Prospecting Pick Specifics

[LtGerbal]

Hello again.

I have a ton of questions about the propick if anyone has any answers that may help.

- What is area of the density search? The guide says 1000 blocks, but I don't know if that's a 100x100 square, a 10x10x10 cube, or a radius of 1000 blocks, if the area measured even is centered on the sample node.

- Does the propick actually verify if there is ore in that chunk or does it just measure probability that it would be in that area based off of the generation criteria? I want to imagine its the former cause the latter just seems like a several hour gamble with potentially 0 payout and I feel like that'd just be poor design.

- Does mining closer to the highest node in the sample areas help my chances of finding ore? I am working on an area with poor hematite (bad idea, I know, but I couldn't find much better) and my highest value was 2.13%. I dug around this sample node and so far have found nothing using the node search for the propick.

My current strategy is digging a vertical hole, ore node searching every 6th block down between 30 and 40 blocks. I do this in a grid pattern skipping 12 blocks in between holes and connecting each vertical shaft with tunnels at the bottom and doing sampling in between the shafts.

This is beginning to get tiresome and I want to know exactly how this works so I can actually find some damn iron and get on with the game.

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

Does the propick actually verify if there is ore in that chunk or does it just measure probability that it would be in that area based off of the generation criteria? I want to imagine its the former cause the latter just seems like a several hour gamble with potentially 0 payout and I feel like that'd just be poor design.

It's only the probability of which ores could have been generated there, and not what actually did generate. It's supposed to mimic real life prospecting a bit, I think, in that there's not really a way to tell exactly what kind of ore is buried in the ground beneath and where, while still being suitably balanced for a videogame.

Generally speaking, the ores listed in the density search readings will be there more often than not, but it somewhat depends on the ore in question. Common ores like tin and copper are easy enough to find, while other ores like chromite and gemstones are harder to find. Stuff like halite and iron deposits get rather goofy given the sheer size of the deposits when they do occur; they're pretty good about producing readings, but sometimes they can be offset from where you expect to find them.

10 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

Does mining closer to the highest node in the sample areas help my chances of finding ore?

In my opinion, yes. Since the density search is only a probability, there's still not a guarantee that the ore will be there, but you're making the best guess that you can with the data you have available.

 

11 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

I am working on an area with poor hematite (bad idea, I know, but I couldn't find much better) and my highest value was 2.13%. I dug around this sample node and so far have found nothing using the node search for the propick.

Poor and Very Poor readings aren't always a "never dig here" indicator. If it's the only reading you have on that ore, then it's worth a shot. If you don't find anything after some digging around, best to try a different reading elsewhere.

 

13 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

This is beginning to get tiresome and I want to know exactly how this works so I can actually find some damn iron and get on with the game.

Patience is key. A single iron vein will generally supply a player's needs for the rest of the game, though it also depends on what the player is wanting to accomplish. Some maps it's quite easy to find iron and some maps iron turns out to be a bottleneck--this happened to me and my friend last map we played.

If you have a lot of andesite in the area, you may try checking out magnetite readings as well. Magnetite is generally the harder one to find, but it seems to turn up more frequently in andesite, and it's not unheard of for that to be the iron type that fulfills a player's iron needs instead of hematite.

[LtGerbal]

19 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Poor and Very Poor readings aren't always a "never dig here" indicator. If it's the only reading you have on that ore, then it's worth a shot. If you don't find anything after some digging around, best to try a different reading elsewhere.

I've put about 10 holes in the ground at this point going approximately 24 deep each spaced 12 apart and not gotten a single trace reading of hematite. Would you consider it worthwhile to start digging elsewhere?

Quote

If you have a lot of andesite in the area, you may try checking out magnetite readings as well. Magnetite is generally the harder one to find, but it seems to turn up more frequently in andesite, and it's not unheard of for that to be the iron type that fulfills a player's iron needs instead of hematite.

