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ak_snowfiend

How to find ores using a prospector's pick

11 posts in this topic

Have you had enough flipping over rocks in search of measley small cassiterites? Do you want get down to the REAL mining? Have you scrimped and saved miniscule amounts of tin and finally managed to take your first tentative steps out of the stone age? Great! Now let's get you into the dirt and start PROSPECTING! You will need:

  • A pickaxe
  • A prospector's pick
  • A shovel (probably)
Ok. You've probably found a likely biome with loads of starter ores. (If you're not sure, the place where you found the small cassiterite/bismuthinite/sphalerite ores is a great place to start) Now, you wanna know how you find larger veins of these ores.

It's EASY! As you wander through this biome, simply right-click on the ground with your prospector's pick (or 'propick' for short)

With any small amount of luck, you'll get a hit. You're looking for ANY type of sample. (Traces, Small, Medium, Large, and Very Large). Once you get this, you're 95% done!

Here's how I find ores:

1)Right-click the next block in your path (keep moving forward in a straight line if possible. If not, turn toward a direction where you can walk forward without having to scale a cliff or swim through a lake.) It will likely tell you the same thing. If you found a Medium sample, keep checking each block until it changes to a Small sample or a Large sample (it may say 'nothing found', in which case, check the block to the left or right of it, or the next block in your path, but keep moving FORWARD)You're looking for the point where the largest sample becomes smaller.

2)When you find the block where the sample size changes, turn around and COUNT BACK 12 BLOCKS. (You may need to start digging into a hill to proceed)

3)Turn left or right (perpendicular to the last path you were on). Start moving forward and right-click each of these blocks until you, once again, find the block where the sample size changes.

4)Again, turn around and COUNT BACK EXACTLY 12 BLOCKS. You are now somewhere above (or below, if you are now underground) the vein.

5)Dig down until you find your ore! (If you've gone 12 blocks down and have not found it, it may have been above you, or you miscounted)

This method works well deep underground, where ore veins are enormous, too.

Now, you may have found only a small amount of the ore you suspected was there. Don't worry! The starter metals close to the surface often spawn in small, scattered formations. Dig into the walls around you and, eventually, you will uncover more.

Good luck, and happy prospecting!

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I would have found out how to use it more effeciently eventually. In older versions, I was planning on strip mining every reading I saw. This will point me in the right direction, Thanks

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^

Holy crap! Someone that's seen the original TV series. :o (not post/thread related)

Thanks for the guide. I've been playing a long time in the stone age and totally forgot how to get started with mining.

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I like the idea of having a guide like this, but I found the guide extremely misleading. I spent more than an hour confused until I realized that the tool gives false negatives.

From what I understand, the propick is about 40% likely on any test to give you a false negative. When you find a false negative block, no matter how many times you click it, it will always say "nothing of interest".

I'm still a newb myself, but I do not think the pick ever gives false positives, only false negatives.

A picture is worth a 1000 words, though. Imagine a 4x4x4 vein near the surface. Imagine you make a few prospecting picks and use them up testing every single spot on the ground. Your result will look something like this:

Posted Image

The yellow-brown area is where the actual ore lies. You'll get positive tests up to 12 blocks away from the edge of the vein. At 13 blocks away from the edge, you will only get negative tests.

As far as a strategy goes, you could try testing everything in a line, like the OP suggests. The key is to get a rough idea of where the vein is first, then narrow down where the edges lie. Then count 12 from the edges, and dig, just as the OP says.

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@chezzik no it deosn't ever give false positives as far as I've ever seen

This post helped me a lot tho found a vein of copper and cassiderite in a few minutes.

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The propick page now says that it can give false negatives (it didn't at the time). It should probably also state that it never gives false positives.

It's one of those things that seems obvious to me now (that I've played a lot of TFC), but was completely non-obvious to me when I was a new player.

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Good job! Nice early game method for getting ores. I tip my hat to you sir.

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