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morganiq

Do surface ores always indicate underground veins?

11 posts in this topic

Hi folks,

 

I'm still searching for Cassiterite, and finally (!) happened across two precious small surface ores. They were spaced about 20 blocks apart, in a Dolomite area (?!), atop a small, flat hill. (I literally gasped when I read the tooltip. I've been looking for ages.)

 

I immediately got to work with the propick. Nothing of interest (except tons of Lignite and a smattering of other stuff) at the surface anywhere within about 50 blocks of each of the samples I found.

 

So I dug into the cliff about 15 blocks beneath the flat hilltop. After a little bit of haphazard prospecting, with no results other than the copious amounts of coal, I dug a long prospecting gallery straight through the hill. Still no Cassiterite on the propick. I opened up three cross galleries, spaced 24 blocks apart, each themselves 48 blocks long (24 in either direction). Now my system precisely and completely covered a 72×72×24 area centered at y=151 beneath the midpoint of the two surface samples, which were spaced apart about ⅓ of that. And yet still no Cassiterite, even after propicking every single floor block in each of my three cross galleries and long main gallery.

 

So I dug down another 24 blocks, just into the middle layer of stone (which is Andesite), and did the same. Still nothing. And nothing again a further 24 blocks down, over 50% into the middle layer. I've now completely covered a 72×72×72 cube, and not a single hint of Cassiterite on the propick. There's plenty of other stuff down there: Lignite, Saltpeter, Hematite, Native Copper, Jet, Bismuthinite, and even Bituminous Coal. But no Cassiterite.

 

I suppose there is the unlikely possibility that every single space I've propicked just happened to randomly choose to report either nothing or something other than an extant Cassiterite deposit nearby. But the odds against that have to be enormous, with every single centrally-located block (within 12 of a main gallery) getting included in over 48 propick searches, and all outlying blocks (along side galleries further than 12 from a central gallery) getting included in 24.

 

Does anyone know the precise game mechanics of surface ores? Are they supposed to always indicate an underground vein, or are there sometimes false positives? The wiki says they're supposed to indicate a vein somewhere between the surface and, at furthest, the upper part of the middle layer. I've more than covered that. But what about distance on the x–z plane? If you consider each surface sample to be off-center by about ⅓, technically the coverage beneath each ore is lopsided: 24 blocks in one direction, 48 in the other, and 36 on either side. Should I expand my area? dig deeper? Or should I just consider it a false positive and move on?

 

Gracias.

 

 

Edit: I understand and respect the devs' embargo on publishing magic numbers and gameplay mechanics, so I'm not necessarily looking for an algorithm. But I think it's fair to ask whether surface ores always indicate underground veins or whether there are false positives. And if the former, I think it's also fair to get a relative sense of how close to expect underground veins to be on the x–z plane (e.g., "directly beneath", "pretty close by", "within a few chunks", "anywhere in the area of that stone type"), similar to the relative description of depth listed on the wiki.

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I'm pretty sure if you find a surface ore, it indicates a vein somewhere near.(as in within a 30~50 block radius)

Don't know exact numbers though

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I suspect that sometimes the surface ore nuggets do not necessarily indicate a large quantity of ore concentrated deep below (and yes into the middle layer is possible). You were probably looking for scraps.

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Yes, if you found a small ore in the surface, a vein, even the smallest one, will be there below

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I believe so. Found some cassiterite on the service when I found an area, and eventually started mining for a cassiterite vein. It ended up being near where I found on the surface cassiterite.With a prospector pick, if you see some surface ore it doesn't hurt to check if a vein is nearby.

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I'm pretty sure if you find a surface ore, it indicates a vein somewhere near.(as in within a 30~50 block radius)

Don't know exact numbers though

 

 

Aight, guess I'm expanding horizontally. I'll post an update later. Thanks!

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My suggestion sould be to test it in creative. could save you a tom of time  ;)

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Update: extended central gallery 24 in each direction, and side galleries 12 in each direction, on all three levels. Total volume covered is now 120×96×72, or about 96×96×72 beneath each surface sample (i.e., 48 in each direction, 72 down). No hint of Cassiterite on the propick.

 

I don't want to go creative or MCEdit because there's plenty of other ore down there that I don't want to see. It's more the principle: is surface ore supposed to be a guarantee, or not? If so, within what horizontal range? And is the vertical range accurate? Should I go even deeper?

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From experience, I always found the ore when I had the small pieces on the top. My worst discovery was a 2-3 blocks vein, that was obviously hard to find unless you have the luck I had.

If you are looking for cassiterite, you have to look in the right stone layer. If your two top layers are not cassiterite bearing stones, go deeper. I ussualy found my veins between the first and second layer of stone and I don't know if if can indicate deeper veins.

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So does the rule stated on the wiki about surface samples indicating ores in the top layer (or in the upper part of the middle layer, if the top layer is thin) not apply if the top layer is not a Cassiterite-bearing stone? Do you have to look to the bottom layer in that case?

 

Regardless, in this case, in the area where the surface ores were found the top layer is Dolomite, the middle layer is Andesite, and the bottom is Rhyolite—none of which are Cassiterite-bearing. The stone does morph to Quartzite on the outlying edges of my grid; I'm not sure if that was the top or middle layer, and I definitely didn't check the bottom—but in any case the surface samples were found squarely in the middle of the Dolomite area, and if the rule on the wiki is correct, I shouldn't need to worry about the bottom layer anyhow.

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My recommendation is to move on to a new location. Of course you can criticize this one instance where you are not finding what you set out to look for, but the thing is that the landscape is procedurally generated. There are bound to be a few bugs here and there.

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