Unlucky or bugged?

[maclypse 0]

Started looking for iron today. I'm in the second layer, the tunnels cut right through at levels 99-100., it's shale and chert rock so it should be carrying magnetite and limonite. So far I've prospected a volume of about 350x150x25, taking me around 8 hours or so - so around 1.3 million blocks total. I have found nothing. And I mean nothing, really, nothing. I find bismuthinite in the areas surrounding the chert and shale whenever I get close to the edges of the rock layers I'm searching, but actually IN the chert and shale? Nothing. No ores or minerals of any kind so far.

Am I missing something here? Is there a bug I'm unaware of? Am I just exceptionally unlucky?

...or was TFC designed to have us digging for endless hours non-stop? In that case I'd like to suggest adding a world gen mode with increased ore spawns. There's so much I love about this mod, but digging for 8 hours straight and finding nothing (and missing all that fun stuff in the meantime) isn't one of those things.

mac

[dukejuke 47]

being unlucky is just one of the good things in TFC

you might wanna find another place to dig, my rule number one, if i dont find anything after 10 hours im outta there.

[maclypse 0]

You make it sound like this is indeed normal. Ouch.

I guess the world gen would make more sense to me if I was on a multiplayer server, if I could trade, collaborate and cooperate. For single player though, it's feeling much too harsh. There's so much fun and cool stuff in the mod with regards to homesteading: more complicated construction, leatherworking, smithing, farming and breeding cattle at sensible speeds in tune with the seasons... and I find myself neglecting all that fun stuff in the quest to find iron. I never did enjoy tunneling very much, and there certainly seems to be a lot of it in this mod.

I have no idea how much work it would be to add a single-player focused world gen with greatly buffed spawn rates for ores, but it's certainly something I'd use if it was available.

mac

[aliceingame 114]

I dug at level 60, found a lot of borax, lignite, bituminous coal, lapis, sylvite, gypsum and luckily after a whitle, limonite. Most of the time, i found vein of 2-3 different ore. like borax-coal-gypsum, or lignite-borax-limonite.

Honestly, I do not know what kind of metal you can find at what dept.

From my experience starter ore are at level 128, you can find some ore around 98-100, I always mine deeper, between 50 and 70 (so 60 is a good prospecting level), it's where I got everything I have right now.

[PanRouge 5]

I started in my area a couple days ago. I've already found tin, copper, and iron. Funny though, I found the iron before the copper.

[Emris 156]

When i was working on the oil spawning, i made a tool to show me where and how oil was spawning, and i must say ore can be found all over the place.

You just need a bit of luck and extensive use of your prospectors pick. Always remember, 12 blocks in every direction will pickup a trail.

That's one of those things where the player in front of the keyboard has to be better then the player behind the keyboard.

And i really like that

[VegasGoat 51]

My technique is to just dig really long (500 - 1000 blocks) straight tunnels at the level where layers 2 and 3 meet, and propick every 24 blocks. I find pretty much every type of ore that way (except nickel and gold, unless I'm super lucky). This way you don't waste a lot of time in an area that doesn't even have what you're looking for. The tunnels come in useful later because you can travel pretty far without worrying about monsters. If you add ladders to the surface every few hundred blocks it's almost like a subway system.

[Omicron 62]

While we're on this topic, I guess I'll hook in with a question I've had for a long time...

I'm pretty good at finding ore, but there's one place where I have never succeeded, even though logic dictates that there should be something there. Namely layer 3. I have dug in resource-rich rhyolite, I have dug in soft conglomerate, I have dug in thoroughly unexciting quartzite, and I have covered several thousand blocks of tunnel across several different maps and TFC builds.

Zero ore. Zero minerals. Zero readings. Absolutely nothing at all except for stone.

I know how TFC spawns ores. I'm naturally good at pattern recognition, and the pattern gets really obvious after you play two or three games. I can predict exactly where I will find the vein if I get surface rocks, down to being able to hit it with a blind shaft down on the first try 4 out of 5 times, no prospector's pick. I know exactly which layers are worth starting branch mines in. And the pattern dictates that there should be (at least) one y-level in layer 3 where ores or minerals or both can spawn. But I'm just not finding anything.

Have you guys ever found anything in layer 3?

[VegasGoat 51]

Have you guys ever found anything in layer 3?

I once found nickel right above the lava level, literally on top of it. That was a pain to extract, I had to fill the lava with cobble all around the block I was trying to mine otherwise the ore would fall into the lava. If it wasn't nickel I wouldn't have bothered.

Most of the time I just stay at the level 2/3 border, digging lower I always run into those giant caves and cause a cave in. Maybe the cave generation is happening after ore generation and replacing the ores with air which is why they're so hard to find.

[Omicron 62]

Yeah, but even in areas without caves I found zilch all in layer 3.

I'll try a tunnel around 15-20 then, if there's a spawn location right at the lava border I should be able to pick it up then.

[mayaknife 82]

Started looking for iron today. I'm in the second layer, the tunnels cut right through at levels 99-100.

That seems a bit high to me. While it's possible to find iron ores at that level I generally see them much lower down.

[mayaknife 82]

Have you guys ever found anything in layer 3?

I've found a fair bit of stuff in layer 3, but the riches pickings always seem to be at the boundary between 2 and 3.