Is there an easier way to find tin?

[void_akaban]

I get this question may seem reductive but i've genuinely spent 6 IRL hours trying to find a decent amount of tin to make a brass a non-issue anymore but ive only ever found 2 surface nodes that rendered me 20 peices. 

I've already increased spawn rates for surface tin in my settings yet i'm still coming up empty handed in freshly loaded chunks.

Is it a depth problem? should i explore deeper caves? Any insight would be greatly appreciated

 

[PineReseen]

Did you try prospecting? I know this might be a bit of a silly question, but I haven't seen you mention it. I generally get a prospecting pickaxe to look for high tin concentrations, and then mine a staircase down on the location while making 4 branches at roughly the same intervals to use the Node Search mode to see if a given ore is nearby.

This is how I mine. Basically, the Node Search mode on default world settings has a 6x6 cube detection centered on the mined block (If I am interpreting what I read correctly), So when I do get a message telling me there are ore nodes nearby, I start branching out of that path to figure out where it is, as you can see in the lower right corner. Be aware that the ores spawn rather flat (At least from my experience), so you might want to dig a bit up or down when you can't seem to find the ore vein.

I'm probably not the best at this, but it works alright for me. You can read the wiki guide on this here: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Guide:Prospecting

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, void_akaban said:

i've genuinely spent 6 IRL hours trying to find a decent amount of tin to make a brass a non-issue anymore

Brass? Or bronze? I'm assuming you meant bronze, but just in case: brass will require zinc(sphalerite) and not tin.

 

2 hours ago, void_akaban said:

I've already increased spawn rates for surface tin in my settings yet i'm still coming up empty handed in freshly loaded chunks.

Is it a depth problem? should i explore deeper caves? Any insight would be greatly appreciated

Unless you started over on a new world, the settings changes will only take effect in freshly generated chunks.

As @PineReseen already noted, the typical way to find tin is to use the Density Search mode on the prospecting pick to find a good spot to dig, and then dig a shaft down using the Node Search mode every 12 blocks or so to see what ores are actually there, if any. If you are using ladders in the shaft, you can safely dig straight down, since it's not possible to fall off a ladder in VS unless you actually move your character off the ladder block.

Do keep in mind though that you only tin bronze specifically for completing the treasure hunter's quest. Black bronze can be created with copper and few nuggets of gold and silver, which can be easily found by panning bony soil and are useful for getting tools/weapons if resources are tight otherwise. If tin is being hard to find, bismuth bronze is also an option, which you can get by smelting copper, zinc, and bismuth. Tin, bismuth, and zinc are also fairly common ores to find, so it can be worth digging at Poor/Very Poor readings if that's all you've got to work with. It's also fairly easy to find bismuth and zinc if tin is scarce, and vice-versa.

Trading is also an option for acquiring tin, zinc, or bismuth ores. Commodities traders often have those ores for sale, so if you have a few gears lying around or otherwise want to do some wheeling and dealing, trading can be a good workaround.

[MKMoose]

3 hours ago, void_akaban said:

Is it a depth problem? should i explore deeper caves?

The advice mentioned by other people here is solid, but I do want to mention as well that cassiterite (the tin ore you're looking for) is one of the two ores alongside native copper which spawn in a slightly different way than other ores. There are two different deposit types for native copper and cassiterite (all other ores only have one deposit type, barring some caveats):

• surface deposits - they only appear a couple blocks under the surface and are best found by digging a few blocks down under loose surface ore chunks, as you have likely been doing, since there is always a deposit under them; those specific deposits are entirely separate from the prospecting system; they are there to get you started with some easily-accessible resources and are not intended as your main source of those metals, at least not in the case of tin,
• deep deposits - they only form deeper underground (several dozen blocks deep, broadly speaking), and the most consistent method to find them is prospecting (caving is also an option, but it can also be highly dangerous if you're playing on standard settings); finding a few deep deposits this way will provide you with practically all the copper and tin you're ever gonna need outside perhaps of some particularly large projects.

[williams_482]

Adding on to the above, I strongly recommend this wiki page for details about exactly where ores can and cannot spawn. For example, non-surface Cassiterite will never spawn higher than y90 on a standard height world, so when digging vertical mineshafts in search of it, there's no need to even bother with pro pick node searches until you've reached that depth. 

[void_akaban]

1 hour ago, williams_482 said:

Adding on to the above, I strongly recommend this wiki page for details about exactly where ores can and cannot spawn. For example, non-surface Cassiterite will never spawn higher than y90 on a standard height world, so when digging vertical mineshafts in search of it, there's no need to even bother with pro pick node searches until you've reached that depth. 

