Do you all mine like this?

[BALOCHISTAN LIBERATION ARMY]

I am so glad that my trick worked :D, while I farmed stones for later use, I got all silver ores in 1 break hit. Used my antler and bronze pickaxe to clear the vein and then kaboom. Pretty time saving and useful, advised for players who are yet to reach mountain biom.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266283617

[knighttemplar1960]

I do it all the time for copper and silver. It goes even faster if you build a work bench, pick down 1 meter, and then flatten with the hoe. Fewer rocks from mining the earth around the deposit and flattening lowers the ground in the area much faster than the pick can.

Edit - Silver veins often come in clumps of 2 or 3 deposits. My largest find ever was 6 in one spot.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2856429325

[Steve]

Originally posted by YADAV HU - MULLO KA TATTA HU:

Originally posted by hallaloth:

No, but I've also never reached silver. I've attempted a couple times with copper, but the node is so wonkily shaped I've never really gotten more than very small pieces to 'pop' I just do the tops of copper now and move to the next one. There's so much copper and I play so slowly its easier to just quick mine the top and keep going than spend forever creating massive holes in the ground.

To reach/get silver you have to kill the 3rd boss i.e Swamp biom boss, Bonemass and then you get your hands on Wishing Bone named artifact, which helps to locate buried treasures i.e chests in Meadow, Scrap iron pile in Swamp and Silver vein in Mountain biom.

It helps, but it's not strictly required in order to actually find any of these things. Silver can be easy to find because it reliably spawns above certain heights and near certain points of interest.

But no, killing Bonemass isn't a hard requirement. It's just a really good idea.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Just Steve:

Originally posted by YADAV HU - MULLO KA TATTA HU:

To reach/get silver you have to kill the 3rd boss i.e Swamp biom boss, Bonemass and then you get your hands on Wishing Bone named artifact, which helps to locate buried treasures i.e chests in Meadow, Scrap iron pile in Swamp and Silver vein in Mountain biom.

It helps, but it's not strictly required in order to actually find any of these things. Silver can be easy to find because it reliably spawns above certain heights and near certain points of interest.

But no, killing Bonemass isn't a hard requirement. It's just a really good idea.

True. You can find silver with the stag breaker and occasionally a vein will just be protruding from the peak.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2931149861

[bbyhighness]

Yes for silver. No for copper. With copper, I just use trolls to smash the surface layers and don't bother with what's underneath, unless I'm really desperate.

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I do it all the time for copper and silver. It goes even faster if you build a work bench, pick down 1 meter, and then flatten with the hoe. Fewer rocks from mining the earth around the deposit and flattening lowers the ground in the area much faster than the pick can.

I don't think I understand what you're suggesting. Are you suggesting only mining down 1 meter, then leveling the rest of the ground down to the same level? Then what? Do you keep doing that until you reach the bottom?

I just tried that, and it seems like it would be very slow and tedious, but maybe I'm not understanding or doing it right.

I just dig down the bedrock and pick from there. It takes just as many hits to dig a trench at 8m as it does at 1m, so I don't see how anything could be faster than that. If there's no rock in the way, I can easily mine an entire silver vein in 1/2 day.

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

I do it all the time for copper and silver. It goes even faster if you build a work bench, pick down 1 meter, and then flatten with the hoe. Fewer rocks from mining the earth around the deposit and flattening lowers the ground in the area much faster than the pick can.

I don't think I understand what you're suggesting. Are you suggesting only mining down 1 meter, then leveling the rest of the ground down to the same level? Then what? Do you keep doing that until you reach the bottom?

I just tried that, and it seems like it would be very slow and tedious, but maybe I'm not understanding or doing it right.

I just dig down the bedrock and pick from there. It takes just as many hits to dig a trench at 8m as it does at 1m, so I don't see how anything could be faster than that. If there's no rock in the way, I can easily mine an entire silver vein in 1/2 day.

Yes, exactly. The hoe flattens the terrain down about 1 meter if you are standing in the part you picked out and its much faster at clearing the extra earth around the deposits than picking around the entire deposit is. Also no chance of accidentally hitting the deposit and ruining the pop. Go down a meter with the pick, flatten the area with the hoe, go down a meter with the pick, flatten again, repeat until the node is free. Works like a charm as long as there are no boulders near the node. If there are you have to use the pick on the boulders too. It works better on copper nodes than silver nodes (but it still works fine on silver) and the hoe doesn't make noise that will attract mobs while you are trying to mine.

