Trying to understand mining better.

[Mowdan]

So I got my first pick and have been mining all the the surface nodes you know the ones found right under the loose ore on the surface. I found.a ton of copper and had enough tin to go straight to bronze anvil however I have not made any "normal" mines.They have all been just holes 1-3 block deep into the rock to fine the surface ore.

I understand prospecting but do have a few questions about that too, But mainly I wonder about the mine. So lets say I do prospecting and decide to open a mine in that location.First off is first level depth, I think I figured this one out should be a little more than 6 blocks deep so the node ping doesn't go up into air...then you just dig a long hall and ping with no search a bit more than every 12 blocks.. the ping is a cube? Pings out up  to 6 blocks diagonal? There are already some things that might not be right. The depth could be okay but do ores have a rule like in minecraft? Min depth or something? Does it vary from ore to ore? Where do you find this info? Also if you go deep the gear seems to drain.It seems like you are going to be in this mine for a long time, probably need a outpost...but that is another thing, when do you "close" the mine? I guess when it spreads out of the general scans? Oh yeah another things is lighting. Does it matter if I just dig in the dark? Or should I hold a torch? Feels like torching on the wall would be really bad.

Okay now the prospecting part I understand it well enough but just to be sure, if you have a reading it says X rare ore 1% very high, and common ore Y 3% very low you are still going to find more of y than x and 3 times more common? So if you don't really care what you get you might just open a mine that has a high % when you add them all together? Early mining I feel like you just want to avoid getting nothing. So until I have lots of basic metals and have stocked up on bronze tools, I shouldn't really go for a iron only mine unless it has a really high reading. Then maybe.

The summary is the mine will be a major location for a long time.The hallways will be much more spread out compared to minecraft due to the ping. Depth and lightning I don't have a clue. And I guess it will be a long time before you close a mine.First mine should probably just be a high reading on copper, or one that has pretty good copper and  3-4 other random things in it.

Well I will ping around some more, probably don't want to go for that "decent" iron only reading at 2% until I can afford to burn picks on it. And I don't care are being super optimal either. I just want to figure it out mostly on my own but need to know how certain things work.

Edited November 29, 2025 by Mowdan

[LadyWYT]

26 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

the ping is a cube? Pings out up  to 6 blocks diagonal?

Correct

 

26 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

Min depth or something? Does it vary from ore to ore?

Kind of. Ores do have a certain depth threshold for spawning(in that it's the highest level you could find that ore at, but it could spawn deeper), but those values vary from ore to ore. To my knowledge, there is no convenient place to look that information up, aside from digging through the game files themselves.

It's best to just prospect until you find a good spot to dig, and then dig a shaft down(sampling via node search as you go, if you have it enabled) until you either find what you're after, or cannot dig any further(in which case, time to find a new spot and try again).

29 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

Also if you go deep the gear seems to drain.

The further underground you venture, the stronger the monsters get, and the more likely the area is to be unstable. It is possible to find stable/neutral areas deep underground, but very rare.

 

31 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

It seems like you are going to be in this mine for a long time, probably need a outpost

An outpost won't help unless you play with temporal stability turned off. Aside from learning to work quickly and taking periodic breaks on the surface to recover your stability, you can also kill monsters to recover stability, or sacrifice a temporal gear and a bit of health to regain some stability instantly.

 

32 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

when do you "close" the mine?

When there is no longer anything you wish to dig up, of course.

 

32 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

Oh yeah another things is lighting. Does it matter if I just dig in the dark? Or should I hold a torch? Feels like torching on the wall would be really bad.

Depends on your personal preference. You don't need to light everything up, but the darkness makes it difficult to notice incoming threats. Torches are a good, cheap source of light that will help cut down on monster spawns, but do bear in mind they will only burn for 48 in-game hours unless placed in torch holders. Oil lamps are very cheap and thus easy to use to light things up, but they aren't bright enough to actually stop monster spawns. Lanterns are the best in terms of lighting things up and stopping monster spawns, but given they're somewhat pricey for that kind of work, you'll be wanting to pick them back up when you're done with the mine entirely.

 

37 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

Okay now the prospecting part I understand it well enough but just to be sure, if you have a reading it says X rare ore 1% very high, and common ore Y 3% very low you are still going to find more of y than x and 3 times more common? So if you don't really care what you get you might just open a mine that has a high % when you add them all together? Early mining I feel like you just want to avoid getting nothing. So until I have lots of basic metals and have stocked up on bronze tools, I shouldn't really go for a iron only mine unless it has a really high reading. Then maybe.

Prospecting is tricky; as a general rule, you want to dig at sites that read Decent or higher(ignore the percentage, save for narrowing down the exact dig spot once you've settled on a dig site). However, the density search only gives you an idea of what might have spawned in that area, and not what actually did. While Decent and higher readings are the most likely places to find that ore, it's also worth digging at Poor/Very Poor spots, especially if the ore you're after is rare, or that's the best readings you have to work with.

