Balancing amounts of ore's / not enough ore

[twiigss]

So, whenever I start a world, I have a coal mine to work with, and in the past two worlds that I've ran, I am generally finding only one large hunk of coal ore near that first coal mine we are given. After that, the amounts of coal ore are slim and none when you compare it to the other ores.

For example: In my new world "World 1" I start with a 80,000 coal mine. Nearby is a coal mine of 1,132k. Next I find copper and tin, both mines are in the general size of 1,100k. Then I find iron, lithium, titanium, nickel and gold. All of these ore's give different amounts ranging from 1,100k to 2,100k.

My second coal mine of 1,132k runs out, and now all I can find of coal ore, is from 27,800 to 559,000, but yet when I go looking for copper, or tin, or any other ore's that I need later on, I can easily find amounts of 4,296k, hell in the world I am working on right now, I found a copper ore vein of 11,421k.

Coal ore veins are small to non-existant. Is each world different in this regard or roughly the same? Did I just get a bad seed? I'm having to go really really REALLY far away from the chevron signs (starting point) just to find any decent amounts of coal ore veins.

[Dessi]

You ran out of 1kk coal? What do you do? You can power 50 PTGs for 66 hours with a 1kk vein. I can hardly find veins bigger than 50k. And why do you compare apples (coal) and oranges (tin and bla...)?

[zyris0]

On the other hand there are considerably more coal deposits than anything else.
So you just have to move your miners a little more often.

[twiigss]

I have to walk 100+ blocks in all directions just to find decent amounts of coal, and once you get the antimatter drill heads, yea your ore veins deplete very very quickly.

How am I comparing apples to oranges? You have Coal ore, Tin ore, Copper ore, Iron ore, see where I'm going with this? It's all ore, so it's all the same category, and in my mind it's very unbalanced.

How do you expect to power extractors to mine out say a total of 20,000k ore with 27,000 coal ore? It can't be done. I have way more Iron, Tin, Copper, Lithium, Titanium, Nickel and Gold compared to the amount of coal ore there is in my current world.

I came across a coal ore vein that was 18,900, I went through all that coal ore in under half an hour. It's ridiculous how one sided the coal ore amounts are to all the other ore amounts

[DjArcas]

A 18,900 coal vein extracted using the default 10% efficiency drillhead will give you 1,890 coal ore. Unless my memory is REALLY rusty, that will let you run a single PTG for 31 hours, or 31 PTGs for an hour!

Have you been using the Coal Ping to locate more veins?

[Undead_Duckling]

Build solar panels (:

(I can barely guess how many ingots you have when you've gone through a 1kk coal vein)

[twiigss]

DjArcas, I've just been using the known ping menu option, I don't understand how the single ping things work. But, generally when I use that known ore ping option, it does show you all the known ores doesn't it? Or is that what the single ore ping is for?

My coal, I dont turn in to bars if that is possible, I've been using it as a power source for my extractors. Okay for example:

30,000 iron ore, 2 ore extractors with antimatter drill heads. Generator inbetween the two extractors, 3 hoppers connect to the generator, filled with 100 coal ore per hopper = 300 coal ore for power. One hopper attached to each extractor, conveyor belt runs from extractor hopper to main base.

What is a PTG?

[DjArcas]

Originally posted by twiigss:

DjArcas, I've just been using the known ping menu option, I don't understand how the single ping things work. But, generally when I use that known ore ping option, it does show you all the known ores doesn't it? Or is that what the single ore ping is for?

My coal, I dont turn in to bars if that is possible, I've been using it as a power source for my extractors. Okay for example:

30,000 iron ore, 2 ore extractors with antimatter drill heads. Generator inbetween the two extractors, 3 hoppers connect to the generator, filled with 100 coal ore per hopper = 300 coal ore for power. One hopper attached to each extractor, conveyor belt runs from extractor hopper to main base.

What is a PTG?

Specific Ore Pings are self-crafted from Blank Ore Pings, and can search for a specific type of ore. Hit C for the self-craft menu.

(2 OEs with antimatter heads? crikey!)

A PTG is a PyroThermic Generator.

1 PTG will only burn 60 coal in an hour.

[twiigss]

It just feels like I am burning through coal ore at an extremely fast pace. For my iron, gold, titanium and nickel, those ores take about 10 minutes to reach their respective smelters, using the conveyor belts. The tin is only 10 to 15 blocks down, the lithium is the next ore down after my first iron ore vein. But generally I keep 2 coal hoppers for each PTG. (I usually call the PTG an engine, since that's what they look like to me) :P

Now, at one point in the game, I was at 10.1k (1019) coal ore and am now down to 4.3k (4302) coal ore. But now, most of the coal seems to be going toward powering the 6 smelters I have.

I even took the time to create two new worlds today. When I did a known ore ping, I got a lot of small small ore pings and that was it. Maybe one big one, but it was further down, so I guess that is usually copper/tin/iron.