Ore Veins?

[sloshappy]

Anyone else find it near impossible to find metal unless its visable from the air poking through the ground? I have dug a ton, and have NEVER not once found a vein that wasn't visable above ground. Just wondering if it is just me or what?

[BlackSmokeDMax]

Have you used the prospecting tool (in overlays section... top left of screen) Not sure how well it is working, dev has been working on that last couple builds.

[sloshappy]

Ya I have tried that, still have yet to find a single vein underground using it. Maybe I just am super unlucky.

[Pappa]

I too have been having real problems with this. I have gotten samples telling me Im within 8 meters of a large casserite deposit and dug 8 down 8 up and 8 all around it and nadda. I dig so deep that pathing becomes a real issue for my miners. its pretty crazy. If anyone knows a method to make sense of this please Help!!!

[sloshappy]

Ya if it isnt on the surface, I cant find it. Literally started over a new colony after like 20 hours just cause I could not find literally any ore.

[Slyde]

this is my problem right now exactly. i am about 22 hours into my colony and i have yet to find even ONE piece of ore. I try to use the prospecting tool but it hasnt helped. can anyone give me pointers? i'd like to actually be able to craft armor one of these days :)

[sloshappy]

So the way I figured out how the prospecting tool is send your peeps to dig a line a few blocks in EVERY direction from the last closest hit. But you have to watch them dig. If the next hit is farther away then your going the wrong way. Pick a different direction. It works on both the X,Y, and Z axis. It can be in ANY direction. Left, right, up, and down. It took a couple fixes from the dev to actually get it to work. But it does work now.

[Slyde]

ok, ill give that a shot.

thats actually how i THOUIGHT it might work, but it honestly seemed like too much of a pain to test

[Kontroar]

Does anyone know how much 'distance' each block represents? I mean, when it reports finding something 44 meters away, does that mean 44 blocks?

[Slyde]

thats a great question. i had assumed that to be the case, but im not certain

[Kontroar]

As best I can tell after several more hours of playing, each block is approximately 4 meters...give or take. As I had a prospecting report of 4 meters on a block right beside the coal it reported.

[Slyde]

hmmm, so if that is correct, then a report of something 20 meters away should be found by digging 5 blocks in every direction? interesting

[Kontroar]

I should take a screen shot of my excavations. As it is, I was just following a Casserite(sp?) vein deep down the Z axis until I found an underground cavern. It took nearly 5-6 hours of play time with 3-6 miners to run its course. A year in game at that. So, once you do find a vein...it will take some time to mine it dry it seems.

As for the distance equation, I do wonder if that might include diagonal as well.

[Slyde]

probably right. so in my example, you'd really need to mine a 5X5X5 cube to get it all.

im anxious to try this, as ive got over 20 hours in game so far an have yet to find any ore

[Kontroar]

I'm not sure how many hours I have in my current game but the recent coal vein that I am working on mining has given me prospecting reports that I'm 95% certain are on the diagonal.

[Slyde]

i dunno... ive tried everything i can think of and still cant find ore. i have a prospecting dot that says 32 meters, so i started digging 8 blocks in each direction away from it, making a 9x9 square. i dug over 9 blocks down, level after level, and still found nothing. something is definitely not right here.