In redding I think you should be able to sell golden nuggets to one of the two major mining companies. Say, 50-100 caps each gold nugget. Course, you would have to be able to mine them first, which I'm not sure you can.
Also, you could make the two companies into joinable factions, (Like slavers... maybe) and every hour or hours whatever you want to set it up, there could be kind of like a contest for 5-10 minutes. Whichever faction gets the most nuggets at the end gets a boost, the company gains more NPCs, traders, miners, guards specifically to PROTECT IT'S FACTION'S MINERS, and not to KILL EVERYTHING DEM MINERS DON'T LIKE LIKE TTTLA SCUMS!!!111
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course, there could be other boosts instead, but quite frankly i see people just powerlevelling on a single company to get best benefit at end.
But as you can see, this also creates a competition ground at all times in the mine, the one with most nuggets gets more caps, the one with most nuggets during contest hour, their company gets best benefits, and so on.
Problems:
I see miners attacking each other topside and causing wars between the two companies and their npc guards
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I have no idea what their traders should have in inventory, besides obvious, like dynamite, sledgehammers, leather jackets, caps. Course they're not supposed to have uber weapons and stuff like that but that's the problem, what's the best, senseable incentive?
Should guards, traders, etc npcs on companies, gained by contesting, be killable/lootable/respawn after deaths?
As you can see there's alot of problems, but I think it'd be a very fun little feature.
Also, you should be able to hire "professional miners" as followers from either mining company, and they will have 80 Carryweight, 150 melee, 100 throwing, something like that. but with their long carryweight, and all npc mining slow movement to mine, they would be able to mine for quite a while, under the assumption carryweight is why they eventually stop mining.