Prospecting Help

[如浮云 ru fuyun]

Hey, so I just sailed all the way from JK start town to just south of Litocania to jack their mining tunnel. It goes pretty deep which is awesome, but when I prospect it just says "You would mine stone rock shards here." Is that the way it's supposed to be? It doesn't seem to be telling me if minerals are or are not nearby which i remember happening in wurm online.

[如浮云 ru fuyun]

Also, guys, easter bunnies are TOUGH. Just lost like half my Hp fighting one hoping for an easy meal. Surprise!!

[Brewdu]

Prospecting is done outside a mine. Analyze inside a mine. Need Prospecting 20 skill to use either function properly.

http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Prospecting

http://www.wurmpedia.com/index.php/Analyse

[Tryst49]

I found prospecting really difficult at first but it's pretty easy now I know the formula.

Prospect tiles when you find iron or whatever you're looking for. You will find that it will show the ore on a grid of 7x7.

Find a corner of that grid (ie top left) where the tiles above and left only show stone. Move 3 right and 3 down to put you smack in the centre of the grid and start digging a tunnel. If you dig and it starts saying it's unusually hard and you can't continue, it means that's the iron tile, move one tile left or right and try there instead. Don't go above or below it to make the tunnel, you will never get the iron if you do. Ore can be anywhere from 1 to 4 tiles deep depending on how deep the ore is set to spawn by the server.

x x x x x x x x x
x o o o o o o o x
x o o o o o o o x
x o o o o o o o x
x o o o X o o o x
x o o o o o o o x
x o o o o o o o x
x o o o o o o o x
x x x x x x x x x

I normally tunnel just once on each tile that prospects with a positive ore result to put rock shards on it so I can see where I've been.

Finding a corner is a better method than mapping the whole grid because sometimes overlapping ore results can confuse things.

[LokitheWeaver]

Originally posted by tryst49:

I normally tunnel just once on each tile that prospects with a positive ore result to put rock shards on it so I can see where I've been.

Okay that is a very useful tip. I typically try to carry a bunch of junk and drop it, but rock shards would be much more visible / simple.

Also took me some time to figure out that the ore could be "behind" me (i.e. lower on the slope and buried.) Real pain when prospecting from water (my usual method). Small rowboat to regain stamina, climb / prospect / fall into water / jump into boat. Rinse and repeat.

Still have not found a really efficient way of prospecting a land locked cliff / mountain.