Zone resource generation

This page explains how the server keeps a zone's resources stocked. Both systems run continuously in the background while the zone is loaded; nothing a player does is required for them to tick.

The zone's resource configuration

Each zone is configured in the database with two independent lists:

• Ore configuration (mineralconfigs) — one row per ore type present in the zone, with four knobs per type:

  Column	Meaning
  maxnodes	How many nodes of this type the zone maintains
  maxtilespernode	Maximum number of tiles a single node can cover
  totalamountpernode	Total material in a fresh node, distributed over its tiles
  minthreshold	Minimum per-tile fill ratio (0–1); tiles below it after mining are dropped

• Plant configuration (zones.fertility + a plant rule set) — the zone's plant coverage target (a percentage) and the list of plant species allowed to grow there (each species' behaviour is a rule file, documented in Plants).

Zones without an ore configuration (arenas, training zones, strongholds, some gamma zones) have no ore layers at all.

Ore nodes

flowchart TD
    A["Zone loads: count existing nodes of each type"] --> B{"Below maxnodes?"}
    B -->|no| Z["Layer idle"]
    B -->|yes| C["Pick a random passable tile,\nfurther than 2× the exclusion radius\nfrom any node of the same type"]
    C --> D["Random walk: flood outward with a\n4-tile brush until maxtilespernode\nvalid tiles form one connected blob"]
    D --> E["Spread totalamountpernode over the blob:\ntile share = normalized noise × total,\n±10% jitter"]
    E --> F["Node is live: mined tile by tile;\nbelow 1% of its total it is deleted\nand a fresh node is generated"]

How a node is placed

When a zone loads, each ore type's layer counts its existing nodes (persisted in the mineralnodes table) and generates new ones until maxnodes is reached. A new node is placed by a random walk:

1. Pick a random passable tile.
2. It must be far from the nearest existing node of the same type — the exclusion radius is derived from maxtilespernode (√(maxtilespernode/π) × 2, then the start must be at least twice that away), so nodes never merge into one giant deposit.
3. From the start tile, a walk randomly floods outward (a 4-tile brush at a time), collecting up to maxtilespernode valid tiles into one connected blob.
4. The node's totalamountpernode material is spread over the blob: each tile's share is its (normalized) noise value times the total, with a ±10% random jitter, so no two nodes of the same type look alike.

A tile is valid for a node only if it is inside the zone, not an island, not PBS-terraform-protected, and passable. Two rare types get keep-out zones around docking bases and teleports: epriton keeps a minimum distance, and flux ore keeps twice that distance — so flux ore is never found right next to a base.

How a node is consumed

• Mining removes material tile by tile.
• A node that falls below 1% of its configured total is deleted, and a fresh node is generated (back to step 1) to keep the zone at maxnodes.
• Flux ore nodes additionally drive NPC spawning — nodes being mined (or removed) publish events that the NPC system listens to, which is why flux ore sites get attention.

Plants

The plant scan

The zone is divided into 32×32 tiles. A plant handler walks these tiles in order, processing one per tick, paced so a full pass over the zone takes about 8 hours (overridable per zone). Each 32×32 "cube" is processed by a fixed pipeline:

1. Validate — drop invalid plants (wrong ground, dead, out of place).
2. Grow — advance each plant through its growth stages (see gathering for growRate and fruiting).
3. Spawn — add new plants where the cube is under its fertility target.
4. Damage walls — plants' blocking height decays over time.
5. Kill by distance — enforce same-type spacing (killDistance).
6. Renew material — a small amount of fruit material regenerates.

How a new plant is chosen

A tile can only sprout if the zone file gives it spawn potential (a per-tile byte baked into the zone's plant layer — 0 means the tile never sprouts). On a tick, for each eligible tile:

• Zone fertility check first: if the cube's blocking-plant coverage already meets fertility% of its ground tiles, nothing new spawns there.
• Per-tile chance: a random roll must beat the tile's spawn potential.
• Species selection:
  • If the tile has no plant neighbours, the species is a weighted random draw where each allowed species' weight is its fertility (player-seeded species are excluded from natural spawns).
  • If it does, it's a coin flip: 50% the currently ruling neighbour species (the most common one nearby), 50% a spreading draw weighted by (neighbour count × spreading) for each species — this is what makes clusters expand in their own kind.
• Caps and spacing: a species with a maxAmount cap is skipped once the zone has enough of it, and a tile within killDistance of another plant of the same type is skipped.

What this means for players

• Plant density is bounded by the zone's fertility — you will never see a zone with 100% plant coverage if its fertility is 20.
• Clusters are the norm: spreading makes each species expand its own patches, so a zone tends toward species territories rather than a salt-and-pepper mix.
• killDistance species (e.g. certain high-value plants) are evenly spaced, which makes their locations predictable once you find one.
• New nodes appear wherever the random walk lands — there is no fixed "ore spot" on a zone; scanning is required (see gathering).