At what point do you stop looking for a halite deposit?

[Chuckerton]

I dont have good halite deposits ANYWHERE near my house. None that ive found anyway. The best i could get was 18.5 (poor) %, so thats where i decided to start looking. Also to mention, theres miniscule amounts of bituminous coal, gold, and, very poor sphalerite (0.26%).

After mining enough chert to overflow 4 leather backpacks with stones, ive managed to find the approximate location (within a prospecting pick node search distance), of the coal, gold, and sphalerite deposits. Theyre probably above or below the transition layer between the chert and granite, so i wont be actively looking for it, but the fact that i know where they are over the supposed halite deposit is insane. 

Which leads me to my question, when youre searching for halite, or really it could by any kind of ore, at what point do you just decide the deposit doesnt really exist and just stop looking? Because im gonna have to remake the iron pick im using to find this, it was full durability when i got here, and im kind of getting sick of looking. 

[Thorfinn]

I never look for one. If I stumble across one while spelunking, bonus. Maybe 15-20% of the worlds?

Back when I did search for halite, I'd get to the bottom of the world and tunnel horizontally. There's no telling how high a dome will go, but it always starts at the bottom of the world.

In answer to the last question, I don't believe I've ever intentionally searched in a "Poor" since I started understanding how prospecting works. "Decent", OK, if I can't find better,

[Chuckerton]

45 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

 

Back when I did search for halite, I'd get to the bottom of the world and tunnel horizontally. There's no telling how high a dome will go, but it always starts at the bottom of the world.

 

Im pretty sure theyre supposed to go up to the lowest sedimentary layer, with the top being between the sedimentary layer and the next non-sedimentary layer. i thought they generate from there, downwards. I could be wrong, and if thats the case, than thats probably why im not finding it, is because im too far above it. I might look around some more and see if im really understanding how salt domes work. 

Otherwise, yeah if i was able to find something better than poor, i would, but ive covered a huge area around my house and found very little halite so this is the best i have. 

[Zero_]

2 hours ago, Chuckerton said:

The best i could get was 18.5 (poor) %, so thats where i decided to start looking.

I'm having the same issue. Am I incorrect in assuming that if I get a percentage above zero for any particular ore that means that ore IS present in the area? It's not just a possibility, right? If I keep looking in this area, I will eventually find halite, right? Right? 

[LadyWYT]

I just buy halite from the survival goods traders, and call it a day. If I happen to stumble across a halite dome while out exploring, great, but otherwise I don't really need salt. The little bits that I might want for cheese and stuff are easily supplied by traders.

[Aesuna]

1 hour ago, Zero_ said:

I'm having the same issue. Am I incorrect in assuming that if I get a percentage above zero for any particular ore that means that ore IS present in the area? It's not just a possibility, right? If I keep looking in this area, I will eventually find halite, right? Right? 

You're incorrect, there's no guarantee that the ore is present in the chunk at all even if it shows up with the density search on the prospecting pick. The numbers are just the chance per 1000 that a block could be that ore.

 

Also, according to the wiki, halite doesn't show up at all when trying to use the node search mode on the prospecting pick.

[idiomcritter]

2 hours ago, Aesuna said:

Also, according to the wiki, halite doesn't show up at all when trying to use the node search mode on the prospecting pick.

what will show on the node search, though maybe even rarer (or not as helpful) is sylvite, something that is found in halite

the wiki also points to traveling 13k plus to find desert, which has a better chance of dry lake bed salt slightly under the surface...

lately i've been basing in the tropics, and just from normal cave exploring, unwittingly stumble into salt pillars.  feel there are more pillars to be found in the tropics

(a reason to build a TL chain south maybe)

[Lanceleoghauni]

I got lucky and found a salt dome, exposed in a cave, not far from my home (and in the region I was planning to do all my mining in anyways). I haven't played a ton of worlds but now that I've lived a delicious, salty life. I am loathe to give up having more of it than I know what to do with.

bears? Wolves? No problem. Salt the meat and have a tasty snack without even touching your firewood. Chalk got you down? who cares? You have YEARS to find enough to process your hides now.

Salt is love. Salt is life.

[WiggleStick]

It is around somewhere. I never have failed to find salt or any ore. When you are low on Picks stick to high percent areas but when you have picks to spare you can expand your search.

I was on 104 hrs and went back to an area that had 7 chunks at 22-23% and had burrowed all over for nothing. I picked a direction to further dig, I headed north the next chunk out was 18%, I kept going and the next chunk was 16% and I hit the dome. On the way I found Black Coal with Fire Clay and Brown Coal as well as copper, all of which were low to minuscule percentages.

Another time While going horizontal I Density search the ceiling as I hit new chunks the 3rd pick exposed Hematite, while the results were minuscule. so yea the readings are potential and should be taken as such. But like I said Play the percentages until you can afford the picks, Horizontal mining  takes some resources, and armor if you hit caves.

[Zane Mordien]

Same as others, I just buy it. I don't consider it worth my time. Maybe during the winter I will look for it to kill time.

