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Ratone

A Smart Way to Find Higher Level Ores?

9 posts in this topic

Hello guys, this is my first post here in the forums. Great place, I've enjoyed a lot learning about TFC here and polishing my gameplay.

I've become quite confortable with the whole "mining" process of metals close to the surface, While it takes a while to get the hang of it. I had lot's of fun searching rocks, building sleuces, Triangulation with the prospector's pick, and finally being able to mix alloys to make Bronze.

But, I'm having a extremely hard time finding higher level ores than the ones used to make bronze.

I've tried time and time again to make huge holes on the ground, untill I hit close to lava and make large corridors, but all I've been able to find are minerals that AFAIK have no use yet. Anyway, is there any smarter way to find Magnetite, Limonite or Hemonite and advance into Iron Age? I've tried to keep myself close to the kind of rocks that these ores spawn in, but no luck so far.

Anyway, the post is becoming too long!

So, any ideias or hints, or even in-game systems that I've missed, to find these precious ores?

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My experience is that higher-level metals are never found in the top layer of rock. They are almost always in the second layer down and, less frequently, the third.

Nickel can only be found as garnierite ore and garnierite can only be found in gabbro. Since gabbro can also host native gold and tetrahedrite (for silver), it's my rock of choice. So I look for gabbro in the second layer.

What I do is I start building a road in one of the cardinal directions. Every time the type of surface rock changes, I extend the road another 150 meters or so into the new area, so that I'm well away from its edge, then take a "core sample", which is 1x2 staircase going down, until I hit the second rock layer. If it's gabbro then I start prospecting on a 20x20x20 offset grid, otherwise I head back up and continue my road. (Actually, I usually continue my core samples down to lava, then post a sign at the top describing each rock layer and any ores/minerals that I detected. That way if I later need something specific I know where to go to get it. But that can get a bit tedious if you're just searching for something specific.)

So far I've never failed to find nickel and and silver in the first gabbro layer that I mined using this method. I've not been so lucky with gold, though. In my experience gold in gabbro is pretty rare and I typically end up finding my gold while wandering through deep caverns or while mining for something else. There are seven rock types in which gold may occur. I haven't yet figured out if one of them is more likely to have gold than the others.

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My experience is ...

Well done Mayaknife, a bang on description . My methods are very, very similar. I am currently searching for the very elusive gold vein in my current game after having found silver and nickel in a second layer of gabbro.

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The regular way is to construct mineshafts, all the way to (0, 60). Using the prospector's pick, I start mining at all readings it gives me (yes, my prospecting techniques are primitive, ineffective, and simple).

The dwarfy way is to (DO NOT) dig down deep into the magma layer to the point of (NO) penetration. Dig everywhere! Strike the earth!

P.S. - I apologize for being off-topic.

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Thanks very much everyone for the tips, and specially you MayaKnife, I've tried to apply your tips to my Biome and ended up finding some Magnetite in two very different places. I've never found Gabbro Rock in my Biome, what is yours?

While I did find Magnetite and many kinds of different rocks in my Biome, things didn't go smoothly as I thought they would. First, both times I've found Malachite they were into underground caves and surrounded by 3 minerals, so the readings were just hell "Large Sample of Borax" next to "Large Sample of Saltpeter" next to that coal ore/mineral and so on. Is this just bad luck by me, or usually "higher level" ores are surrounded by minerals? It makes reading such a pain, and honestly mining in caves is hard as hell, specially because Magnetite seems to be scattered all around the place.

SDA209, I usually triangulate (SP?) my position now, since i find many different minerals close to each other, so following what the prospector's say is just impossible for me. Do you have the luck of finding most of your ores "isolated"?

Anyway, thanks for all the tips guys, really enjoying the game, and now, the community! :)

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My method is quite similar to mayaknife's, so I'll just accentuate the differences.

Before travelling, I make sure I have 6 stacks of ladders, 2 stacks of torches, 2 pickaxes, a propick, a chisel, at least eight chests and some food. That way, I don't need to go back to the base after each probing to get more materials.

I search for new rock "biomes" in a spiral way, with turns separated by roughly 500m; so I can be sure I found the nearest foo_ore (nickel, gold, etc.) deposit, since bringing ore back to base is another chore.

When I find any surface rock change: put chest in the ground, put everything in chest besides the strictly needed (pickaxe, ladders, etc.), dig a 2x1 mineshaft until third layer. I probe each ~20 levels for ores and write the probing coords if I find any.

If I didn't find the rock layer I want: put ladders, go back to surface, close mineshaft with some stone bricks.

If I found the layer where foo_ore lives: at the middle of said rock layer, I do a long corridor, and branch mine every 3 torches or so (I'm used to put a torch each 10 blocks). Ore deposits are larger than 5 blocks, so I'm quite sure I'm finding what I want if I branch each 30m; and I don't see a good reason to make a "real" grid.

The biggest problem I found is finding underground caves, they mess a lot with that design.

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i tend to do something similar to mayaknife, but instead of building a surface road i like to mine out massive tunnels instead. this is purely preference, i like the chance of finding a cave. but ultimately mayaknife's method is better since i often wear down my picks.

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I don't see a good reason to make a "real" grid.

I don't actually do a real grid, either, that's just the easiest way to describe it. Like you I dig one long main corrider and then run branches off of it. If the branch is more than 40 or so meters long then when I get to the end of it in I dig over to where the next one should be and then dig that back to the main corridor. (Yes, I'd rather dig 20 meters than walk 60. I'm not sure that qualifies as lazy, but it must qualify as something.) But I don't hook up all the intermediate prospecting points with cross corridors.

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My experience is that higher-level metals are never found in the top layer of rock. They are almost always in the second layer down and, less frequently, the third.

Nickel can only be found as garnierite ore and garnierite can only be found in gabbro. Since gabbro can also host native gold and tetrahedrite (for silver), it's my rock of choice. So I look for gabbro in the second layer.

What I do is I start building a road in one of the cardinal directions. Every time the type of surface rock changes, I extend the road another 150 meters or so into the new area, so that I'm well away from its edge, then take a "core sample", which is 1x2 staircase going down, until I hit the second rock layer. If it's gabbro then I start prospecting on a 20x20x20 offset grid, otherwise I head back up and continue my road. (Actually, I usually continue my core samples down to lava, then post a sign at the top describing each rock layer and any ores/minerals that I detected. That way if I later need something specific I know where to go to get it. But that can get a bit tedious if you're just searching for something specific.)

So far I've never failed to find nickel and and silver in the first gabbro layer that I mined using this method. I've not been so lucky with gold, though. In my experience gold in gabbro is pretty rare and I typically end up finding my gold while wandering through deep caverns or while mining for something else. There are seven rock types in which gold may occur. I haven't yet figured out if one of them is more likely to have gold than the others.

This. Brilliant. I approval.

I've been doing a more traditional "staircase to appropriate height and tunnel" method. But the core sample approach seems like it's both faster and cheaper. Not to mention that spiral staircases downward have a smaller overworld footprint, and look more like mines. I may start implementing this on my latest world.

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