QoL: Tooltip /explain 'Tunnel' and 'Mine' for new players

[Muse 2,221]

Quite often new players spend time performing 'mine' on a rock tile, and can't understand why it never opens a mine.  'Mine' is for surface mining, and they need 'Tunnel' to actually open up a new mine to use as a newbie base.  They don't know that until they ask in CA_Help.

 

The problem arises because Tunnel and Mine are both verbs AND nouns - you can tunnel a mine, and you can mine a tunnel, and it's all a bit confusing for the new player.

 

Could we please have a mouse tooltip over the tunnel and mine options? - or at least point new players towards the Tunnel command a little more clearly? Perhaps we could change the options to 'Tunnel a new mine' and 'Mine rock surface' whilst we are outside of a mine, rather than just 'Tunnel' and 'Mine'.

 

What do you think folks?  Interested to hear from those players who have had this problem as a new player, as well as those seasoned vet surface miners that use the external surface 'Mine' command a lot.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Muse

[elentari 2,660]

"Create tunnel" or "Open a tunnel" would be a more specific description that could clarify the distinction between the two. 

[Muse 2,221]

In my opinion, the problem can be made worse if the new player believes there might be some physical or logical difference between a tunnel (noun) and a mine (noun).   Possibly having travelled through fancy marble-clad player-made tunnels and canals on the way to their plot, they don't identify with 'tunnels', and just want a hole in the ground to rest up.  Everyone they meet tells them to make a 'mine' - so a 'tunnel' might seem like a different structure altogether and not what they want. 

 

Somehow we need to help players understand that in the case of opening a newbie mine, tunnel is in this case a verb.  It's not obvious that a tunnel (noun) can be the entrance to a mine (noun) , and a mine is also a tunnel that does not necessarily go anywhere.

 

Part of the problem in my opinion, is that the tutorial only teaches underground mining, not creating a new entrance, so the players' first experience of mining is underground using the 'mine' command in the tutorial.  By the time they get outside and need to actually create their first mine from scratch, the 'tunnel' concept is totally alien to the new player. 

 

Perhaps 'Open a new mine' or 'Create new mine entrance' is a happy compromise.

Edited December 27, 2021 by Muse