If I've already mined an ore deposit, how likely is it to find others in the same area?

[JustAnotherGeek77]

definitely didn't spend all my cassiterite on making tin bronze chainmail armor... I've prospected a high-density area of cassiterite, but since I've already mined there, I can't figure out if it would be worth it to dig again or go looking for another area. Any advice?

(also, the sound that chainmail makes when you walk is absolutely delightful. 100% worth it.)

[Professor Dragon]

4 hours ago, JustAnotherGeek77 said:

definitely didn't spend all my cassiterite on making tin bronze chainmail armor... 

I suspect that you did, in fact, spend all your cassiterite on tin bronze chain-mail armour.

You don't get to be a Professor Dragon without a little intuition 

You most likely got it all - the deposits aren't that large, especially if  you had enough to <checks notes> . . . make chain-mail armour and delight in the noises it makes while walking around in it.

Still, put your Prospecting Pick into "Node" search (F), if you have that option allowed in world settings, and see if you did in fact get it all.

It might be worth doing another Density Search and checking the chunks around.

There's nothing to say that there is anything more there . . . but it is probably as likely there as anywhere else

If nothing after a few attempts, then move further afield again.

Professor Dragon.

 

[JustAnotherGeek77]

yeahhhh that's fair. 

6 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

It might be worth doing another Density Search and checking the chunks around.

I prospected around the area & found the local high point- I'm trying to figure out if the likelihood of there being more than one deposit is high enough to dig in the same general area. I think I will go ahead and dig around a bit more before going on another prospecting trip. One of these days I'll sit down with a spreadsheet & calculator and do the math... 

6 hours ago, Professor Dragon said:

I suspect that you did, in fact, spend all your cassiterite on tin bronze chain-mail armour.

worth it. so worth it. 

[Maelstrom]

There's multiple factors that go into how many ore deposits in any location.   

One factor is the type of ore.   Iron typically is one deposit per location, however two deposits can spawn at different y levels with some overlap.  With other ores it is much more likely that mulitple deposits will spawn.  Leading me to the second factor...

Ore density.  In my experience mining an area that comes up very and ultra high on the density search will increase the likelihood of ore deposit spawns.  I recently found an ultra-high reading for copper and every shaft I drop results in multiple deposits of copper.  I usually return to the surface heavily laden with copper ore before I'm even half way to the mantle.  Ultra-high readings for iron are the most likely (but not guaranteed) to create overlapping iron deposits.

Edited November 12, 2025 by Maelstrom

[Chrondeath]

I think it depends entirely on how much you already dug out the area.   If you dug one shaft, hit a cassiterite vein halfway to mantle, dug it out, and that's all you've been using?  Sure, there's almost certainly more veins around there, because if there was only one vein in the area then it's improbable that you found it with so little effort.  If you soda-crackered all over (dug multiple shafts in a pattern like the holes in a saltine) and they all went to bedrock without finding anything and then you finally found one cassiterite vein after a dozen shafts, then yeah--I would still guess there's probably more veins in the area but the expected effort to find them would be even higher because you're getting further from the peak.

[Vexxvididu]

I'm pretty sure that the answer to this question is very random and probabilistic.  Prospecting results are NOT set in stone.  I recently mined in an area that was prospected to be high in cassiterite but found none of that.... got some quartz and surprisingly, a LOT of iron that I wasn't even expecting at all.  In summary, I think if the place you're mining in is prospected to be high in Cassiterite, it's likely you'll find some that is deeper down. ...or you might find unrelated things... it's all a spectrum of probability.

I also found my first cassiterite in a place where I was expecting to find bismuth based on the prospecting results!  So yes... many places have multiple ore deposits and it's very random what you might find.

Edited November 14, 2025 by Vexxvididu
Adding another note.