[bacon]

no, because it still takes a long time to mine out under the silver, and you get no pickaxe experience by hitting the ground.

[Faceplant]

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

I don't think I understand what you're suggesting. Are you suggesting only mining down 1 meter, then leveling the rest of the ground down to the same level? Then what? Do you keep doing that until you reach the bottom?

I just tried that, and it seems like it would be very slow and tedious, but maybe I'm not understanding or doing it right.

I just dig down the bedrock and pick from there. It takes just as many hits to dig a trench at 8m as it does at 1m, so I don't see how anything could be faster than that. If there's no rock in the way, I can easily mine an entire silver vein in 1/2 day.

Yes, exactly. The hoe flattens the terrain down about 1 meter if you are standing in the part you picked out and its much faster at clearing the extra earth around the deposits than picking around the entire deposit is. Also no chance of accidentally hitting the deposit and ruining the pop. Go down a meter with the pick, flatten the area with the hoe, go down a meter with the pick, flatten again, repeat until the node is free. Works like a charm as long as there are no boulders near the node. If there are you have to use the pick on the boulders too. It works better on copper nodes than silver nodes (but it still works fine on silver) and the hoe doesn't make noise that will attract mobs while you are trying to mine.

Okay. Since you assert "its much faster at clearing the extra earth around the deposits than picking around the entire deposit", I ask again, how long does it take?

Not trying to nit-pick, you can do it any way you want to, but I see efficiency claims all the time, and never see actual comparisons, or even times. Can you clear a silver node with that method in 5 minutes? 10 minutes?

This is a video I made a while back where I mined a random silver vein in less than 5 minutes. I would love to see a faster method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MYtSPnnV9k

[knighttemplar1960]

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Originally posted by knighttemplar1960:

Yes, exactly. The hoe flattens the terrain down about 1 meter if you are standing in the part you picked out and its much faster at clearing the extra earth around the deposits than picking around the entire deposit is. Also no chance of accidentally hitting the deposit and ruining the pop. Go down a meter with the pick, flatten the area with the hoe, go down a meter with the pick, flatten again, repeat until the node is free. Works like a charm as long as there are no boulders near the node. If there are you have to use the pick on the boulders too. It works better on copper nodes than silver nodes (but it still works fine on silver) and the hoe doesn't make noise that will attract mobs while you are trying to mine.

Okay. Since you assert "its much faster at clearing the extra earth around the deposits than picking around the entire deposit", I ask again, how long does it take?

Not trying to nit-pick, you can do it any way you want to, but I see efficiency claims all the time, and never see actual comparisons, or even times. Can you clear a silver node with that method in 5 minutes? 10 minutes?

This is a video I made a while back where I mined a random silver vein in less than 5 minutes. I would love to see a faster method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MYtSPnnV9k

I never timed it and I don't have video equipment but I know it varies with the terrain, how deep the deposit is, and how much you are annoyed by mobs that come to investigate.

I'll go give a spin with copper and let you know what I get.

[knighttemplar1960]

Not sure how useful the metrics will be especially compared to you since I am disabled from a stroke and have poor motor control in my right hand which makes things take longer for me than for most people but.....

Antler pick, hoe, deer meat, boar meat, and honey as foods, carry weight max 300. I used my honey as my timer. Started out in a rain storm at the 14 minute mark (so my stamina regen for that time was -15% from the wet debuff):
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266806875
about 30 seconds later
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266806371
Node unearthed after a total of 8 minutes including 8 graydwarf kills and and 3 portal runs for repairs (plus rock tossing at home base).
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266808448
Went back to base and slept. Renewed food and broke all the copper nodes in 6 minutes, 2 repair portals, and killed 6 more gray dwarves. (No wet debuff this day)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266806245
spent 9 minutes picking up ore and rocks including pitching surplus rock out
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266805922
Total ore and rocks that I kept (does not include the rocks that went back and got dumped each repair run)
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3266806300
So 136 copper ore in less than 14 minutes actually spent picking and hoeing. With a starting pick skill of 21 and zero deaths.

