Advanced Modding – Natural Resources

You may modify the natural resources in the game by editing the following file.

Natural_Resources.DBF

This file defines the natural resources.

When you add a new type of natural resources, you must also add a corresponding item in Product_Types.DBF (See the page about modding Products for details).

The new records in Natural_Resources.DBF and Product_Types.DBF should share the same item code so that they are linked to each other.

The new record to be added to Product_Types.DBF should fall under the product class “RAW”. You may see existing natural resource records in Product_Types.DBF, such as Coal or Gold for reference.

Field Type Length / Range Description
ITEM_CODE Character 8 chars The item code of the natural resource.
ITEM_CHAR Character 1 char The letter displayed on the map, which represents this natural resource.
FIRM_TYPE Character 8 chars The firm type for extracting the current type of natural resources. It could be one of the following.

“MINE” – Mine
“FOREST” – Logging Camp
“OIL” – Oil Well

SPEED Numeric 1 to 9 The speed at which the natural resources are extracted.
TERA_TYPE Numeric 0 or 1 The type of terrain in which the natural resources can be found. It could be one of the following:

0 – any terrain types
1 – forest only (for Timber)

RES_COST Numeric 1 to 99 The acquiring cost of the natural resource reserves as a percentage of the natural resource’s standard selling price, which is defined in Product_Types.DBF.

Typically, for natural resources that can be made into consumer products (e.g. Gold made into Gold Rings), they should have a higher RES_COST. Otherwise, it will be too easy to make a profit with them.

On the other hand, for natural resources such as Iron which has to go through various processes before it becomes part of the finished products for consumers, their RES_COST should be lower. Othewise, it will be too difficult to make a profit with them.

RES_QTY Numeric 10 to 999 This is an index indicating the amounts of reserves per natural resource site, for the current type of natural resources.

E.g. the amounts of reserves in a site with Silica deposits are significantly larger than that of Gold.

RAW_UNIT Character 6 chars The unit name of the natural resources.
CONVERSION Numeric 1 to 9999 The conversion rate between a single unit of the natural resource and the item.

E.g. The unit of Aluminium in Natural_Resources.DBF is “ton” whereas the unit of Aluminium in Product_Types.DBF is “lb” (pound). By defining this var to be 2000, it means that one ton equals to 2000 lbs.

QUALITY_LO Numeric 10 to 100 The lower limit of the range for the quality of this type of natural resources.
QUALITY_HI Numeric 10 to 100 The higher limit of the range for the quality of this type of natural resources.

E.g. Timber has a range from 50 (QUALITY_LO) to 90 (QUALITY_HI). So the game will initialize Timber resource sites to have quality ratings between 50 and 90.

NOTE:

For numeric variables, if you enter a value that is outside the Range listed above, the game will automatically correct it when it loads the DBF files.

Modding Tutorial 
Please check out this modding tutorial about how to add a new natural resource type Diamond to the game. Click here to read the tutorial now.