Content: Slate Blackcurrant Watermelon Strawberry Orange Banana Apple Emerald Chocolate Marble
Background: Slate Blackcurrant Watermelon Strawberry Orange Banana Apple Emerald Chocolate Marble
Pattern: Blank Waves Notes Sharp Wood Rockface Leather Honey Vertical Triangles
Welcome to TerraFirmaCraft Forums

Register now to gain access to all of our features. Once registered and logged in, you will be able to contribute to this site by submitting your own content or replying to existing content. You'll be able to customize your profile, receive reputation points as a reward for submitting content, while also communicating with other members via your own private inbox, plus much more! This message will be removed once you have signed in.

  • Announcements

    • Dries007

      ATTENTION Forum Database Breach   03/04/2019

      There has been a breach of our database. Please make sure you change your password (use a password manager, like Lastpass).
      If you used this password anywhere else, change that too! The passwords themselves are stored hashed, but may old accounts still had old, insecure (by today's standards) hashes from back when they where created. This means they can be "cracked" more easily. Other leaked information includes: email, IP, account name.
      I'm trying my best to find out more and keep everyone up to date. Discord (http://invite.gg/TerraFirmaCraft) is the best option for up to date news and questions. I'm sorry for this, but the damage has been done. All I can do is try to make sure it doesn't happen again.
    • Claycorp

      This forum is now READ ONLY!   01/20/2020

      As of this post and forever into the future this forum has been put into READ ONLY MODE. There will be no new posts! A replacement is coming SoonTM . If you wish to stay up-to-date on whats going on or post your content. Please use the Discord or Sub-Reddit until the new forums are running.

      Any questions or comments can be directed to Claycorp on either platform.
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
dreadicon

Iron....

18 posts in this topic

So, honestly, I love this mod. I love how difficult starting out is, I love how particular farming is, I love how you have to build real mines, and how your inventory stack sizes are microscopic (compared to normal minecraft). BUT. I have no love for world generation of iron.

I have dug for over 1500 blocks in each cardinal direction from my home town at elevation 60, and found 8 deposits of cinnabar 7 deposits of saltpeter, 4 deposits of talc, and one small deposit of Hematite just enough to make two anvils. I am all for hard. finding fruit trees is hard. making it out of a cave alive is hard. Finding iron is just plain frustrating to a degree which rivals MMO grinding. I have mined through about 3000 blocks of rock which can contain all the iron clusters, and 3000 blocks of igneous rock which are said to contain hematite. In addition, I have explored (at great risk and determent to my health) 4 cave systems.

I am a believer as much as anyone in a 'realistic, difficult experience', but this isn't realistic (there are ways to identify likely locations of iron, and it is fairly common. In fact, it's common nature is why cultures moved from bronze to iron, because it was more common. And further, I don't see spending 40+ hours digging in a straight line as a 'fun' mechanic.

Am I doing something wrong? Or does the world gen sometimes just screw you over beyond recovery? I've seen the ore generation numbers before (no, I wont post them), and cinnabar is about half as likely to spawn as the iron ores. What gives?

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i believe youre intended to use sluices to prospect iron, like a few people do in the letsplays, it allows you to get an infinite amount of it out of the rare deposits.

That being said, ive got 3 sluices sitting ontop of a massive copper node in my private world and they wont get anything more than cassiterite.

i do believe there is also a bug with small chunks of ore needing a chunk of charcoal each right now to turn into liquid metal...

i cant personally say much else because im still mucking around with bronze tools on this world, personally though i think this mod from what ive seen is intended for multiplayer more than single player, there was also talk of adding "skills" to things such as prospecting which is supposedly allowed you to make your pick more accurate, and allow you to come home with more ore etc.

Im interested in seeing how they would implement this personally.

All i can say is soldier on for now and see what the next revisions bring, they might agree with you and change things up a bit ... i can personally agree that finding ore is a major bitch sometimes, but you have to roll with it, if its bad bad, restart your world in creative and see what you find that way.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I have dug for over 1500 blocks in each cardinal direction from my home town at elevation 60, and found [...] one small deposit of Hematite just enough to make two anvils.

I think in part you've just gotten unlucky. I dig 1,000 meters in each cardinal direction at level 60 (or thereabouts) and have yet to encounter fewer than three separate iron-bearing deposits.

I note that you only mention hematite. Just to double-check, you know that limonite and magnetite will also give you iron, right?

How frequently do you check with your propick? I stop every 10 meters and check 8 different blocks with my propick. That's generally sufficient to ensure that I don't miss anything.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think in part you've just gotten unlucky. I dig 1,000 meters in each cardinal direction at level 60 (or thereabouts) and have yet to encounter fewer than three separate iron-bearing deposits.

I note that you only mention hematite. Just to double-check, you know that limonite and magnetite will also give you iron, right?

