---
id: t3
title: World feels small; resources run out
status: Review
created: 2026-10-24
updated: 2026-10-24T22:06:01Z
tags: [discussion]
report: |
  (agent) Built all four. New worlds hold about 4.7x the ore: the top layers are as before, and
  ore gets steadily richer and veins bigger as you go deeper (copper, coal and tin now reach the
  deep layers too; gold and silver grew least so they stay valuable). Grinding granite and basalt
  finds about twice the ore, and builders order those rocks by the bagful. There's a Huge size, and
  saves are now compressed (a Medium world dropped from 29 MB to under 0.5 MB). Once a claim is
  paid off, the notebook's new Claims page opens another claim for $5,000 down and $40,000 owed
  (then $80,000...). Your money, bag, upgrades and discoveries come along, buildings stay put, and
  you can travel back. Existing worlds only get the richer ore if you start a new world or claim.
order: 1
---

## Context

- the world still seems quite small. i dont know if thats because the bot moves so fast, the bot can mine too fast, or the grains should be smaller... i would like to make the worl seem huge to the player and give them loads of resources to mine for a long game. as is, you could mine all the resources from the map pretty quickly and end up having to start a new world and new game as a result. or maybe there is some other solution that i havent thought of yet. need to brainstorm this.

## Subtasks

- [x] Deeper is richer: ore gets more common and comes in bigger veins the deeper you dig, for about five times the ore in a world; the shallow layers stay as they are
  report: Removed coordinate stretching and balanced thresholds per ore. Medium seed 424242 gives coal 170437 (5.09×), copper 127298 (4.80×), iron 361683 (4.66×), zinc 53527 (4.54×), tin 38551 (4.99×), silver 12166 (3.34×), gold 5858 (3.48×): 769520 total (4.73× the original 162519). Shallow ore positions/types match the original hash. Pixel screenshot /tmp/t3-balanced-ore.png inspected: rounded lenses, no diagonal ore streaks. Build/map regenerated; run_all.py --browser all passed (world 46, play 244, smooth 8 checks). Part 1 awaits owner review; remaining parts stay open.
- [x] Waste rock pays: granite and basalt are worth grinding for ore, and builders buy them in bulk
- [x] A Huge world size, with saves compressed so big worlds stay small on disk
- [x] New claims: once a claim is paid off, open another for $5,000 down and a bigger debt, keeping money, bag, upgrades and knowledge; travel between your claims from the notebook