 

6 hours ago, PineReseen said:

Did you try prospecting? I know this might be a bit of a silly question, but I haven't seen you mention it. I generally get a prospecting pickaxe to look for high tin concentrations, and then mine a staircase down on the location while making 4 branches at roughly the same intervals to use the Node Search mode to see if a given ore is nearby.

This is how I mine. Basically, the Node Search mode on default world settings has a 6x6 cube detection centered on the mined block (If I am interpreting what I read correctly), So when I do get a message telling me there are ore nodes nearby, I start branching out of that path to figure out where it is, as you can see in the lower right corner. Be aware that the ores spawn rather flat (At least from my experience), so you might want to dig a bit up or down when you can't seem to find the ore vein.

I'm probably not the best at this, but it works alright for me. You can read the wiki guide on this here: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Guide:Prospecting

 

4 hours ago, MKMoose said:

The advice mentioned by other people here is solid, but I do want to mention as well that cassiterite (the tin ore you're looking for) is one of the two ores alongside native copper which spawn in a slightly different way than other ores. There are two different deposit types for native copper and cassiterite (all other ores only have one deposit type, barring some caveats):

• surface deposits - they only appear a couple blocks under the surface and are best found by digging a few blocks down under loose surface ore chunks, as you have likely been doing, since there is always a deposit under them; those specific deposits are entirely separate from the prospecting system; they are there to get you started with some easily-accessible resources and are not intended as your main source of those metals, at least not in the case of tin,
• deep deposits - they only form deeper underground (several dozen blocks deep, broadly speaking), and the most consistent method to find them is prospecting (caving is also an option, but it can also be highly dangerous if you're playing on standard settings); finding a few deep deposits this way will provide you with practically all the copper and tin you're ever gonna need outside perhaps of some particularly large projects.

 

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Brass? Or bronze? I'm assuming you meant bronze, but just in case: brass will require zinc(sphalerite) and not tin.

 

Unless you started over on a new world, the settings changes will only take effect in freshly generated chunks.

As @PineReseen already noted, the typical way to find tin is to use the Density Search mode on the prospecting pick to find a good spot to dig, and then dig a shaft down using the Node Search mode every 12 blocks or so to see what ores are actually there, if any. If you are using ladders in the shaft, you can safely dig straight down, since it's not possible to fall off a ladder in VS unless you actually move your character off the ladder block.

Do keep in mind though that you only tin bronze specifically for completing the treasure hunter's quest. Black bronze can be created with copper and few nuggets of gold and silver, which can be easily found by panning bony soil and are useful for getting tools/weapons if resources are tight otherwise. If tin is being hard to find, bismuth bronze is also an option, which you can get by smelting copper, zinc, and bismuth. Tin, bismuth, and zinc are also fairly common ores to find, so it can be worth digging at Poor/Very Poor readings if that's all you've got to work with. It's also fairly easy to find bismuth and zinc if tin is scarce, and vice-versa.

Trading is also an option for acquiring tin, zinc, or bismuth ores. Commodities traders often have those ores for sale, so if you have a few gears lying around or otherwise want to do some wheeling and dealing, trading can be a good workaround.

Thank you all so much! I'm extraordinarily new to VS and had no idea what wiki pages to look at or how to do pretty much anything except surface nodes! ill apply all of this information to my mining, its genuinely helped me alot in retrospect  (and yes i did mean bronze lol, typo, sorry)

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, void_akaban said:

Thank you all so much! I'm extraordinarily new to VS and had no idea what wiki pages to look at or how to do pretty much anything except surface nodes! ill apply all of this information to my mining, its genuinely helped me alot in retrospect  (and yes i did mean bronze lol, typo, sorry)

No worries! Vintage Story is a very information-dense game, and it's easy to get lost in it all. The handbook and wiki cover a lot, but it never hurts to ask around on the forums and whatnot for advice when you need a little extra help.

[KahvozeinsFang]

You can always just increase chances tin spawns in world generation settings. I always do. I'm not spending hours looking for it  

[void_akaban]

20 minutes ago, KahvozeinsFang said:

You can always just increase chances tin spawns in world generation settings. I always do. I'm not spending hours looking for it  

I did lol, but at that point i had explored a lot and it took hours to load fresh chunks, and still nothing ToT, im just very unlucky it seems

[KahvozeinsFang]

3 hours ago, void_akaban said:

I did lol, but at that point i had explored a lot and it took hours to load fresh chunks, and still nothing ToT, im just very unlucky it seems

It won't spawn in Claystone, Sandstone, Chert, Shale, Conglomerate, Bauxite, Chalk, or Limestone. If you are in an area with those you won't have a happy time