Mining under lakes, Exploritory drilling Technique

[Roadie 8]

Recently I started a underground tunnel to get to the other side of the large lake we have at our starting prospect. It starts with a 3X3 staircase going down to level 60, then a 3> X 4^ tunnel and continuing to the other side. 

 

After digging a while i realized there is a ton of water above me and it hit me, I can really do some good exploratory sluicing down here.

So every hundred blocks I would dig a water shaft to bring water down to a sluice.

 

I have worked on a drill rig for five months and it is pretty much the same practice as far as mapping out what ore is where. In short I plan on making a grid under the whole lake with sluices to better triangulate because as of now its only a straight line.

 

Ill put a short video up to show what it looks like.

 

The video has no commentary, its more of a visual aid.

 

 

On the lake bottom/seafloor, have a ladder block the hole you start to keep the water out. Then when finished digging to the sluice, go back up and break the ladder. Now you have a water source that you can use later for deeper or higher sluicing; making large bodies of water work for you rather than against you.

[Deviator 51]

Sluice covers 200x200 area so you really only need to put a new sluice every 200 blocks.

[Roadie 8]

wiki says:  The sluice aids in prospecting by scanning an area roughly 100m around itself and 60m deep. It will only provide ore that it can find in that area as well as any assortment of gems.

[Kittychanley 1,002]

wiki says:  The sluice aids in prospecting by scanning an area roughly 100m around itself and 60m deep. It will only provide ore that it can find in that area as well as any assortment of gems.

 

That 100m is the radius, not the diameter

[Roadie 8]

I know some will probably ask why only 100 blocks apart rather than 200 so they don't overlap. 

 

 

Sliuce     A    B    C

 

Sluice     D    E     F

 

 

The reason is if A is getting gold and so is B but not C D E or F, then it must be w to NW or North.

 

Also if I remember correctly 1 block is 3m so you you'd have to have them 300 blocks away so they don't overlap. 3 x 100=300.

 

Also the slices shouldn't be parallel since radius is shaped like this -----> o  or you would have blind spots if you didn't overlap sluices a bit.

 

hmm actually I should be dividing 3 from 100 then?  so they should only be 33-66 apart for overlap?

[Kittychanley 1,002]

I know some will probably ask why only 100 blocks apart rather than 200 so they don't overlap. 

 

 

Sliuce     A    B    C

 

Sluice     D    E     F

 

 

The reason is if A is getting gold and so is B but not C D E or F, then it must be w to NW or North.

 

Also if I remember correctly 1 block is 3m so you you'd have to have them 300 blocks away so they don't overlap. 3 x 100=300.

 

Also the slices shouldn't be parallel since radius is shaped like this -----> o  or you would have blind spots if you didn't overlap sluices a bit.

 

1 block equals 1 meter

[Roadie 8]

Thanks for the correction Kitty.  I'll eventually have some tracks put in after I get some more iron ores.

[___Frank 18]

You might want to read this thread before you start making a grid of sluices: http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/4408-everything-i%E2%80%99ve-learned-from-prospecting-with-a-sluice-in-terrafirmacraft/?hl=sluice

[cpy 3]

Isn't it faster just to dig?

[Roadie 8]

Frank , thanks for the link,I have not had a hard time finding what the sluice detects. When the guy is talking about the sluice not detecting the magnitite right under it, he seems to forget the sluice is like a slot machine selecting one block out of all of the blocks. 66 gravel in the sluice can easly overlook the ore right under it given its got 1,000 plus blocks to scan. I have pumped sand into a sluice finding tetralite and nothing else for days and one day a sample of bismuth shows up. thats over 200+ blocks of sand. Mabye it is bugged or was but I've had no problems finding what it shows.

 

cpy; "Isn't it faster just to dig?  :D"  you seemed to have a different tone when searching for graphite and yes something is very wrong with how hard it is to find that stuff becouse it is not rare, its almost mythical.

[___Frank 18]

Frank , thanks for the link,I have not had a hard time finding what the sluice detects. When the guy is talking about the sluice not detecting the magnitite right under it, he seems to forget the sluice is like a slot machine selecting one block out of all of the blocks. 66 gravel in the sluice can easly overlook the ore right under it given its got 1,000 plus blocks to scan. I have pumped sand into a sluice finding tetralite and nothing else for days and one day a sample of bismuth shows up. thats over 200+ blocks of sand. Mabye it is bugged or was but I've had no problems finding what it shows.