I based up on top of an endless plate of granite, so that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

[MKMoose]

2 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

I've put about 10 holes in the ground at this point going approximately 24 deep each spaced 12 apart and not gotten a single trace reading of hematite.

Skipping only 12 blocks makes a very dense pattern. For most ores, you can generally dig shafts at 25 block intervals, while for iron you'll be fine with 50 block intervals.

Additionally, iron ores (and most other ores) only generate in a specific depth range. You can expect to dig ~15-40 blocks down (depending on your surface level) before any iron can spawn, and then it can generate practically all the way down to the mantle. I tend to dig shafts to the mantle for many ores, just to be sure.

 

9 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

- What is area of the density search? The guide says 1000 blocks, but I don't know if that's a 100x100 square, a 10x10x10 cube, or a radius of 1000 blocks, if the area measured even is centered on the sample node.

The density search returns the expected density at the exact point where you take your reading, at the location of the first of the three blocks. I don't know what guide you might have gotten this "1000 blocks" from, but it's not correct and I don't think it ever has been. There's a lot of more or less misleading information floating around about some mechanics, to be honest.

 

10 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

- Does the propick actually verify if there is ore in that chunk or does it just measure probability that it would be in that area based off of the generation criteria? I want to imagine its the former cause the latter just seems like a several hour gamble with potentially 0 payout and I feel like that'd just be poor design.

It only corresponds to the internal chance that the game uses to generate the deposits. However, for many ores that chance can exceed 1. For example, if the chance in a specific chunk comes out to be 4.5 (it's just an internal number, you can't see it in-game anywhere), then the game is guaranteed to attempt spawning 4 deposits, and has a 50% chance of attempting another. Attempting to spawn does not equate actually generating a deposit, because most deposits can only appear in a number of specific rock types.

Either way, for many ores, a high enough reading is practically a guarantee that you're gonna find something in every chunk where there is enough of the appropriate rock types (iron can have this problem in low-density areas, and I could give you the exact ores for which it's especially random). For hematite specifically that internal chance will never exceed 0.5 if I recally correctly, but the sheer size of the deposits largely makes up for it.

It has caused a few discussions in the past, where people felt like the system was wasting their time. Mostly nothing came out of them. While the system has some theoretical edge cases, it ends up working out perfectly fine for most people. It could always use some improvements, but it doesn't seem to be a pressing matter.

[LtGerbal]

3 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

The density search returns the expected density at the exact point where you take your reading, at the location of the first of the three blocks. I don't know what guide you might have gotten this "1000 blocks" from, but it's not correct and I don't think it ever has been. There's a lot of more or less misleading information floating around about some mechanics, to be honest.

The 1000 blocks number comes from the in game handbook for prospecting. Screenshot attached.

 

[LadyWYT]

8 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

I've put about 10 holes in the ground at this point going approximately 24 deep each spaced 12 apart and not gotten a single trace reading of hematite. Would you consider it worthwhile to start digging elsewhere?

Just to make sure all the bases are covered: is that 24 blocks deep beneath the surface, or digging to y level 24? Iron is located fairly deep, so you'll need to dig a lot deeper than 24 blocks to find it. When sinking exploration shafts, it's usually not a bad idea to sink it all the way to bedrock, or nearly so, just to see what kind of goodies are there if you've not yet found what you were after.

If you're trying to sink a different shaft in the same general area to see if you just missed the ore vein, I would recommend sinking the other shaft(s) a couple chunks away or so(that is, probably around 50ish blocks). Iron veins are around the same size as quartz veins, so you don't need to hit the exact center as much as you just need to be within the general area of the ore disk.

When it comes to probing for ore, I generally only sink 2-3 shafts in the area when trying to locate it, before moving to a different location. That's not to say the ore isn't there and I was just very unlucky, but I find it better to try my luck elsewhere than to keep digging in a spot I've had no luck in. An alternate method of probing is to explore the deep caves in the area to see if one cuts through any ore veins; it's more dangerous due to the monsters within the caves, but less work than digging mineshafts.

