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
mayaknife

Oh yeah...sluices!

21 posts in this topic

I've played TFC with about 8 different seeds now and my most recent one is the first where I couldn't find enough tier 1 surface ore near my spawn point to build a pickaxe and propick. I found lots of copper, but only 3 sphalerite and 5 cassiterite. I explored the rest of the small continent that I was on but didn't improve much on my tally of ore. Eventually I found richer pickings a couple of kilometers to the east and set up my base there.

It wasn't until just this evening that it occurred to me that I could have used sluices to get the rest of the ore that I needed. I've never had to use sluices before since surface ore has always been plentiful. So I decided to go back to my spawn point and see how sluicing would have worked out for me.

Using four sluices and feeding them nothing but gravel it took three game days to gather up the 30 small sphalerite I needed for a pickaxe and propick. That's a bit faster than the five days it took me to find to find enough ore through exploration. Mind you, the place I did eventually find had clay and willows nearby, which my spawn point did not, and during my exploration I found a massive peat deposit, which always comes in handy at the start, so I think I'm better off for having gone off adventuring. Still, I'll have to keep sluices in mind the next time I'm having trouble finding enough surface ore for my first pick.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I had the opposite when I played, Sluices resulted in...well...stuff all of anything for the amount of time I put in, exploring for me resulted many many times more ores.

If you didn't know, when you find a surface ore, there are usually another 4-6 nodes ore more, around that area in a sort of circular or square area, and your supposed to find the centre of that circle/square and when you have a pickaxe, dig down to find lots of ore (its like a marker for where underground ore is).

1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you didn't know, when you find a surface ore, there are usually another 4-6 nodes ore more, around that area in a sort of circular or square area

Yeah, I know, and normally it doesn't take me more than a single game day to gather up enough ore for my first pick.

The problem I had was that my spawn point was in extreme hills. The center of the sphalerite deposit I found was under a big honking mountain. I found two ore on one side of the mountain and one on the other. I crawled around the mountain looking for more but the sides were so sheer and high that they were out of range of the deposit. So three sphalerite was all I could find. Same thing happened with the cassiterite except that it was a different mountain.

Surrounding the mountains was swampland. There my problem was that the land masses are small and there weren't many stones.

It wasn't until I got out of the swamp and into some normal hill territory that I could finally get a bunch of surface ore together in the same area.

Just a combination of unusual circumstances, really. But if it ever happens again I'll be prepared!

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Never had much success with sluices myself. Lots of effort and not much return.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You need to set up a lot of sluices for them to be useful, I usually make 6 to 10 to get my first two tools worth of metal and it takes a LOT of gravel (several stacks). I believe the intent of sluices is more like prospecting, to find those areas where you can mine certain types of ore. I don't think they're working as intended for that, though.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

it took me less time to wander around bashing rocks to grab cass, than sluicing gravel for small chunks.

i set up a group of sluices on the edge of a ravine where i KNOW for a fact that there is copper (namely because i dug into it and decided to hold off because ive got a chest full of native copper ore)

This leads me to agree with vegasgoat's conclusion that the sluices dont quite work as intended, because all im getting is gems.

1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sluices work in a 100 wide, by 100 wide, by 60 deep box. I guess that they could give you a rough idea of whether or not any ore is in the area, and if you're having trouble finding small ores/nuggets, they'd be good for getting started. Still, it's a whole lot of work and you miss out on the benefits of exploring as you search.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One other thing I found attractive about using sluices was that you could do other things while they were running: smelt ore, collect firewood, make charcoal, etc, which made for pleasingly effective use of time.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

One other thing I found attractive about using sluices was that you could do other things while they were running: smelt ore, collect firewood, make charcoal, etc, which made for pleasingly effective use of time.

Maybe that would be the case if they could hold more. I always felt like I had to sit there and babysit them.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I always felt like I had to sit there and babysit them.

This - the impression i get sometimes is that tfc is not a game intended for those who play alone, or dont play with a team.

virtually nothing can be automated, and this would be a great progression idea - gradually increasing levels of automation as you progress through the various "ages" of this mod.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The biggest problem I had with sluices is the small ores. I dont know if its been fixed, but a while back when the bloomery was changed to consume the same amount of charcoal as ore when the ore melts, time had not been taken to consider small ores. As a result, a small ore of copper consumes the same amount of charcoal as a large piece, resulting in like 1/8th-ish the yeild using the same amount of charcoal :(. Now for surface ores this isnt really an issue cuz you can just pick surface ores from rocks, but I have had a few people tell me that using a sluice on a nickel deposit is wise, because it results in infinte ore, on the rarest ore veins. Ive personally never tried this, but I wouldnt anyway becuase making charcoal is time consuming, and using 8 times as much for an ingot is just silly :P

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

For nickel/gold infinite sluice is useful because you don't need huge amounts, 1.25 gold and 5 nickel is enough to make 16 blue steel (4.25 gold for 16 red steel). So in that case the time to make charcoal is probably less than the time spent hunting more ore.

The charcoal cost is one of the reasons why I say sluices are better used as a prospecting tool. It also makes those underground lakes have a purpose, you could set up a sluice down there to see if there's any good stuff nearby.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It also makes those underground lakes have a purpose, you could set up a sluice down there to see if there's any good stuff nearby.

How have I never thought of this??? Wonderful idea, and seemingly makes a good use for the sluice. Since I'm so picky about my housing location, I would often travel pretty far in the early game giving me a lot of time to collect ore chunks while walking, and as such, I never really used the sluice. Sluices work with all types of ore, correct?

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sluices work with all types of ore, correct?

As far as I know, yes. I have a nickel sluice so if it does that it must do every other type.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

How have I never thought of this??? Wonderful idea, and seemingly makes a good use for the sluice. Since I'm so picky about my housing location, I would often travel pretty far in the early game giving me a lot of time to collect ore chunks while walking, and as such, I never really used the sluice. Sluices work with all types of ore, correct?

As far as I know they do work with all kind of ore. At least, all small ore do exist (you can get them in creative).

As for the location of your house, I got a nice location near spawn in my game. I have a huge mountain and douglas fir around my house. Douglas fir is the perfect tree for a tree farm (make 1 space between the tree, and when you cut them, all the trees around are cut. It cut like 3-4 tree in each direction. I guess it's the mechanic to allow branches to fall when you cut a big tree). I am in the process of testing how many tree I can cut in one shot.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

After collecting approximately 500 surface stones, possibly 600, I recovered precisely 0 of any ores. It has taken me several game days. Meanwhile, my sluices have given me 15 saphrilite, no other ores at all, and 19 or so gems, including several diamonds.

Sluices win by default.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Did you have any hickory nearby? With that and bellows you could've skipped the tier0 ores (tin, zinc, bismuth). Tho you need a lot of copper to do that.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Did you have any hickory nearby? With that and bellows you could've skipped the tier0 ores (tin, zinc, bismuth). Tho you need a lot of copper to do that.

I considered it. But the idea of smelting that much copper from small ores broke my spirit.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sluices actually really do need a balance. I'm going to make a large post including this I think.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Sluices are a nice addition, although with the new update, I'm wondering how effective they are going to be. Small ores (tin, zinc, bismuth) are being nerfed, and copper will be the new T0. Also they won't be able to be crafted until after a saw is constructed, becuase planks will only be made with a saw. This all is making me question the usefulness and what will be done with them in future updates.

0

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You still need them to make things like bronze and bismuth bronze and high tier alloys.

0

Share this post


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