How do you mine for Ore?

[LordStuff]

I'm playing on a 3-5 ppl server I'm hosting myself, and we don't quite find any ore.. we're even playing with a x2 harvest modifier, and I searched the gamepedia and several guides on how to find metal ore... but I don't seem to find an answer.

Some say you have to look for round and smooth stones.. some show pictures of stones with a copper-ish texture... others say I need to look for roughly edged and dark stones..

Even if I use a metal pickaxe, I only get 1 metal or per stones (if I'm lucky).. my pickaxe broke down after I found the 7th piece of ore.. that is not very efficient.. Is this just how it works, or am I doing something wrong??

[Sagerk]

look for the stones with red/gold streaks in them, those are ore rocks, usually on mountains.

[MrBagel]

Go to the mountains, they should be goldish.

[Kal]

Mountains. They're on the sides and tops of them. Use a pickaxe on the rocks that are multi-colored. (Almost look like tiger stripes)

[di eshor ribly]

The "roughly edged and dark stones" are obsidian rocks. You'll get stone, obsidian, and some metal out of them. These are usually found on mountains, as are metal-rich rocks (the ones with red-gold streaks). Sometimes you'll find a rock that looks to be mainly gold, those are the motherlode of metal rocks there. If you have an argentavis, just fly up to the top of a mountain, there are always metal rich rocks up there, as long as someone didn't harvest them just before you got there.

[Cataclisto]

ores that contain more metal are a different texture then the normal ones, and more located in certain locations, a example would be the mountain at 36 lat, 59 longitude, towards the top of it, the ores stand out, and the ones with a more silverish texture contain loads of metal, the black obsidian stones contain metal too, id recomend playing on lowest graphics too, the ores will really stick out then

[LordStuff]

Oh okay thanks!

[Demonpriest]

Take a look:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=486936418
Edit: luckily, i had a screenshot laying around with metal-deposits on it

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=486080220
The metalic-looking stones (who would have guessed...)

[Jolly]

This map:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=456367463

...shows cave, water cave, and mountain locations (moutains are the elevation circle areas).

You will always find metals (medium sized gold striped rocks are "regular" deposits, more solid goldish looking rocks are "rich" deposits on real mountains - usually several areas of them if you were to go all around a mountain. Mountains also have obsidian (high tech resource) - smallish flatish smooth black looking stones that stand out, and real mountains have crystals (smallish white spikey looking things) on top (mid/high tech item).

You can also find metal deposit rocks on several of the bigger non-mountain hills - it's kind of an elevation thing - the higher up a hill goes and the more distinct the hills is, the more likely you are to find metal on it.

For example, a killer "hill" with tons of metal on it is down mid/south at about 84, 64 - it has 3-5 rich and several normal deposits (kind of varies each respawn). You very rarely see raptors or carnos in that area and it's a very short trip from the southern coast to the top. There are other similar hills here and there I've encountered but since we built near this one we tend to use it the most.

You will also find metal bearing rocks (and obsidian and crystals) in some caves. The south central cave at 80.2, 53.5 is easily reached from that mid/south area, is the easiest of the caves (xp bonanza and loot boxes, chitin, and the aforementioned resources) and has both reg/rich metal rocks in it.

I host for 1-3 others (two of us play a lot, the other 2 are sporadic) and we have zero problems getting any and all resources - just a matter of learning the how and where.

The hills and caves are very easy to do at levels 15-25ish when you're first starting to want to use metals. Mountains tend to have nastier dinos, faster repops, harsher weather (cold that causes damage at times), and so on and are best approached with caution and preparidness (sp).

Pro tip - make and use metal picks asap to get better yields when tapping metal bearing rocks (and you'll want to use metal tools exclusively once you have enough metal rolling, and pikes blow spears completely away).

[LordStuff]

Thanks Demonpriest for the resource map.. It should help us find what we need!

And thanks for the other detailed descriptions!

[leftharted]

what they all said.

you want the shiny gold colored rocks. They net the most metal; and tend to be closer to the peak.

near the base of the mountain, you'll find 50/50% rocks, with gold 'streaks' in them; they net a decent amount of metal too.

I tend to pop the K button (free look) and try to zoom WAYYYY out and above myself when im metal hunting; helps to target the shiny rocks as you get the gleam from the sun.

[rdo3]

get an ankylo. they do to rocks what trikes do to bushes. raise your fortitude so you freeze less on the mountains. also food and some weapons in case you get knocked off your ankylo. you'll be fighting sabers, scorps and argens (birds with feathers). if you start taking to much damage in a fight run for the closest mammoth so it'll fight what ever is attacking you.

[Sava]

If you are not near mountains you should still be getting the occasional metal from using a pickaxe on regular rocks. But the rocks that have a lot of metal are on mountains.