[MKMoose]

8 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

The 1000 blocks number comes from the in game handbook for prospecting. Screenshot attached.

That just means the density, though, nothing to do with area. The numbers correspond to the expected density at the exact location of the reading. For example, your 2.13 permille hematite reading means that this general vicinity is expected to contain about 2.13 blocks of iron ore per 1000 blocks of rock (it is only calculated based on a 1x1 rock column, to be specific, but I'm probably not gonna explain the exact code behind it).

Edited yesterday at 12:45 AM by MKMoose

[LtGerbal]

15 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Just to make sure all the bases are covered: is that 24 blocks deep beneath the surface, or digging to y level 24? Iron is located fairly deep, so you'll need to dig a lot deeper than 24 blocks to find it. When sinking exploration shafts, it's usually not a bad idea to sink it all the way to bedrock, or nearly so, just to see what kind of goodies are there if you've not yet found what you were after.

If you're trying to sink a different shaft in the same general area to see if you just missed the ore vein, I would recommend sinking the other shaft(s) a couple chunks away or so(that is, probably around 50ish blocks). Iron veins are around the same size as quartz veins, so you don't need to hit the exact center as much as you just need to be within the general area of the ore disk.

When it comes to probing for ore, I generally only sink 2-3 shafts in the area when trying to locate it, before moving to a different location. That's not to say the ore isn't there and I was just very unlucky, but I find it better to try my luck elsewhere than to keep digging in a spot I've had no luck in. An alternate method of probing is to explore the deep caves in the area to see if one cuts through any ore veins; it's more dangerous due to the monsters within the caves, but less work than digging mineshafts.

I made a mistake in calculation I believe. I usually dig from Y 108 to Y 74, making it a total change of 34 blocks. Digging deeper was going to be my next step, but I was hesitant because at the current depth I was losing about 30% temporal stability per shaft dug. I'll focus on going deeper next and see what that nets me. 

[LtGerbal]

13 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

That just means the density, though, nothing to do with area. The numbers correspond to the expected density at the exact location of the reading. For example, your 2.13 permille hematite reading means that this general vicinity is expected to contain about 2.13 blocks of iron ore per 1000 blocks of rock (it is only calculated based on a 1x1 rock column, to be specific, but I'm probably not gonna explain the exact code behind it).

Thanks for the clarification. I probably wouldn't understand the code anyway.

 

[Zane Mordien]

54 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

I've put about 10 holes in the ground at this point going approximately 24 deep each spaced 12 apart and not gotten a single trace reading of hematite.

As others have mentioned you need to go down below .7xsea level. If you didn't change world height that is around 77.

33 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

For most ores, you can generally dig shafts at 25 block intervals, while for iron you'll be fine with 50 block intervals.

50 block internvals for iron, why? That seems very wasteful and will send you all over the map when the iron deposit can be just a few blocks away. Especially if you are a Decent or greater reading.

[LadyWYT]

10 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

50 block internvals for iron, why? That seems very wasteful and will send you all over the map when the iron deposit can be just a few blocks away.

If you missed the iron deposit by a few blocks, digging a small sample branch from the main shaft should allow the propick's node search to pick up some trace of the deposit. If the first shaft doesn't yield any useful results though, then it's best to sink a different shaft around 25-50 blocks away to see if anything turns up. Of course, one could also just stick to the first shaft and dig several longer branches trying to find the deposit as well, but I think the multiple shaft method is better.

 

20 minutes ago, LtGerbal said:

I usually dig from Y 108 to Y 74, making it a total change of 34 blocks. Digging deeper was going to be my next step, but I was hesitant because at the current depth I was losing about 30% temporal stability per shaft dug. I'll focus on going deeper next and see what that nets me. 

