Where does Rock salt spawn?

[MICHAEL CAMPBELL]

I really am having a great deal of dificulty finding salt in my game is there a simple or best way to go about looking for It?

[redram]

15 hours ago, MICHAEL CAMPBELL said:

I really am having a great deal of difficulty finding salt in my game is there a simple or best way to go about looking for It?

Rock salt spawns in two ways:

The 'easiest' to find is the ones that spawn as flat layers in extremely dry areas (deserts mostly).   They are 'easiest' with quotes, because you do have to hike down to a hot climate to find deserts - typically I think around 15k blocks south of a normal temperate spawn.  Assuming 'realistic' climate setting.   If you're in patchy climate, it should be much easier to find.  But once there, the salt is sitting in a flat layer right on top of the stone, underneath the dirt/sand/gravel.   It's easiest to just walk around and look for it exposed in cliff edges, though I think Tyron may be looking to decrease or maybe eliminate it spawning exposed like that.   It's suppose to simulate a dry lake bed, so having it exposed in cliffs isn't really in that theme.    Note that these types of deposit are not detectable with the propick. 

The second type is salt domes.  Salt domes areas *can* be detected by propick (they will be "Halite").  Salt domes do not form like normal ore pads.  They generate in a column, that spawns in a sedimentary layer, and then cuts through all the stone below - igneous and all - all the way to bedrock.  It's easy enough to know where *not* to find them.  If you do not have a sedimentary layer   that goes down to y90 or so, you will not find them.  My impression from my creative tests is that it's probably best if you can find sedimentary that goes down to y50.   Remember that sedimentary *only* occurs *above* igneous and metamorphic stones, in the top layer(s).  Never below.  So in a given area it's easy to tell if there is or is not sedimentary stone.  If you can't see sedimentary rocks while just walking around, don't bother looking in that area.  If you do have sedimentary stones, check a cave and see how deep the sedimentary goes.  If it's below I y90(ish) there's at least some chance.

The chances for an individual salt dome to spawn are much, much less than ore pads.  But you really only need to find one dome, and you're probably set for life.  Salt domes are the only deposit type where horizontal exploratory mining tunnels might be a good idea.   Conversely, a technique such as finding the center of the 'ore field' and then blind mining down - which works for many other ores, especially iron - is not a good technique for salt domes.  Their chance is so small that the relatively small area of the concentrated center of the ore field will still highly likely be bare.  It's probably best to just search caves in the area.  I've found domes in 35ppm propick spots, I've found them in .5ppm propick spots. 

Salt is pretty hard to find, however it's also not really necessary in the single player game either.   It's more useful in a multiplayer setting, but in that setting you might also be able to trade for it fairly easily.

[MICHAEL CAMPBELL]

thank you so much for the wonderfull info:)

 

[Tyron]

Redram forgot to mention: 2 types of traders have generous supplies of halite for sale

[breeze108]

Ok, so I took your advice and went south. I'm currently at -233/12300. It is getting colder and colder. Snow everywhere. Earlier today I went north. At about 9000 there were deserts and cactus. So what's up with that?  Oh, and still haven't found any salt.  

[redram]

On 4/4/2020 at 7:39 PM, breeze108 said:

Ok, so I took your advice and went south. I'm currently at -233/12300. It is getting colder and colder. Snow everywhere. Earlier today I went north. At about 9000 there were deserts and cactus. So what's up with that?  Oh, and still haven't found any salt.  

That is odd, normally north of spawn gets colder, and south of spawn gets hotter.  Are you by chance playing on a server where spawn was set to somwhere other than the norm?   As for salt, it will appear in deserts.  If you're lucky it will be exposed in a cliff or something.  Otherwise, it will be directly below the gravel and sand.   So if not exposed in a cliff, you'd basically have to just randomly dig holes through the sand and gravel in the desert, hoping to find some. 

Both the desert salt, and the salt dome salt, have pros and cons.  Desert salt is easy to access and spawns irrespective of stone type, but is *not* detected by the propick, and also is usually very far from spawn in a normal climate bands world.      Salt dome salt regions *can* be detected on the propick, and once you find a dome you're essentially set for life.   However they're usually sporadic and deep in the ground, and limited to areas with sedimentary stone layers.