Why don't you just add miner NPC where you can buy/sell ores? In either case, these NPCs will have money or mats - a small amount respawned and mats/money balance filled up by players, so:- ones could shorten their need for supplies- while others can mine for some money.- both will be working for each other via middleman.Just throwing this in.
Yeah, suggested and forgotten.
I'd be quite happy with either of those to be honest.Would the first option mean you could ONLY find resources when finding encounters, or just that the chance would be much greater?If the former, are there any thoughts regarding adding some more "non-combat" encounters i.e. a corpse, a strange looking tree, a little campfire, a broken truck etc - little flavour encounters that may contain resources, but not necessarily involve killing 20 rats etc, which would allow you to run in, explore a little, gather and escape? (avoiding staying in the encounter for too long and getting shot in the back by a Light Support Weapon)
Those would be independent rolls, so yes, that totally begs for non-combat encounters as well (in safer areas).
For that, we could add items that reduce timeout - say food
Hopefully it will be so that when you enter, you will always find at least some of the materials you were looking for