TerraFirmaCraft+ | How to use the Prospector's Pick

[@diggoran]

You _explained_ the math flawlessly, but then _demonstrated_ the frustration. All you needed was to break your propick from overuse desperately trying to find the ore it promised :P

[@diggoran]

Also, this is why I leave veins alone if I find a poor ore block. I'm not sure if it's actually related, but I found that poor ore clumps are also harder to locate. Is that a real thing or is it just my confirmation/survivor bias talking?

[@KainYusanagi]

@@diggoran Confirmation bias. Different ores lump in different ways. Found plenty of massive deposits loosely connected that are rich, plenty of poor quality massive veins, too.

[@b4rc0d3z]

I was successfully using propick before this, but the graphics and technical information really helped me visualize it better. What I usually do is find a reading, then search around to see if I can find a higher reading. If say I only found small and medium samples on the surface, I choose to work with medium. I start by going in X direction without changing my Y coordinate, so breaking blocks in the way, I do this until medium goes back to small. Then I find the center between two X coordinates I traveled. From there I repeat the same with Z direction. This way I pinpoint the center of the whole vein. After that I dig a staircase downwards until I hit the concentration of ore, and eat it inside out.

[@Darasilverdragon]

honestly, I use a technique guaranteed to get all of the ore in a vein, as such- 1) go until you transition from 'traces' to getting no readings at all, then mark that spot 2) count backward 12 blocks, then mark that as well 3) go to the opposite side of the vein, past where the reading is largest, and repeat steps 1-2 in that direction to create a boundary on two sides of the ore 4) go back into the middle of the vein's highest reading, turn left or right, and repeat steps 1-3 5) remove the four outermost markings. You should now be left with four markers on the ground. Use these to mark out a square on the ground 6) quarry out the entire square all the way down, until you can find no more ores. You have now mined out the entire vein This is for surface ores. If you find ore underground, try to use steps 1-2 in the vertical direction to determine the topmost y-level of the vein, and then continue with this advise as normal from there.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

I play with density cranked up because I always used to end up missing an ore vein by a few blocks, or finding a single piece but not being able to spot the main chunk. I feel like if each ore block was less valuable, but there were more of them to find I'd like mining more.

[@muricanviking6859]

where can you change the density?

[@PlatinumAltaria]

@@muricanviking6859 There are 3 config files for TFC. TFCOre lets you control how ore veins spawn. I have horizontal and vertical density set to 100 for all ores.

[@skeletonboneslive]

Nice visualization, definitely makes it easier to understand.

[@mynt1193]

The 12 radius cube visualization helped immensely thanks to

[@Rex1Mundi]

The introduction was very good, but then you lost track of what you were aiming to do... Basically, the technique shown is correct by looking for the point where the propick shows 'very large', then continue this systematically to find the mid-point of the ore body along the x,z and y axes (every time counting 12 blocks backwards).

[@Dunkle0steus]

It was 3 am when I made the video lol.

[@marklewis1457]

The madlad did it! Thank you!

[@matheusvieira2257]

that biome looks nice... I wonder why I never spawn in biomes like that.... it's always either jungle or ocean

[@muricanviking6859]

This was actually super helpful for me, propick always confused me. good vid

[@Dunkle0steus]

Glad to help!

[@bjornseine2342]

Hm, I'm not sure this is all that good of a method. Yes, there's guaranteed to be at least one ore in the 25x25x1 slice - but no more. What I'd do instead is find three spots at (as close as possible to) the same elevation where the same change - small to medium sample for example - happens. Then, by triangulating the center, you should get the approximate x/z coordinates of the center of the distribution, and just need to dig down to get there (checking distribution on the way down so you don't just dig past the ore if it's sparsely distributed) Learning about the precise search function was very useful though; I had thought it was randomly sampling an area - which would give far less reliable results.

[@KainYusanagi]

He's done this specifically to show it with the most minimal amount of effort to understand, not the most effective method of using that understanding.

[@Dunkle0steus]

@@KainYusanagi i recorded this at 3 am lol

[@bjornseine2342]

@@KainYusanagi Fair enough.

[@ZodzillaPrime]

Typically you take at least 3 readings, yeah. It worked in the video but it's not nearly as reliable though it's probably a lot easier for people with poor spatial reasoning.

[@KainYusanagi]

@@ZodzillaPrime mhm. Triangulation was what we tried to use to teach people back in the days of the original mod, but so many people just could not grok the simple concept of taking three readings and intersecting the points, then extrapolating from there, it was pretty exhausting. This technique is very easy to understand by comparison, especially with the associated diagrams he made, since it's just using flat surfaces (planes).

[@dictator7586]

Thanks

[@TheVisidor]

Very helpful thx

[@creator_of_yes]

wait, it's all minesweeper?

[@Dunkle0steus]

always has been