Talk:List of mineral types

Hmm. How would people feel about including the colour images here as well as the base name of the mineral?

What do you mean by "base name"? The mineral category? The second table seems like a good place for colour images. - SvdB 18:25, 17 Sep 2005 (CEST)

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The description of the mineral deposits here is a good description of the algorithm, but probably not so clear to the average reader. I'd like to propose an alternate wording. --Elestan 05:56, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

I've swapped in the alternate wording, moving the old content here. I'm hesitant to delete it, since it is a more precise description of what the code does, but I think its main utility would be to developers, and this is a page intended for reference by unspoiled users. --Elestan 23:54, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Prior Content

Mineral amounts

The number of deposits on the surface of a planet is randomly chosen from the range in the 'quantity' column of the deposit size table below. The amount of mineral units within one deposit is determined from the "quality" column in the deposit size table below, together with the size of the star which the planet orbits, and some randomness.

Specifically, the quality is determined as follows. First an intermediate quality value is calculated by choosing a random number in the range 0-99, adding the quality modifier from the deposit size table times 10, as well as the quality modifier from the star size table times 10. If the intermediate quality value is less than 150, then the image for the deposit will be small; if it is 150 or higher, but no more than 225, then the image will be medium-sized; if it is 225 or higher, than the image will be large.

The actual quality of the deposit is acquired from the intermediate quality value by dividing it by 10, and then adding 1.

Deposit sizes:

Description	Quantity	Quality
Trace	0-1	+0
Light	0-4	+0
Medium	0-4	+5
Heavy	0-4	+10
Huge	0-8	+10

Where the minerals table says "×2" or "×3", there will be multiple series of deposits. So for example a Carbide World will have as many Carbon deposits as the total value of a throw of 3 5-sided dice with numbers from 0 to 4.

The effect of star size on deposit quality:

Size	Quality
Dwarf	+0
Giant	+5
Super Giant	+10