As for when you go after iron...entirely up to you. If the available ore is hematite, it should be relatively easy to find, especially if you have good readings to work with. If the available ore is magnetite though...that's a lot harder to find, even with a good reading. If the hard rock layers are predominantly andesite, it seems to spawn more consistently, but I think magnetite deposits might be smaller than hematite deposits, and thus fairly easy to miss. I'm not for certain on that theory either though--I just know that I've dug at several good readings for magnetite and found nothing to show for the effort. Hematite has never posed an issue.

44 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

The hallways will be much more spread out compared to minecraft due to the ping.

It is important to note that Minecraft-style mining doesn't work very well in Vintage Story, given how different ore distribution is between games. In Vintage Story, different types of ore require different types of host rock, and some ores are very specific when it comes to what kinds of rock they can spawn in. Likewise, Minecraft ore nodes are almost uniform from chunk to chunk, and tend to spawn in clusters/bunches of ore blocks. In Vintage Story, ores vary wildly from chunk to chunk(this is due mainly to the host rock requirements), and spawn in flat circular disks rather than bunches.

For Vintage Story mining, you're really better off using the pro-pick to find a good dig spot, and then sinking a vertical shaft or two and using occasional node searches as you go to see what's actually there. Don't worry about potentially falling to your death--when using ladders, your character will not fall unless you physically move off the ladder block.

[Mowdan]

Wow you gave me some very key info that made me understand everything way better.The major key point I was missing was the method of just drilling down a ladder hole.The testing I did before in my test world just felt like it wasn't fining much unless I dug a ton.with not very many good local pings. The testing I did with this was fast and seemed to hit a lot. It had me try out the ladders. I thought they would be a pain but the rope ladder is reusable, only small issue is to place the ladder you must move up a bit because it makes you go down to extend the ladder. I feel like there might be a way to place the rope ladder without going down though.and I noticed gap ladders work not very useful for the rope ladder though.

There seems to be a lot of fine details to each ore but this key mining difference from minecraft is really what was throwing me off.I'll slowly learn the fine details but this will help out a lot.Time to go back to my survival world and mine for real.

[Vexxvididu]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Depends on your personal preference. You don't need to light everything up, but the darkness makes it difficult to notice incoming threats. Torches are a good, cheap source of light that will help cut down on monster spawns, but do bear in mind they will only burn for 48 in-game hours unless placed in torch holders. Oil lamps are very cheap and thus easy to use to light things up, but they aren't bright enough to actually stop monster spawns. Lanterns are the best in terms of lighting things up and stopping monster spawns, but given they're somewhat pricey for that kind of work, you'll be wanting to pick them back up when you're done with the mine entirely.

Just wanted to add to this, minecraft mining often involves filling your tunnels with torches that will last forever.  That is impractical in Vintage Story.  You usually just drill down, and clear out what you find, only holding light in your offhand.  Lamps are fine for this as they will help you see.  Lanterns are better but take longer to get.  I generally do NOT leave permanent light in my mines.  I dig out what I want and go.... returning only if really needed.

I also want to add that rope ladders are a GREAT item for getting back out of the mine shaft, as they are reusable, unlike normal ladders.  As a general rule, everything is more expensive in VS than in MC.

[Mowdan]

Okay weird question but nodes can change? The reading for a node seemed to changed quite a bit... so reading can change without getting samples again? That seems very weird, then again so are temporal storms so idk maybe it fits. This is just a very surprising thing but I am quite sure it changed.

[LadyWYT]

54 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

Okay weird question but nodes can change?

I'm not sure I understand what you're referring to here. Ore nodes themselves don't change at all. Regarding propick search results:

Density search will tell you what's likely to have spawned in that specific area, but not what actually did. The only way to know for sure what's there is to dig and see what you find.

Node search will tell you exactly what ore is nearby, assuming that it's an ore the propick can actually "see"(that is, node search won't yield results for stuff like saltpeter, halite, marble, etc). The reading will vary though depending on how many blocks of the ore it can find within the search radius. If the search yields a lot, you're getting close to the deposit, but if it yields smaller returns you're getting further away from the ore. It's basically a hot/cold minigame.

59 minutes ago, Mowdan said:

The reading for a node seemed to changed quite a bit... so reading can change without getting samples again?

Just to make sure all the bases are covered though--if you had previous density search results change, it's almost certainly either a bug, or a mod-related issue. 

[Mowdan]

The tool tip changed for the density search marker is what I meant.Idk maybe I just misread it the first time or it was a bug. It seemed weird to me that is why I asked about it. I don't have any mods.