Mining Woes

[No Pantsu]

Hi! I haven't found much information on the topic, so I'm asking here.

I've been mining on a multiplayer server I've found that I quite like. I have calculated my mining time to be about ~ 4 real hours.

In that time I have made a massively deep stone tunnel down, but have hit neither bedrock, nor any sort of valuable resources. The only resources I get are from Scrap iron/looting.

So my question - is there a trick to mining like there is in minecraft? In minecraft, strip mining tends to always yield -some- results. In 7dtd I haven't found anything. It has been quite a waste of time to mine stone, save for the world rocking levels of concrete materials.

[Sigh-Phi-Guy]

hmmm. you should of hit bedrock easily within the 1st 30minutes.
once there, set up a small room with a few forges and storage chests.
then start mining in the 4 cardinal directions. N,S,E and W.
every game ive played ive hit iron, pottasium nitrate and sometimes lead on the way down. tungsten withinin the 1st hour of hiting bedrock. lead made me wait a few times but when i find it, i find loads.
many will bore straight down and use ladders in the hole as they go. i bore at an angle to try to be under the hightst point on the surface and to make it very easy to shoot off in small mines on the way down. i also think its actually faster to get in and out of the mine.
be sure to put doors at both ends and torches along the way.
plus...zombies cant detect you when youre at bedrock level.

[Dragorin]

I have used 2 methods successfully.

Method 1 (no ladders needed):

I like to build in the Forest Biome on Random Gen map.
I will look for a cliff face that's pretty high. Bonus if there is a lake in front of it.
Most of these cliff faces will reveal minerals. (DIG in that area)
I start by digging two blocks above water level into the cliff face a 2 high by 1 wide tunnel 5 or 6 blocks deep into the cliff face.
Put a door on the entrance then widen the tunnel to 3x3. At that point I start digging down at an angel to bedrock keeping the 3x3 tunnel going.
If I get real lucky I'll mine right trough minerals on my way down. If not I'm not to worried about it. (If I hit minerals on the way down I just start tunnels in those areas and start strip mining minerals out of the ground.
After I get to bedrock I will count up 10 blocks and start two side tunnels off the main shaft. Again 2 high by 1 wide maybe 15-20 blocks deep.
If I haven't hit any minerals in the side tunnels I'll fill them with TNT and make some bigger holes.
If those don't pan out I'll go up another 20 blocks and try again.

Method 2:
Find the highest peak in a Snow Biome.
Build a small shack on top for a secure entrance.
Dig a 3x1 tunnel straight down to bedrock inside the secure shack. One block for future Wood frame/Ladders(because I hate putting ladders in the rock corners), one block for me to go up and down. One block for torches to light the way.

Normally again I'll hit some kind of ore on my way down and then strip mine it after the tunnel to bedrock is complete. If not I start side tunnels like above and use TNT to clear rock faster. Once I find ore I stop using TNT and start strip mining with pick or Auger if I have one.


One of these methods has always panned out for me. You only have to Find minerals once in your shaft and it snowballs from there. Strip mine a 10-15 wide by 20 long block area down instead of just digging out the ore will yield the best results.

[AgentSmith]

I just had a game where all the resources were basically at bedrock. I hit about 10 blocks above bedrock and that's the only place in my 4x6 tunnel that I'd ever seen any ores. All the cliffs were relatively low as well so no exposed ores either. So after about 2 hours of digging I hit an abundance of iron, lead, and potassium

[Groovdog]

If you get truly desperate I can give you a new game seed with massive amounts of all metals in locations I can provide that are handy to a list of POIs I have including 9 cops and 19 garages (so far). I got buckets of everything and some really cool places to build.

[No Pantsu]

Thanks for all the comments, I guess the moral of the story is just.. keep digging. To bedrock I go!

[Groovdog]

Nguyên văn bởi CheesecakeTruffles:

Thanks for all the comments, I guess the moral of the story is just.. keep digging. To bedrock I go!

I personally dig out escape passages to your stuff and you will eventually run into a streak of minerals. When you do, milk it and the layer around it till you are empty. Then clean up the mess you make if you care how it looks (I do).

[Ranting Demon]

Nguyên văn bởi CheesecakeTruffles:

Thanks for all the comments, I guess the moral of the story is just.. keep digging. To bedrock I go!

Just digging down is not really going to net you good results in terms of time-mineral yield ratio. Minerals are not evenly distributed through the ground; most of it is in fact simple rock and dirt (as you already found out for yourself).

In the random generated worlds minerals run in veins through the ground. Very often one "rare" type of ground block will connect to another so spots of clay on the surface often have a good chance of being close or even directly connected to coal and iron veins directly below in the stone layer beneath the dirt layer.

Your best bet to find ores though is to look for cliffs. Cliffs often cut through veins and give you a good starting point for your mining operation. (In case of cliffs near lakes just be careful not to flood your mine by accident...)

[Yippie21]

What the others said. My latest mine is in the desert and I just dig down at an angle to rock, then a couple blocks below rock to secure a door. Then a room or two and then escape tunnel laterally and then down to bedrock. I hit lots of stuff in veins on the way and was a bunch in clusters at bedrock. Good luck.

[Lerch Addams]

Mineral deposits are abundant enough in the game but what makes them seem rare is that they are randomly generated for every map.

Your best bet when you first start is to convert to scrap whatever metal you find and smelt that down to make tools.

Then note the locations of any wasteland biomes you find and gather the girders laying on the ground.
Do not convert the girders to scrap.
Dump a stack of girders into your forge and that will yield a stack of ingots.
A couple of stacks of ingots and you're ready to mine in whatever direction you prefer.

I've used a lot of the methods described and always run into some kind of deposit eventually.

I spend a lot of time in the Wasteland biome and iron can be found anywhere from the beginning of the stone layer all the way down to bedrock.

[FightinWelsh]

My meythod is to big down to stone and cut a 1x1 hole three layers deep and drop a tnt. carves out a nice room and then do it again all at a slight angle.. I have NEVER not found SOMETHING doing this. when I do I make Adits and cross shafts and then when the ore is played out go deeper. from one mine in a random I have 3 boxes of iron ingots..

[ApatheticExcuse]

I never find anything beyond little pockets of barely useful amount. Unlike the last version I've played, I can't even find gravel, which kind of screws up my usual game plan.

So, I gave up on mining and just set up in a forest next to a wasteland. Free metal laying around on the surface, free gravel laying around (it is the surface, and also in cinder blocks), and lots of big rocks laying about for coal and potassium nitrate. Takes a little longer to convert the gravel, but I still think it's much faster than rooting around underground.

[Groovdog]

Regardless of your method the key is finding that first vein. Than root about it looking for more. Once you get a solid lead milk it till its dry. Rinse repeat. The key is understanding where stuff lies relatively to your current position. I suggest you use the panel (~) and do listplayers. Look at your height (middle one). You want 0-15 for tungsten. Typically 20-30 is good for most metals with lead being lower (often with iron mixed with tungsten). Potassium nitrate is almost always high (30s) with iron. If you are much above 40 (unless you are sittting on a hill which is different) then you arent going to find much. The key thing is its relative. Start on a mountain and you will find stuff higher (other than tungsten). The key is persistance. I never have to go long if I am really trying. Worse case is strip mine with TNT along the lines of Fightin until you find your veins than milk them.

[Cameron]

Keep in mind that the non-iron resources you will find will always be sitting alongside iron ore. So if you see iron, it will be paired with something else. Firstly coal, then nitrate, then at the bottom lead and tungsten (rare). So if you are looking for nitrate for example, and see coal, go deeper =)