[LadyWYT]

If you're not opposed to playing with mods, there are a few that allow you to boil water for salt. Requires the investment of time and fuel, of course, but it can be less frustrating than hunting those elusive salt domes.

[Maelstrom]

22 hours ago, Aesuna said:

Also, according to the wiki, halite doesn't show up at all when trying to use the node search mode on the prospecting pick.

The wiki is outdated on this.  Once upon a time the way to find halite was to search for sylvite.  Since 1.17 or so halite shows up on the pro-pick readings.

[cjc813]

Few hundred hours in and have literally never found halite. I always buy it. 

[Chuckerton]

22 hours ago, idiomcritter said:

what will show on the node search, though maybe even rarer (or not as helpful) is sylvite, something that is found in halite

Thats really what im looking for. I need to grow a lot of flax and i want that sylvite to make potash. I have a big field that i use for it but its only medium fertility so I can only get one harvest in per year because flax is so draining on the field that by the time it gets back to good fertility its already too cold to get another harvest. I might be able to get a second harvest in if i plant very early and have sylvite for the extra K. 

That and salt for preserving things and making cheese. 

And for the accomplishment of having found a salt dome the "intended" way of doing it instead of finding it exposed on a mountain somewhere like how i found it in a previous world. 

[ArgentLuna]

when winter comes, then you wait till spring and go back out and keep looking for the darn thing sporadically in between doing other things, the first world one i found was by accident while narrowing down where iron was this one is proving to be a pain.

Edited February 11, 2025 by ArgentLuna

[Vratislav]

I have never tried, in my first longer gameplay, I have decided to find desert deposits instead, travelled 50k block to the equator... and found none there. Since then, I consider halite to be cursed and get it only from traders. 

[Thorfinn]

11 hours ago, Chuckerton said:

I need to grow a lot of flax and i want that sylvite to make potash. I have a big field that i use for it but its only medium fertility

More fields and crop rotation, my good man. Lots and lots of crop rotation. Your second flax crop goes everywhere first crops of all your other plants were. By mid-July, I often have at least 120 standard 8-around-1 plots. It's quite a bit harder to do in WS, without movable source, but still can be done if you are a little careful about where you settle. But in any event, it's a heck of a lot quicker than the very hit-or-miss halite deposit, and the paltry sylvite you usually get anyway.

[Thorfinn]

3 hours ago, Vratislav said:

I have decided to find desert deposits instead, travelled 50k block to the equator... and found none there.

It's a bit of a learned skill. Kind of like spotting meteorites. Until you grok what a dried up lakebed looks like, everything out there looks like a dried-up lakebed.

[xXx_Ape_xXx]

I played for a good 6-7 months after buying the game, before I found my first halite dome. Don't give up! It's out there, somewhere...

[pigfood]

On 2/11/2025 at 2:43 AM, Maelstrom said:

The wiki is outdated on this.  Once upon a time the way to find halite was to search for sylvite.  Since 1.17 or so halite shows up on the pro-pick readings.

Halite doesn't show up in propick node search (I just double-checked with 1.20.3). Sylvite does. But sylvite can easily be missed; it's not in the entire salt dome and some don't have any.

This is a screenshot with some salt domes and sylvite.

[Gapplepie1985]

On 2/10/2025 at 2:44 PM, Zero_ said:

I'm having the same issue. Am I incorrect in assuming that if I get a percentage above zero for any particular ore that means that ore IS present in the area? It's not just a possibility, right? If I keep looking in this area, I will eventually find halite, right? Right? 

It’s just a statistical possibility, unless you use node search which is only in a few blocks’ radius.

[Gapplepie1985]

14 minutes ago, sushieater said:

Halite doesn't show up in propick node search (I just double-checked with 1.20.3). Sylvite does. But sylvite can easily be missed; it's not in the entire salt dome and some don't have any.

This is a screenshot with some salt domes and sylvite.

Yes this is my understanding too. Halite (salt) and chalk, marble, and limestone (lime) are rocks, not ores, so they don’t come up on an ore prospecting search. 

[Gapplepie1985]

16 minutes ago, sushieater said:

Halite doesn't show up in propick node search (I just double-checked with 1.20.3). Sylvite does. But sylvite can easily be missed; it's not in the entire salt dome and some don't have any.

This is a screenshot with some salt domes and sylvite.

Oh so it’s more of a cylinder, not a dome at all. Good to know. I was picturing a very different shape.

[Gapplepie1985]

22 hours ago, xXx_Ape_xXx said:

I played for a good 6-7 months after buying the game, before I found my first halite dome. Don't give up! It's out there, somewhere...

Yeah. A whole inventory of stones is a daily occurrence in mining in vs!

[pigfood]

On 2/11/2025 at 5:39 AM, Chuckerton said:

Thats really what im looking for. I need to grow a lot of flax and i want that sylvite to make potash.

It's not worth it. There isn't that much sylvite in a salt dome. It's a lot more practical and less effort to set up more farm land. E.g. in my current game, I have 8x 128 = 1024 farm plots (first year). I found something like 300 flax seeds exploring during the first spring/summer.