How frequently do you check with your propick? I stop every 10 meters and check 8 different blocks with my propick. That's generally sufficient to ensure that I don't miss anything.

I am aware that Limonite, Magnetite, AND Tetrahedrite also are iron-bearing ores. My mines have all been through sedimentary rock which bears one of the aforementioned ores, or through igneous rock which bears Hematite.

I have been pro-picking every 5-6 blocks, and when I do, I do so on about 3 blocks; top, bottom, and a side, to ensure I overcome any false negatives. i also occasionally run down a tunnel pro-picking wildly like a mad man out of frustration.

I find this strange, because cinnabar has a much lower chance to spawn than the iron-bearing ores (I wont say how much, but I know it does)

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am aware that Limonite, Magnetite, AND Tetrahedrite also are iron-bearing ores. My mines have all been through sedimentary rock which bears one of the aforementioned ores, or through igneous rock which bears Hematite.

I have been pro-picking every 5-6 blocks, and when I do, I do so on about 3 blocks; top, bottom, and a side, to ensure I overcome any false negatives. i also occasionally run down a tunnel pro-picking wildly like a mad man out of frustration.

I find this strange, because cinnabar has a much lower chance to spawn than the iron-bearing ores (I wont say how much, but I know it does)

If you're looking for Iron in Sedimentary Rock, you're going to have a bad time...

*after checking wiki*

I'm looking at the wiki, and it's saying that You can find iron ore species in sedimentary rock. Outside of Conglomerates (which are a clusterfuck of basically everything), I wanted to know if this was accurately the case. If so, WHY?!?!

I apologize if this is off topic, but it seems a bit bizarre for Iron to spontaneously pop up in a bunch of Calcite based rocks. Especially since the Iron would predate the Calcite by a very wide prehistoric age margin...

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Some times, you just get unlucky. I've occasionally been unable to find any iron to save my life.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think that the idea of having iron only in certain rock types, but at greater frequency is a great idea. Not only would it be realistic, but also would make mining into a game of rock layer hunting as opposed to 'MINE RANDOMLY FOREVER TILL YOU FIND IT!'

1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I actually found Iron very quickly (along with copper and cass). My problem now is going back and finding bismuth and sphalerite for bronze. Though I'v been working like a bat out of hell to find gold. But really, you just need to explore, explore, explore. This world is made so that you HAVE to travel. You won't be able to find everything in one place.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you have hard time to find iron, good luck with Nickel

1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Never had too much trouble finding nickel...

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I am aware that Limonite, Magnetite, AND Tetrahedrite also are iron-bearing ores. My mines have all been through sedimentary rock which bears one of the aforementioned ores, or through igneous rock which bears Hematite.

I have been pro-picking every 5-6 blocks, and when I do, I do so on about 3 blocks; top, bottom, and a side, to ensure I overcome any false negatives. i also occasionally run down a tunnel pro-picking wildly like a mad man out of frustration.

I find this strange, because cinnabar has a much lower chance to spawn than the iron-bearing ores (I wont say how much, but I know it does)

Not tetrahedrite, actually. (In the game anyway. Real life tetrahedrite *can* be a poor iron ore, though that's not its most common form.)

Cinnabar actually spawns on average of 4.6% higher concentration in the world (TFC) than all 3 iron ores combined.

Never had too much trouble finding nickel...

You're a very lucky person.

Nickel spawns at about the concentration of Krypton in earth's atmosphere.

I've never personally found it. Ever, which means many many maps of mine pegged in the Steel era.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You're a very lucky person.

Nickel spawns at about the concentration of Krypton in earth's atmosphere.

I've never personally found it. Ever, which means many many maps of mine pegged in the Steel era.

If I haven't found gabbro by the time I've hit steel, then I often don't bother to go any further and just start a new seed. Happens maybe a quarter of the time.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If I haven't found gabbro by the time I've hit steel, then I often don't bother to go any further and just start a new seed. Happens maybe a quarter of the time.

I'm on top of a large range of Gabbro, lol!

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If I haven't found gabbro by the time I've hit steel, then I often don't bother to go any further and just start a new seed. Happens maybe a quarter of the time.

That's actually not a bad policy... I've been too stubborn to do anything like that.

I'm on top of a large range of Gabbro, lol!

Very nice- you'll have to let me know if you find any nickel in it :)

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Y'see, this is why I tend to just leave all of the mining and whatnot to the other people in the server, while I provide the food and housing. Haven't played in a while, but that always worked best for me. I got full steel tools and armor within a week of letting the digger squad loose on the world.

What I'm getting at here is that the more people you have spread out prospecting, the better your chances of finding the ore you're looking for. If you're playing singleplayer, I really have no help for you. Perhaps open yourself a LAN world and get a friend to help out?

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0