IrthenMagor

I had to read a couple of posts here to understand how they actually work. I *did* discover I could relight them, but did not actually notice that that was actually free. I'm fine with the way they are now.

The whole idea of a prospector's pick is that you pickup samples, hit rocks and listen for specific sounds and echoes. False negatives mean that you run into a crack or fault in the rocks that distorts the sounds or blocks faraway echoes. Simple version: When you apply the prospector's pick onto a block, the block's coordinates are used to generate a random number. That number is compared with a threshold. If it doesn't clear the threshold, no actual search for ore is done, returning a potential false negative, and reducing lag by a tiny amount. If it does clear the threshold, all blocks within a certain distance from the player are inspected. The ore with the highest score is then reported. The actual threshold value is a magic number in the prospector's pick code. It should be relatively easy to turn that into a dynamic number influenced by the player's mining or prospecting skill, and reduce the chance of false negatives. On the other hand I feel that frequent propick use within short intervals should actually temporarily increase the threshold, repeated use would thennumb your senses. True skill is found in moderation, after all. You need to concentrate and listen carefully. Hurrying should affect your effective skill. Another possible benefit: a higher prospecting/mining skill could reduce the wear on your prospector's pick. Cheers, IM [Edit: removed specific values to comply with the creators' intentions]