Ah yeah, in my experience iron usually generates somewhere between y 15 and y 60, and usually on the deeper end of that range. You'll almost certainly run into stability issues when sinking mineshafts, however, you don't really need to worry too much about your stability until it drops to around 40%. When it gets to that point, that's when you should probably either head to a stable area for a little bit to recover, or sacrifice a temporal gear and a bit of health to instantly restore some stability and keep digging.

Also keep in mind that digging straight down in Vintage Story is a good idea, provided you are using ladders that is. It's not possible to fall off a ladder unless you physically move your character off the ladder block, which is tough to do in a shaft that's only a block wide. To save on ladders, you can also place a ladder every other block and still have a functioning ladder to work with.

[MKMoose]

45 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

50 block internvals for iron, why? That seems very wasteful and will send you all over the map when the iron deposit can be just a few blocks away. Especially if you are a Decent or greater reading.

The average radius of iron deposits is 26, and I'd have to double-check the exact distribution. Add the node search radius to that, and you'd have to dig every 2 * (6 + 26 / sqrt(2)) = ~49 blocks to make it ever possible to miss the average deposit in optimal conditions.

It is still possible with a 50-block interval to miss deposits which are smaller than average, but the risk remains low at ~30% for the minimum possible radius of 16, if I recall correctly. Any obstructions like cracked rock might sometimes cause issues with this strategy. Uneven and patchy deposit edges also make missing a deposit a bit more likely, but not by much.

 

45 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

As others have mentioned you need to go down below .7xsea level. If you didn't change world height that is around 77.

I think it was 0.85 of sea level, last I checked.

Edited yesterday at 01:49 AM by MKMoose

[Zane Mordien]

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

The average radius of iron deposits is 26, and I'd have to double-check the exact distribution. Add the node search radius to that, and you'd have to dig every 2 * (6 + 26 / sqrt(2)) = ~49 blocks to make it ever possible to miss the average deposit in optimal conditions.

I'd say that is way to min max for a new player to worry about. It's much simpler to just go 12-15 in each cardinal direction and try again.

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

digging a small sample branch from the main shaft

Just don't forget to fill up the entrance to the branches with dirt or something. I finally had a sawblade locust spawn in the side shaft I made. It was a very rude thing to find on my way back up the ladder.

Edited yesterday at 04:23 AM by Zane Mordien

[MKMoose]

On 1/26/2026 at 5:22 AM, Zane Mordien said:

I'd say that is way to min max for a new player to worry about. It's much simpler to just go 12-15 in each cardinal direction and try again.

A new player doesn't need to hyperoptimize, but they also don't need to spend time and resources on a denser search pattern that doesn't help them in any way. For iron specifically, sinking a shaft every 12 blocks takes 16 times more effort than at 50-block intervals, while providing maybe 10% more iron per unit of area on average. Even if you don't consider the average over a large area, then searching more sparsely will still allow you to find the first deposit much faster, because using 12-block intervals means that a much larger portion of the area where you could detect a deposit has already been verified with the previous shaft. Hence the 50-block interval recomendation for iron.

Even at 25-block intervals in a generic case for all ores, the maximum deposit radius that can be missed is ~9, barring partially obstructed deposits and stuff. It's trading a small amount of missed resources from the smaller deposits for a large increase in time efficiency. It's covering the same area with a quarter of the effort for ~60-100% of the total return in most cases (60% for very small deposits, and close to or exactly 100% for larger ones, especially iron). Hence the 25-block interval recommendation for most ores.

There are a couple of relatively common ores for which I could potentially recommend mining at intervals below 25, including for cassiterite, bismuthinite and sphalerite, but even then you're generally not trying to precisely strip the area of every single deposit either. Still, an interval of ~18-20 is perfectly fine with fairly low or near-zero resource loss for almost all ores, while still being significantly more efficient than 12-15.

Gemstones are probably the only notable exception for which an interval of ~12-15 could be optimal, but that's irrelevant for most players. Child deposits are also different, but that's a completely separate search pattern.

Edited 14 hours ago by MKMoose