Brightals#262

“Brightals” designate a special kind of crystal, that has the particularity of emitting light. One of it’s interest for players is that it still emits light even when you take samples. This could give interesting spots in caves where there is no light from lava, but only from a few brightals deposits.
That’s right : brightals are only found in Adranos’s caves. There are none on the surface. It wouldn’t be a rare resource, but not common either - there would be a few specific spots where there will always be some, but these spots wouldn’t be abundant. (There would still be at least 1 per cave.)

Anyways - there’s a catch. COGs really, REALLY like these brightals. The reason is, it’s a main component for all COG tech ! You will need those to craft any module or COG component, just like they do. They always send miners to collect the brightals deposit, meaning that if you are not fast enough, you will have to go raid their ship to get them !
And since these are really precious for COGs, they even went an extra mile and built brightals mines ! Similar to the ones on the surface, except these ones are built by COGs. There would be 1 per area, in a cave with 3 landing sites. The mine would be very heavily guarded, so if you want a lot of brightals, make sure to bring a lot of ammo.
These mines would contain COG spawners. You can destroy them, but eventually some COGs will come back and rebuild them. These mines could be used as blast shelters as well ! They close their doors when the timer gets to 20 or 10 seconds (something like the Fallout shelters !), and then whatever is inside is safe from the eruption, even COGs - watch out ! (I imagine that there would be a way to claim the mine and make it your own (no, we are not making ally COGs.) but since this is planned for normal mines, I won’t say anything here.)

And seeing their interest in the brightals, the player could design a special COG bait ! (Unlocked by a special schematic, probably.) This COG bait would cost a good amount of brightals, but once crafted, you could go and place it anywhere on the map you want. After a bit of time, it will be noticed by COGs (if not too far away or in a weird place), and all nearby patrols and units will gather around this location. It will take them a good amount of time to get to destroy the bait, and once that’s done, they will go back to their original tasks. This could give you enough time to loot a village and quickly leave without having to fire a single shot. But the amount of brightals needed for this device would be high enough to make it not too op.

Given that it always emits light, it could become an ingredient for lights. Would make more sense, in my opinion.
But you could also take some in your hand to light up your way a little bit in dark places (like mines), or refine them, and make a flashlight with that, maybe even a flashlight helmet. This could be a neat opportunity to add more dark places to the game. We can also imagine a lot of other decorative devices using it.

The main idea behind this suggestion is to give a reason for COG activity in the caves, and to also give a reason for players to go down there a lot. It’s also a resource that will cause a lot of conflicts. I think it would be a pretty neat piece of lore as well. It would also give a solution to the mines’ darkness.

Omg yess!!