Prospector's Dispatch

<p><strong>Prospector's Dispatch</strong></p> <p>Tired of wandering thousands of blocks hunting for copper, tin, or iron with no idea which way to go? Prospector's Dispatch turns the world's traders into a network of rumors that point you toward the ore, gems, and minerals you need.</p> <p>Talk to any trader and choose "Heard of any ore deposits worth the walk?" Pick a category and a tier, pay in gears, and the trader marks your Journal with a dispatch - a hedged, second-hand rumor pointing you in the right direction.</p> <p>It's guidance, not a solver: dispatches give you a direction (and, for the pricier tier, an approximate distance) - never exact coordinates. The point is to remove bad-spawn dead-ends without trivializing exploration.</p> <p><strong>Features</strong></p> <ul> <li>Buy prospecting leads from any trader through a simple dialogue - no new items, no UI clutter.</li> <li>Two tiers: Rumour (cheap - a rough cardinal heading, ideal for triangulating across several traders) and Survey (pricier - a precise heading plus an approximate distance).</li> <li>Three categories - Ores, Gems, and Minerals - each naming the nearest few resources in range.</li> <li>Covers every ore the world actually generates with an ore distribution map - including ores added by other worldgen mods, automatically.</li> <li>Traders keep books: a lead you've already bought disappears from that trader's menu (a Survey also retires the lesser Rumour), and you're never charged twice for the same word.</li> <li>Leads are filed in your native Journal as permanent, re-readable entries written in hedged, in-character prose, titled by the trader's location.</li> <li>Works even for unexplored regions - readings come from the world's deterministic ore generation, so traders can point toward deposits you've never set foot near.</li> <li>Configurable: search radius, per-category/tier prices, and which tiers are offered.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Interesting Ore Gen support</strong></p> <p>On worlds using Interesting Ore Gen, ore is laid down completely differently, and this mod adapts to it. Instead of the standard categories, traders sell directions to IOG's hydrothermal mining districts ("Rich mining grounds"): each dispatch names the grounds' kind, a heading, a distance (Survey tier), and the ores that kind of district carries. Since district types carry different ore portfolios, knowing where the right KIND of grounds lies is the real treasure.</p> <ul> <li>Each trader has only heard of some of the districts in range (the nearest is always known), so visiting several traders still pays.</li> <li>The Prospector's Primer: a cheap one-time purchase recording which rock types host IOG's scattered ores, including where the top "bountiful" grade forms. Learn to read the land.</li> </ul> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>How to use</strong></p> <ol> <li>Visit any trader.</li> <li>Choose "Heard of any ore deposits worth the walk?"</li> <li>Pick a category and a tier (Rumour / Survey).</li> <li>Pay the gears, then open your Journal (default J) to read the dispatch.</li> </ol> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>Mod compatibility</strong></p> <ul> <li>Other trader mods: coexists cleanly - it adds its own dialogue branch without touching their wares.</li> <li>Worldgen mods that add ores through the standard ore-map system (e.g. Geology Additions): fully supported - their ores show up in dispatches automatically.</li> <li>Interesting Ore Gen: dedicated support, see above.</li> <li>Works in single-player and multiplayer. Install on both server and clients (clients need it for the trader dialogue to work).</li> </ul> <p><strong>Configuration</strong>: VintagestoryData/ModConfig/ProspectorsDispatch.json (created on first run) - search radius, prices, tier toggles, and the Interesting Ore Gen options (district search radius, per-trader knowledge chance, primer price).</p>