 

cpy; "Isn't it faster just to dig?  :D"  you seemed to have a different tone when searching for graphite and yes something is very wrong with how hard it is to find that stuff becouse it is not rare, its almost mythical.

 

 

Absolutely - If the sluice detects something you'll definately find it in the 100 block radius but are you really using it to triangulate the position of ores? You have 6 sluices in your example and if you're pumping 200+ blocks of sand in each of them, I salute your patience at gathering and diligently processing all that sand.  It bordered on tedium for me. The sluice slot machine needs a sufficient sample size before you could even suggest that there might not be any *elusive ore X* in that specific sluice's 2.4 million blocks - which is exactly what a grid of sluices hopes to accomplish to narrow the mining area of interest - but some might just rage quit before processing enough sluice ammo.  TFC rewards the patient miner.

[Roadie 8]

Yes your right Frank, it is tedious on some level. My main point of the post is not finding ores in the fastest possible way but more to the tune of making use of all the water above on the surface.

 

In RL up were i live they have been drilling and mapping out a area for over 10 years now. One reason is to find were the ores and precious metals are and the other is to map out the geological fractures in the ground to make the safest shafts possible. Pit mining is not environmentally friendly so they are resorting back to shaft mining. It costs hundreds of millions of dollars to do this so it is a heavy resource sink; in a sense this method has a good level of beliveability.

.

 

As of right now I am setting up the grid tunnel, my other friend is searching for graphite, while my 3rd friend is kinda like the supply line, bringing sand food and water and so forth.

 

In vanilla we worked on a server legit from beta 5.1 up to last april resulting in a 1.2 gig world save. we cleared deserts of all sand moved vast lakes and so forth but vanilla MC just got easier and easier with every patch so we kinda got bored of not feeling any accomplishment. We are 90's gamers and like games with lots of depth, tedium, and unforgiveness which this mod delivers.

 

So yes the grid method it's self is not for everyone but getting water down to were you want a sluice can be done this way via the lake method.

[___Frank 18]

The wide hallways in your mine look really nice. It looks like a real mine shaft and it's a completely different experience from my narrow mines that only use the bare minimum wooden supports to prevent cave-ins. I would much rather navigate your mining system. I take your point about making the most of large bodies of water.  Thank you for sharing your video.  What are you putting in the chests above the crafting tables?

 

In one of my earlier B76 projects, I had a mining shack next to my base that housed several water channels (1 block appart) leading to sperate underground sluices.  My idea was that I could periodically pop into my shack and drop a couple of gravel blocks into each of the "wells" and that they would automatically make their way down to the sluices.  I was excited about having a central feeder system but unfortunately dropped blocks often got stuck instead of being sucked up by the sluice. This happened even if I dropped them only a few blocks upstream from the sluice.  I gave up on the idea but it was a fun project.

 

Anyways, thanks again for the tour of your mine!

[Terex 108]

Impressive set up in that tunnel. Must be a lot of work. I normally just get to the ore and get out. Not spend time on aesthetics

[Roadie 8]

  What are you putting in the chests above the crafting tables?

 

Mostly Gems, food , sand, tools and water. They also serve as a rock/stone drop off to continue mining till the track is installed.

 

 

In one of my earlier B76 projects, I had a mining shack next to my base that housed several water channels (1 block appart) leading to sperate underground sluices.  My idea was that I could periodically pop into my shack and drop a couple of gravel blocks into each of the "wells" and that they would automatically make their way down to the sluices.  I was excited about having a central feeder system but unfortunately dropped blocks often got stuck instead of being sucked up by the sluice. This happened even if I dropped them only a few blocks upstream from the sluice.  I gave up on the idea but it was a fun project.

 

Thats was a pretty good idea, ice blocks, if available could have prevented that. I also noticed if the sand of gravel stacks before it hits the sluice, the sluice wont accept it =/. 

 

Thanks for the positive feedback. Had a great day yesterday, we set up a outpost a mile away because graphite was pretty elusive were we where mining and hit two graphite deposits! We have enough to make 6 crucibles and found vast underground rivers exposing lots of iron so the tech dry spell has ended. Now for red stone n gold and of course. =)