Sphalerite Indistinguishable from Gneiss

[TomatoThief 53]

Sphalerite block texture is nearly indistinguishable from Gneiss stone texture. Took me an entire evening and 1.5 copper picks to find a local mountain vein, and I am considering abandoning it anyway. There are a few pixels different, but for the most part I'm mining at random. Got 12 normal units and am calling it quits, despite my effort in finding this vein.

 

Is it intended that Sphalerite be so hard to identify? Is it easier to spot in other stone layers? Please consider changing the texture, otherwise! (wasn't sure if this belonged in Suggestions)

 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

It is indeed intentional. However, there are plenty of resource packs you could use that were completely based off of making ore more visible.

 

Edit: For reference, the top left is Raw Gneiss, Top Middle is Sphalerite, Top Right is Sphalerite on Gneiss. The other squares are the Sphalerite texture overlayed on the the other stone types it spawns in:

 

[AllenWL 186]

a bit extreme, don't you think?

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Many ores and minerals are often indistinguishable from the stone they are embedded in in real life. This, in combination with the fact that there are only so many different colors you can use that actually look like the ore and the stone type, it really isn't avoidable unless we start putting ugly black outlines around the ore or something. Other texture packs are able to make the ore more distinguishable mainly because of the higher resolution.

[AllenWL 186]

True, true.

But in real life, they also have things to help them see the ore/mineral apart from the stone.

 

Ehhh, I'll go post something on the suggestions thread about this

 

Edit: or... a magnifying glass that helps us tell the difference between stone and ore.

how does that sound? It would help people tell the hard to tell apart ores in stone as ores without using durability on your prospecter's pick

[transcengopher 349]

You can start mining it, and if cracks won't show up - you're looking at an ore.

This ain't a solution, just a possible workaround.

[TomatoThief 53]

Good tip trans...

 

I don't like this texture being intended. Even if it is more realistic, it saps a good bit of fun. I gave up on Sphalerite and established Gold and Silver mines for Black Bronze. 

[Peffern 94]

You can hit stuff with the propick to determine if its an actual ore block. Also, you may be encountering some scattered sphalerite blocks away from the actual vein (happened to me). once you hit the actual vein you'll be good to go.

[AllenWL 186]

true, but that wastes durability on the propick.

And I really don't want to hit every block I deem suspicious to find that ore.

I'll most likely just blast-mine the entire thing with a powder keg or something

[kaldskryke 27]

Who said mining was supposed to be easy? Isn't this TFC? Other mechanics in this mod might be borderline tedious or unfair, but this seems just fine to me. If it really bothers you, find/make a texturepack  You could make them glow in the dark!

[TomatoThief 53]

This is not the hill I'm going to die on, but I disagree with acceptance of this "kind" of hard. Hard is finding the vein with a pro-pick. It takes exploration, knowledge of stone types, triangulation, effort of digging/mining pursuant to that triangulation. That is a very satisfying "hard" when you finally break into that vein. Having the vein be virtually invisible once you've found it is just annoying. 

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Like I said before, there's only so many shades of grey that can be used. Considering there are so many different ores/minerals, and so many different rocks that they can spawn on, obviously some of them are going to overlap. With the default texture resolution being 16x, there also isn't much that can be done to outline the ore without it getting pretty ugly. Unless you want ores that are nowhere near accurate colors (like hot pink or lime green or something), there really isn't much that can be done with the default resolution to make sure that every ore is highly visible in every stone that it spawns in.

[TomatoThief 53]

Fair enough. I'll take that a lot easier than it being an intended feature.

[Phantom329 0]

I use the TFCFaithful 32 texture pack and I have had no problem mostly because the ore is 32x32 and the stone is still 16x16