Help on prospecting

[Crowveil]

I want to find borax but I dont know its in game name and I coulnt find it in the survival handbook to is it like copper where it has multiple names or a diffrent name like instead of saying borax it says something diffrent or will it just say a ... amount of borax when you prospect 

[Broccoli Clock]

I hope I'm reading your comment right but borax is borax in the game, the block will show borax in the tool tip at the top at the top of the screen.

It can appear on the surface which suggests a vein directly below that area (perhaps 5 or 6 blocks deep) much like the surface deposits of copper.
It can also be found deep in the ground too. A prospecting pick will show it if it's present, amongst the items it lists.

Here is the wiki entry: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Borax

And this is what it looks like in vanilla geology: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Borax#/media/File:Borax-in-rocks.png

 

Not sure if you use mods or not, but I find JuicyOres an absolute god send, it really makes those ores "pop out" against standard rocks: https://mods.vintagestory.at/juicyores

 

Edited February 7 by Broccoli Clock

[LadyWYT]

Like @Broccoli Clock already said, borax is borax and doesn't have an alternate name like some of the other ores do. That being said, it tends to be easier to run around examining surface stones in sediment rock biomes, given that many borax deposits tend to be surface deposits and thus won't show up on a density search.

[MKMoose]

56 minutes ago, Crowveil said:

I want to find borax but I dont know its in game name and I coulnt find it in the survival handbook [...]

As mentioned before me, it is referred to simply as borax everywhere, and it should be available under the same name in the handbook. A few extra tips on finding borax, some of which people tend to neglect or just aren't familiar with:

• it is only found in sedimentary rock, so it won't even show up in density readings if your top layer is igneous,
• it only generates near sea level or below, so you'll generally want to look in low-lying areas,
• you may be able to find loose borax chunks on the surface in those areas, identified by white intrusions in the rocks (you can see what they look like if you look up borax in the handbook); loose chunks indicate a deposit below them, and it may be preferable to first search on the surface once you find relatively high readings before putting time and resources into mining,
• the density readings for borax are somewhat out of whack, so you will never find any readings higher than "decent", and in this specific case a "poor" reading is generally enough to find plenty of borax.

 

26 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

[...] many borax deposits tend to be surface deposits and thus won't show up on a density search.

All surface deposits that can show up on prospecting readings except copper, cassiterite and salt beds are indicated by density readings, because they are spawned with the same mechanism as deeper deposits. If you find a surface deposit, then outside of obscenely rare edge cases and the mentioned exceptions, you will always find a reading at that location.

 

41 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Not sure if you use mods or not, but I find JuicyOres an absolute god send, it really makes those ores "pop out" against standard rocks: https://mods.vintagestory.at/juicyores

You do you, but I'd argue that this mod greatly takes away from the uniqueness of each ore texture, because it uses the same arbitrary near-cubes for every single ore. The block textures try to be more varied and in some capacity respect how the ore forms in real life, and the mod kind of throws that out the window. Not that it's bad, but I really wish it was better.

Edited February 7 by MKMoose

[Broccoli Clock]

12 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

You do you, but I'd argue that this mod greatly takes away from the uniqueness of each ore texture, because it uses the same arbitrary near-cubes for every single ore. The block textures try to be more varied and in some capacity respect how the ore forms in real life, and the mod kind of throws that out the window. Not that it's bad, but I really wish it was better.

While I agree with you, this was "forced" upon me due to the vanilla textures, for example zinc..

When taken in isolation, increased in resolution, and placed on a white background it's still difficult to tell the difference. In lower light, perhaps dealing with everything else that mining throws at you, and presumably in a hurry to dig and get out of there, that lack of contrast is a real killer.

It's weird too as the game leans into accessibility regarding the wire frame, but not for very very similar textures. Sure, you say, use the tool tooltip to inform you, but it really should not require that. There will be some who have played this game enough to instinctively spot a zinc block amongst granite at 50 paces, that isn't me.

If VS did something to make those textures more recognisable, then I'd happily drop the mod, until then it is an essential mod in my library.

Edited February 7 by Broccoli Clock

[MKMoose]

3 minutes ago, Broccoli Clock said:

While I agree with you, this was "forced" upon me due to the vanilla textures, for example zinc..

When taken in isolation, increased in resolution, and placed on a white background it's still difficult to tell the difference. In lower light, perhaps dealing with everything else that mining throws at you, and presumably in a hurry to dig and get out of there, that lack of contrast is a real killer.

That's fair. I've learned to pay a lot more attention while mining for silver and gold, which can be a bit difficult to first notice in quartz, and I actually got a good laugh out of noticing weird dots on granite and struggling to figure out for a moment that it was sphalerite. While I've personally never found almost any significant issues with it and would say that the current state is good for me (maybe besides this one specific case of sphalerite in granite), it's an understandable issue.

It seems to mostly be caused by ore textures just being overlaid on top of rock textures, which is bound to be fairly difficult to make out when the rock and ore colors happen to be similar. It's sometimes difficult to make changes without making the textures unrealistc, but for sphalerite specifically I would be in favor of some texture adjustments to make the black dots more prominent and maybe add some weakly colored accents for further visual interest. The color of granite could also be changed (potentially to make it more realistic as well), but that would require reevaluation against all other ores as well and could mess up the visuals of some builds.

[Nathan Flaminio]

I use one that's just called "Visible Ore" that makes them much easier to see, but doesn't give it that chunky block texture.