.

As it stands now, I'm thinking of knocking back the availability of gold on minmus a bit. Any ore more valuable than gold wouldn't be available within the kerbin system. That way it could give a reason to go to eeloo, tylo, or any of the relatively seldom frequented locations.

Put a lot on Dres and give players a big reason to go there.

[Dewar]

1 hour ago, Eskandare said:

Put a lot on Dres and give players a big reason to go there.

I think I've decided on another resource: Diamonds. I'll set the spawn chance on asteroids as extremely low, certain planetary bodies at around 40%, and the more distant ones (ie dres) a little higher. That way there is a reason to scout out mining locations, meaning more missions, vis a vi more interesting gameplay. 

Keep in mind I do want to maintain a kerbal feel to the mod, so more advanced metals are a no-go for me. 

1 hour ago, Senior Slaphead said:

All fixed, cheers.

If you learn how to do partical effects can we have glitter sprinkles on the drill?  Because... well just because.

Happy you like it!

As for glitter, consider it on "the list".

[burner_nn]

Hi,

Few suggestions to the mod:

1. Please, no resources in Kerbin system - i'm sure everyone already spent plenty of time on Mun and Minmus. We don't need new reasons to go there

2. Make resource mining depended on other resources (like need ore to mine titanium, need titanium to mine gold, etc). This will encourage people to do not only Kerbin -> <planet name> and <planet> -> Kerbin, but also <planet> -> <other planet>

[DStaal]

12 minutes ago, burner_nn said:

Hi,

Few suggestions to the mod:

1. Please, no resources in Kerbin system - i'm sure everyone already spent plenty of time on Mun and Minmus. We don't need new reasons to go there

2. Make resource mining depended on other resources (like need ore to mine titanium, need titanium to mine gold, etc). This will encourage people to do not only Kerbin -> <planet name> and <planet> -> Kerbin, but also <planet> -> <other planet>

Which doesn't seem to be the point of this mod; the stated goal is to get you past the 'contract spam' for funding, not necessarily encourage exploration.  (In fact encouraging exploration could be tedious - in that a player could be trying fund an end-game system colonization effort instead, or something - or contrary (require you to contract spam to get the funds to launch to another planet) to that goal.)

[Eskandare]

1 hour ago, Dewar said:

I think I've decided on another resource: Diamonds. I'll set the spawn chance on asteroids as extremely low, certain planetary bodies at around 40%, and the more distant ones (ie dres) a little higher. That way there is a reason to scout out mining locations, meaning more missions, vis a vi more interesting gameplay. 

Keep in mind I do want to maintain a kerbal feel to the mod, so more advanced metals are a no-go for me. 

Happy you like it!

As for glitter, consider it on "the list".

Diamonds wouldnbe most prevalent on planets of higher mass.

 

18 minutes ago, burner_nn said:

Hi,

Few suggestions to the mod:

1. Please, no resources in Kerbin system - i'm sure everyone already spent plenty of time on Mun and Minmus. We don't need new reasons to go there

2. Make resource mining depended on other resources (like need ore to mine titanium, need titanium to mine gold, etc). This will encourage people to do not only Kerbin -> <planet name> and <planet> -> Kerbin, but also <planet> -> <other planet>

Gold shows up near iron and quartz not titanium. Although, having a way for AU to show up near FE, and SiO2 would be awesome.