The ingame info mod could be changed to no longer tell the player if they are in an ore chunk. Surface materials could be used to tell if there is a shallow ore vein in the area.
When unlocked, prospectors may be used to locate veins
Ore Mining
So far the only ways of getting ores would be in-world mining and ore drill multiblocks. Since constantly moving ore drills to new veins can get stale, new methods will be used to obtain ores.
Open pit mining can be used once the player obtains powerful explosives, which can be used to quickly mine out massive regions of rock and ores.
Megastructures such as asteroid mining, orbital laser drill, and element creators will be unlocked later on.
Fluid Drilling
Drilling water can happen at sea or on land, which would produce sea water or ground water that would have to be processed to get normal water. This is not related to drilling brine.
Fracking would be regated to earlier since it's kind of odd that fracking is unlocked at ZPM (which is after space travel).
There will be more advanced methods to extract fluids in greater quantity or greater speed from fluid veins. More advanced methods to drill oil include:
Pumping CO2 or nitrogen into the fluid vein to displace fluids in the deposit
Pumping steam into the fluid vein to heat the deposit fluids, making it easier to pump.
Sodium hydroxide can be pumped into oil deposits to turn organic acids into soap, decreasing the tension.
Nanofluids are pumped into oil deposits to increase mobility
Food sources such as sugars/molasses or even growth medium with nutrients are injected into oil deposits to make underground microbes more active, allowing the oil to move easier
Ore & Fluid Prospecting
The ingame info mod could be changed to no longer tell the player if they are in an ore chunk. Surface materials could be used to tell if there is a shallow ore vein in the area.
When unlocked, prospectors may be used to locate veins
Ore Mining
So far the only ways of getting ores would be in-world mining and ore drill multiblocks. Since constantly moving ore drills to new veins can get stale, new methods will be used to obtain ores.
Open pit mining can be used once the player obtains powerful explosives, which can be used to quickly mine out massive regions of rock and ores.
Megastructures such as asteroid mining, orbital laser drill, and element creators will be unlocked later on.
Fluid Drilling
Drilling water can happen at sea or on land, which would produce sea water or ground water that would have to be processed to get normal water. This is not related to drilling brine.
Fracking would be regated to earlier since it's kind of odd that fracking is unlocked at ZPM (which is after space travel).
There will be more advanced methods to extract fluids in greater quantity or greater speed from fluid veins. More advanced methods to drill oil include: