Take the Underwater Mining pill

[Mongster]

Mining underwater is superior to mining in dry caves in every way, shape, and form. Not to mention it's exceptionally profitable. If you ever find one of those really deep underwater lakes (which are common) why not take a dip? You just need a lantern. Since mining speed isn't affected by being underwater, it's a breeze. They're quick to navigate, easy to exit, they don't usually impact temporal stability, and they're completely monster free. I even spent a heavy temporal storm down here with only a few frightened bowtorns spawning around me, but even then, spawning is incredibly rare. Finding ores down here is much, MUCH easier than a dry cave.

This is what I got after a single trip. I have many more photos of copper veins, even finding sphalerite, quartz, gold... all in a single underwater cave. Yes, Tyron should probably nerf. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

The major drawback to mining underwater is the fact that you will eventually have to surface or you will run out of air. Instead of nerfing, I think the improvement to be made here is that mining underwater should result in your air supply lowering faster than if you were just floating there. This would cause you to have to surface more often. When rivers become a thing, I can only imagine that mining underwater will completely fill voids with water and only naturally occurring air pockets will be allowed to exist to prevent the player from creating air pockets to cheese this mechanic.

[Thorfinn]

51 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The major drawback to mining underwater is the fact that you will eventually have to surface or you will run out of air.

Sort of. The block you mined is replaced with an air block, so if you dig out a few, you have your own personal air-filled cave. It's the one positive I know of with the way water does not replicate source blocks easily.

Quote

When rivers become a thing, I can only imagine that mining underwater will completely fill voids with water 

Maybe. I doubt it would be coded to flow uphill, so dig in 2 and up 1 and you should be good to go.

Edited October 14, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Mongster]

3 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The major drawback to mining underwater is the fact that you will eventually have to surface or you will run out of air. Instead of nerfing, I think the improvement to be made here is that mining underwater should result in your air supply lowering faster than if you were just floating there. This would cause you to have to surface more often. When rivers become a thing, I can only imagine that mining underwater will completely fill voids with water and only naturally occurring air pockets will be allowed to exist to prevent the player from creating air pockets to cheese this mechanic.

Perhaps filling voids with water would be the solution, but that might break a lot of other things. And even if mining underwater lowered your air supply, it's not a big deal because you can just mine a few blocks and create a spot which to catch your breath and mine at the same time.

[Maelstrom]

12 hours ago, Mongster said:

Mining underwater is superior to mining in dry caves in every way, shape, and form.

Except ore bombs don't work down there.  Mining is much MORE profitable and faster when using bombs.

[hstone32]

Oh hey, it's mongster! Really love your youtube series, buddy!

[Mongster]

7 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Except ore bombs don't work down there.  Mining is much MORE profitable and faster when using bombs.

Ore bombs expensive. Underwater mining cheap. Plus, don't ore bombs lose like 10% of ore?

[LadyWYT]

14 minutes ago, Mongster said:

Plus, don't ore bombs lose like 10% of ore?

Such is the price of convenience.

[hstone32]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Such is the price of convenience.

I wonder. Are ore bombs ideal for mining gold and silver? I've not at all enjoyed searching for needles in a quartz-stack.

Edited October 15, 2025 by hstone32
I love my special 3x3 keyboard, but it's constantly making me make spelling errors

[OBAMFSpike]

4 hours ago, hstone32 said:

 I've not at all enjoyed searching for needles in a quartz-stack.

If you tune the pro pick out it's super simple to find the stuff. just check every single bit of quartz you stumble upon. when I get a reading, I meticulously mine the quartz in columns exposing all so I can cherry pick the AU and AG without causing a cave in. Which adds an exhilarating mechanic to the game. XD 

 

[Maelstrom]

14 hours ago, Mongster said:

Ore bombs expensive. Underwater mining cheap. Plus, don't ore bombs lose like 10% of ore?

Bombs are faster.   Even with the 10% loss you'll get lots more ore using bombs than mining manually.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, OBAMFSpike said:

If you tune the pro pick out it's super simple to find the stuff. just check every single bit of quartz you stumble upon. when I get a reading, I meticulously mine the quartz in columns exposing all so I can cherry pick the AU and AG without causing a cave in. Which adds an exhilarating mechanic to the game. XD 

 

This. Once you find a quartz vein with gold or silver, then you can decide whether or not to use bombs or the pick to dig it out.

[Echo Weaver]

I keep forgetting bombs are a thing. I'd really rather use the pickaxe, even though it's less efficient. Blowing up the landscape gives me the icks.

[Maelstrom]

I go manual coz that 10% loss just grates against my parents ruthless installation of frugality apps in my psyche.  Thanks mom and dad!  

Edited October 15, 2025 by Maelstrom

[OBAMFSpike]

14 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I go manual coz that 10% loss just grates against my parents ruthless installation of frugality apps in my psyche.  Thanks mom and dad!  

Lots and lots of this right here. Bingo.

 

[Echo Weaver]

17 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

I go manual coz that 10% loss just grates against my parents ruthless installation of frugality apps in my psyche.  Thanks mom and dad!  

This is me too. If I'm going to be devil's advocate, though, I wonder how the loss of tools compares to the materials lost from using explosives.

[Maelstrom]

I'm willing to bet the loss of ore would be enough to craft one or two picks for the amount of ore one would mine manually.  Thinking of iron mining.   Bombs likely would be a net benefit for bronze and lmost guaranteed to be a benefit for copper.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

On 10/14/2025 at 9:36 AM, Thorfinn said:

Maybe. I doubt it would be coded to flow uphill, so dig in 2 and up 1 and you should be good to go.

I thought the same thing, but digging underwater would create a vacuum and there would be nothing under there to create an air pocket so it actually should flow upwards at least until the surface of the water is reached. Maybe with the rivers update, Anego should also add geothermal cracks that cause air bubbles to rise to the surface forming air pockets in underwater caves!

[Maelstrom]

Real world physics would be that the air pressure on the river would push water into the void.   The only way said void would remain dry is if the altitude of the mine exceeded the altitude of the surface of the river.   

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 minute ago, Maelstrom said:

I'm willing to bet the loss of ore would be enough to craft one or two picks for the amount of ore one would mine manually.  Thinking of iron mining.   Bombs likely would be a net benefit for bronze and lmost guaranteed to be a benefit for copper.

Let's math it out!

You need 100 units to create an ingot/tool

that's 5 medium ore (4 nuggets each) or 4 rich ore (5 nuggets each). I'm not going to do the math for the poor ore because it's weird and I don't like it.

you would need to blow up 50 chunks of medium ore or 40 chunks of rich ore in order for it to counteract the material losses of mining iron with an iron pickaxe. An iron pick has 1000 durability.

The math isn't mathing. The ore loss is the price you pay for speed. The ore loss would be far more than you would spend crafting a replacement pickaxe.

[Echo Weaver]

10 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The math isn't mathing. The ore loss is the price you pay for speed. The ore loss would be far more than you would spend crafting a replacement pickaxe.

Well, that's nice. I don't care about speed, so I don't have to feel like I'm missing out on resource efficiency. 

[Maelstrom]

@Teh Pizza Lady That was my thinking for iron.  Since bronze and copper tools have much lower durability, mining by bomb would likely be a net benefit despite the loss.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

15 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

@Teh Pizza Lady That was my thinking for iron.  Since bronze and copper tools have much lower durability, mining by bomb would likely be a net benefit despite the loss.

checking the durabilities of the other tools

Copper pickaxe - 300 durability
Bronze pickaxe - 450 durability

maybe viable to use ore bombs if you also account for the blocks you will need to mine in order to get TO the stuff.

[LadyWYT]

51 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

The math isn't mathing. The ore loss is the price you pay for speed. The ore loss would be far more than you would spend crafting a replacement pickaxe.

Hence my quip about the price of convenience. Though really, I would expect bombs to be better suited for blasting through rock in order to carve tunnels or otherwise find ore, than for mining the ore itself. I do find myself wondering now, how the "price of convenience" logic would look applied to other gameplay loops.  Would players end up forgoing the intended methods for things like livestock and steel, and waste more resources overall if it meant they could otherwise have the final product a lot faster? That seems more like a niche for trading though--pay through the nose upfront, but acquire some really good stuff much earlier than might otherwise be possible...provided one has the gears to pay for such.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

30 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Hence my quip about the price of convenience. Though really, I would expect bombs to be better suited for blasting through rock in order to carve tunnels or otherwise find ore, than for mining the ore itself. I do find myself wondering now, how the "price of convenience" logic would look applied to other gameplay loops.  Would players end up forgoing the intended methods for things like livestock and steel, and waste more resources overall if it meant they could otherwise have the final product a lot faster? That seems more like a niche for trading though--pay through the nose upfront, but acquire some really good stuff much earlier than might otherwise be possible...provided one has the gears to pay for such.

I would pay all of my gears for an item that makes animals start breeding immediately whether or not they've eaten enough food.