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Jugg3rV

Pickaxe needs metal, metal needs ore, ore needs pickaxe

38 posts in this topic

This is really annoying:

I started this mod today, was really thrilled by it, and now i am really mad.

As i progressed through my new world spawn, which is a swamp with ocean around, i figured the first tools, read the wiki and wanted to get myself some nice pickaxe to get some stone and ores. But pickaxes cannot be made from stone, and ores can only be mined by pickaxes.

This was so ridicolus that i searched the forum ... there are like 2 posts that point out that you need to find ores, or wash them out of the cobble / sand. The wiki states nothing about this. Quite frustrating.

So ok, hard mode mod, i journeyed forward to harvest every rock on the ground to find ... nothing ... 64 rocks, no ore. Bad biom. Swamp. Awesome.

Ok, next try. Build 3 Sluices. Got some wood, made the sluices. Now i need running water. So i dug out a channel, 7 long and 1 deep. dug 2 deep after this to place the sluice and 3 deep behind this spot to make the water move on ... but i was stuck on layer 2. Below the dirt was stone. Gnaa !

Next location, same story! If i cloud i would have bitten the stone into peaces !!!

Ok, next plan: Gold Pan. Baad Plan. First try to find sand near or in a river when all you do have is sand AND OCEAN BIOM ! ... and swamp.

Took me some time to find some gravel below some watersource. So i took my shovel and dug some channel for runnning water.And i used up 10 gravelblock already without finding any ores.

Thats not the worst! Turns out you have to stand quite above the gravel to get the gold pan filled, and stand above the running water to clear the pan. Aiming for the win, but seriously, this is a pain in the ass !

Please rethink this. It's really no fun :(

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Welcome to the TFC forums, where you can find the most awesome and helpful community...and also some topic derailers!!!

yes, it's probably not fun for a new to the mod, but that's it, and remember that you probably will make your first pickaxe after half a week of playing. And you also need a good biome where you can start. Not the swamp surrounded by the ocean, but for example a nice plain with some trees, a mountain ecc...

You have a lot of things to learn about this mod, but when you know all, you can make your undestroyable base, an expensive wooden mansion, everything you want.

If you find a bad biome, try a new world.

Yes, what happened to you is bad, but if you can't choose, break the stone with your fists. It's very slow, but it worth it.

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Please rethink this. It's really no fun :(

this is the way it was meant to be, plus its not that hard when you get used to it :). This system actually makes it waaaaaay more fun and challenging, in my opinion of course. It sounds like you just had some bad luck, mate. In most worlds surface ores are pretty easy to find, maybe you just got a bad seed?

anyways, welcome to the forums!

(p.s. - you can still break blocks with your fists, it just takes a bit. ;))

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-deleted-

haha, whoops, accidentally quoted myself instead of editing my post :P

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Thx for the welcome ... i finally managed to get the space to place a sluice ! yeah ! But noone told me that i have to place the damn thing from the higher point to the lower. Without the video tutorial i would have gone crazy right now. :P

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Thx for the welcome ... i finally managed to get the space to place a sluice ! yeah ! But noone told me that i have to place the damn thing from the higher point to the lower. Without the video tutorial i would have gone crazy right now. :P

Oh, I thought you knew it.
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also a few things about surface ores: You can just find ores from stone if that ore is actually nearby as a vein. your sluice will just find ores if a vein is nearby, and a gold pan will only find ores if there is a vein nearby. Thats for the basics.

Do it like this: Run around break stones (best near a body of water useful fro sluices.). If you find small ores, either break more stones and try to get 16 of them (you need that ammount to make an ingot) or place a sluice and fill it with gravel and hope for ores. as soon as you got 32 ores (2 * 16 of a specific kind at least) make a pick axe and a prospectors pick, then start digging where you found rocks that drop ores and search the place for a deposit. As soon as you picked up the first ore reading with the pro pick comes the funny part...find it with the help of the pro pick, this may be pretty frustrating if you do it the first time, but you'll get the hang of it. Once you found the deposit: Congratulations you have moved out of stone age pretty good.

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This is somewhat related... Couldn't you farm a rare resource by finding a ore, clearing everything around it except one single block and making a sluice farm?

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Yeah you definitely got a bad seed, so you either have to swim for a larger land mass so you can search more or create a new world with less ocean. In TFC, you can never find everything right at spawn unless you're really really lucky. It takes some travelling and searching to get started, and that's the point. Survival is hard, but it's way more satisfying when you get going.

This is somewhat related... Couldn't you farm a rare resource by finding a ore, clearing everything around it except one single block and making a sluice farm?

Maybe. I wonder what would happen if you had the sluice literally next to the ore. I've never really found sluices to be worth the effort, though. The amount of ore for time invested is way less than just hunting for surface rocks with ore in them. Plus, once you get that first pickaxe and propick you already know where to dig.

