I'm looking for some real ore types for my game. Currently I have: Gold, Iron, Silver, Coal, Diamond, Copper, & Tin. Any others that I'm missing that are fairly common and used in a good deal of products or did I get the most popular?

That depends on how deep you want to go. I took one look at this and was a bit intimidated haha http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ore

Maybe a better question to ask is what purpose you want these ores to serve? Building edifices? Crafting weapons? Might be enlightening to approach it from the other direction: knowing what you want to build then deciding what kind of materials it would require.

Platinum, Zinc, Lead, Magnesium, Silicon, Nickel, Sulfur (non-metal but useful and abundant).

Aluminum is a by-product of ore smelting - or something, I haven't researched it before.

Loadstone?

Apparently, when mining ore, the ore isn't 100% copper or 100% iron or 100% gold, and in the refining process, you separate out alot of other metal types.

Metals like Steel are what you get when you re-mix them together (using just the minerals that you want, to strengthen it). Steel even contains Limestone, if I recall correctly.

There are also rare earth minerals that are rather important in electronics.

@thade Just trying to get some types that I recognize. I'm going to add the basic ones that I know are just used in a good deal of "things" and over time I'll probably expose others are needed. Thanks for your post.

@Servant Some good ones there that I haven't thought of. Thanks!

Open to other common ones anyone else can think of.

Aluminum is a by-product of ore smelting - or something, I haven't researched it before.

Aluminum extraction didn't become viable until the late 19th century, and it was still quite expensive at first. Current process involves electrolysis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall-Héroult_process). Aluminum production was so expensive at first that it exceeded the cost of gold or silver.

I'm just pointing this out because aluminum would only be an 'ore' in a modern or futuristic setting, and requires a rather different process than most other metals. (i.e. a smeltery would not be able to produce aluminum for any major use). That's probably why aluminum isn't an ore in many medieval themed rpgs.

Who knew my APChem class knowledge would one day come in handy on a game dev site?

" Steel even contains Limestone, if I recall correctly."

Limestone is added to iron as it's smelted in order to combine with acidic impurities and make them solid; at which point they float to the surface and are either skimmed off before pouring or are just left behind if the iron is tapped from the bottom.

Silver and gold are functionally pretty redundant with each other, unless the color matters for jewelry making. How about lime if you are including non-metals?

Or electric conductivity... but that just brings up what serratem...err, I mean, thade, said - what type of ores or materials are available in a game depends on what the game focuses on. In some games Gold is just a luxury resource that increases happiness of your population (Civ IV), while in others its a material used to recruit certain unit types (Empire Earth series).

It'd be interesting to actually make mining and refining gold/silver yield gold/silver currency though (in a rpg-ish game). It's reminiscent of how gold nuggets used to be freely accepted as payment in the wild west. ... Anyway, like thade said, game type is pretty important.

I'm looking for some real ore types for my game. Currently I have: Gold, Iron, Silver, Coal, Diamond, Copper, & Tin. Any others that I'm missing that are fairly common and used in a good deal of products or did I get the most popular?

Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Bronze, Platinium?