[quote=“Kevin Granade, post:44, topic:10811”]Mining for native metals would be similarly pointless due to scarcity, if you find a source indicating that an individual with hand tools would be capable of harvesting enough native metals in modern New England to bother with, please post it.
An incredibly brief search indicates that native metals generally do not appear in nature in usable amounts.
A notable counter-example is copper deposits in the far northern midwest, but of course those deposits are now mined out, and large-scale mining operations are now required to extract more.
Additionally, even when metals do appear in native form, they still require processing, usually up to an including smelting, putting them in the same category as ores for our purposes.[/quote]
I think the relative scarcity and immense time and resource drain mining would demand would be more than enough of a deterrent. Scrapping will always be preferable. However, I do strongly believe in the purely woodland survival aspect of this game.
Also, last I checked, there’s much less triffids in New England than there is native metals. I do think we have some room for fiction for the sake of gameplay.