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sluices need to be built using a natural water source in order to get ores, otherwise you get all gems :/

at least I think...

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grab rei's minimap, its very helpful to mark down stuff you see while your punching pebbles. Sand, Clay etc.. dont get married to your spawn, take a look around and if it isnt giving you what you need then move. its pretty scary running to a new location in TFC i take the cowards way and hide in tree leaves at night, Survival FTW!!

and luckily making a bed isnt hard at all so you can reset your spawn when ever you need. Oh and remember where you see ravines, i havent found any exposed ore in them but i do find that a propick + ravine=ore. if you happen across an exposed cave entrance you might get very lucky. I have been playing this mod for a bit now and ive just gotten my first tier 3 anvil. it takes patience or much rage depending on your personality but this mod is really fun.

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Leaving the swamp boim was a good idea. I took a boat, sailed to far away lands and tadaaa found ca..cee.chissel..chiter cassiterite all around the ground. Nice. So i collected few, put them into the fire and as it got hotter and hotter, it vanished. God damn. I forgot to but it into so storage. But i waste like 3 small of those. So i got myself clay, which was ok, and then i melted 16 of those small ones... god damn, took forever. but finally i got my first tin ignot! Hooray! But i couldn't craft anything, since i didnt have any recipe ... Recipes need ink, all the squids were gone ... as if they knew ... Great.

Run around for 15 min 'till i finally found 4.

Covered in black oily juice i went back to make the recipes, heated the ignot and ...

it vanished ...

gone ...

dont know why ...

now i am sad :(

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Tin, Bismuth and Zinc can evaporate if you heat them for too long :

Supposing you already made the unshaped ingot into an actual ingot, the only other option is that you melted it without a mold in the output slot. If you heat a worked ingot too much, it will become liquid and unworked again. Be careful, and take note of the temperature at which the metal melts -If you keep the mouse over the item, you will see what it's temperature is-

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It's OK, we've all lost at least one ingot that way. When heating ingots, always keep an empty mold in place to catch it if you accidentally melt it. You can check the wiki for temperature info, unless you consider it cheating: http://wiki.terrafirmacraft.com/Metals. For Tin you'd heat to Hot *** and then make it into the tool.

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Tin, Bismuth and Zinc can evaporate if you heat them for too long :

actually just zinc and bismuth ;)

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Those tin ingots i once left in the forge do not think the same, Achartan...

EDIT: Although it was a long time ago, it probably changed and i just haven't noticed ._.

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Those tin ingots i once left in the forge do not think the same, Achartan...

EDIT: Although it was a long time ago, it probably changed and i just haven't noticed ._.

huh, i'm pretty sure tin doesn't boil, at least according to the wiki. (i know, i know, but it's getting better.)

Plus I've left tin to sit in a forge/firepit and never lost an ingot, unless i forgot to put molds in of course :P

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...and also some topic derailers!!!

-pops head around corner-

you called?

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Status update:

Got a zinc pickaxe and saving it until i got the proc. pickaxe, too.

I was wonderung about Sulices if they use up the ores around them or if they have a percentage to give the same ore like around them?

Last update: going to bed ;P

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... We should really move this to another place. Instead of a suggestion, this is the texty, slow version of that friend that plays TFC with you on a private server, and teachs you everything about the mod ._.

And no, the sluices don't use up the ores around them. They work pretty much like loose rocks do: If in their (pretty big) area of search they find certain ores (as i think there isn't a nugget version of all the ores...), they have a chance of giving you nuggets of that ore. -Apparently- The closer it is to the ore, the higher the chance of this happening.

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huh, i'm pretty sure tin doesn't boil, at least according to the wiki. (i know, i know, but it's getting better.)

Plus I've left tin to sit in a forge/firepit and never lost an ingot, unless i forgot to put molds in of course :P

Zinz is the one that doesn't boil

sluices need to be built using a natural water source in order to get ores, otherwise you get all gems :/

at least I think...

Not quite true. Any water source block will do it, including the ones you create using vanilla buckets and red steel buckets

This is somewhat related... Couldn't you farm a rare resource by finding a ore, clearing everything around it except one single block and making a sluice farm?

Yes you can, and only one ore block is needed to make the sluice work, ammount of ores doesn't affect the spawn rate

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It's definitely tin that doesn't boil, zinc boils at bright red**, I remember grappling with this when I started off with sphalerite once instead of the more common cassiterite.

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-pops head around corner-

you called?

Yes, I called...
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It's definitely tin that doesn't boil, zinc boils at bright red**, I remember grappling with this when I started off with sphalerite once instead of the more common cassiterite.

oops, you are right, my bad

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