I spent less time mining than I spent transporting the ore and rocks. I portaled the rocks back. Slept, renewed food, portaled back and loaded the Karve. Sailing back home took 16 minutes.

Edit - double posted the total screen. Replaced the 2nd total screen with the map screen showing deposit and base locations.

[Faceplant]

Thank you! That's impressive, and now I understand how you're mining it. My impression was that you were mining all the way underneath, but, at least for copper, you're just lowering the terrain to get more copper?

You did say that it works better for copper than silver, and I think that my method would likely be faster for silver, but I'll have to try that for copper and see what I come up with.

In any case, that's enough copper for most of what you need in bronze, even if you make bronze armor, so where's that copper grind. :-)

[knighttemplar1960]

Yeah instead of shaving the top and getting about 90 ore I reveal the entire deposit with the hoe. Start at one edge of the deposit, pop a couple nodes, hoe again to reveal any copper under, and continue until the entire deposit is mined out. I don't have to mine as many nodes and (as you can tell from my map) I can just grab the ones that are near the coast so I don't have to mess with moving ore by cart and so there are fewer land spots that attacks can come from. That's also why I put my base on that little peninsula. I've got a nice little dock right by the house.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2948948675

Edit - I'll get one of my characters that are in the mountains out tomorrow and do a pick and hoe on one silver deposit and a pick only on another for a comparison. I'll be using the same method on both deposits as I did for the copper and I'll post times and relevant information.

Edit 2 - I have way more copper than I need on this character especially now. I could all ready be wearing bronze but I prefer troll set just don't have enough troll hides for this guy to start troll hunting quite yet.

Edit 3 - Also forgot to mention the reason I do copper this way. As you can tell from screenshot 4 in the previous post many copper deposits are hollow. I think the devs did this on purpose. The top of the deposit is shallow and protrudes so you can see it. The edges of the deposit go farther underground after I'd mined enough copper deposits to figure this out I started using the hoe along with the pick. I think this is the reason its harder to get a copper deposit to pop the way a silver deposit does.

[Draconis]

Originally posted by Faceplant8:

Thank you! That's impressive, and now I understand how you're mining it. My impression was that you were mining all the way underneath, but, at least for copper, you're just lowering the terrain to get more copper?

You did say that it works better for copper than silver, and I think that my method would likely be faster for silver, but I'll have to try that for copper and see what I come up with.

In any case, that's enough copper for most of what you need in bronze, even if you make bronze armor, so where's that copper grind. :-)

After reading this thread I tried to mine copper top-down and here is what I found out:
By lowering ground and mining the surface pieces you get roughly 1/2 or 2/3 of all the copper.
Here's what I did in detail:
- mined all copper visible on the surface
- lowered the ground a bit and leveled it with the how. Some former hidden copper pieces were revealed
- mind the newly found copper pieces
-the I dug down right in the middle and I found out, the bottom pieces were still down in the ground.

In conclusion: If roughly 20-40 copper are enough, you can save time and work by doing this. If you really want to use copper for bigger projects, I'd rather advise to do it the old way: Dig a trench to max depth (or water, if that comes before max depth) around the copper, then dig away all the bottom, then use ladders to dig the lowest "floating" parts and eventually all the rest will break and you can collect it.

[_I_]

if you can pop a copper like that its so satisfying
but if the ore is inside a rock, its much harder to do
but yea, carry 2 picks for silver mining if you have the inv space

[BALOCHISTAN LIBERATION ARMY]

Originally posted by Greb:

It might have been 7D2D but actually I think it might have been Silent Storm, lol. Not exactly mining, but blowing out the lower walls of a building and then the whole thing goes POOF and everything turns to rubble. Or was it Xenonauts...

Oh I don't know :winter2019joyfultearssnowman:

The mod in question is this one, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post links in this discussions board or what, but I will try anyway:

https://thunderstore.io/c/valheim/p/Marlthon/AirShipPlus/

It was pretty fun actually. Although totally invalidates the sailing mechanic a bit :ImGhost:

Pretty much just like any other mod, where you drop a .dll file into a folder added by another mod called Bepinex I think. Then it adds the crafting options to make them just like a boat...but they're quite expensive. The fuel is also quite expensive too! But you can change all of that in the config if you like.

Thank you so much, though I don't like playing with mods, I might try these one in future, flying balloons type transport is my all time favourite :)