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Can't find copper


baba

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Hello I have recently got this game and have enjoying it a lot but I can't seem to find any copper.

I have looked for hours but only found stuff like quartz and lead bits on the surface. I looked underground and I found no copper either.

How do I find copper?

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Assuming you play with the standard settings, you should regularly encounter copper bits lying on the surface - exactly in the same way you found lead and quartz. Personally, I keep finding spots within roughly a hundred blocks of each other.

Unless, of course, your local stone type is bauxite. Copper cannot generate in bauxite. But then, neither can quartz, so I doubt that is your issue...

It is possible that you have a stone type that is somewhat orange-ish, like claystone; that might make it harder to spot copper bits in stones than if you had, say, basalt or chalk. Perhaps you simply missed the copper bits because they didn't stand out very well, and you don't yet know what to look for. All I can tell you in that case is: keep looking. Investigate everything that looks even the slightest bit off-color to you.

Once you have found copper bits on the surface, dig straight down where you found them (or make a waypoint to come back later). There will be a small deposit of copper ore in the stone below. It usually sits just one or two blocks below the dirt, but it might sit as many as ten blocks below.

Of course, you will have to break rock to get to it, and then you will have to break the ore itself; both things which require a copper pickaxe. Then, before you can smelt the ore, you need to smash it with a hammer, which also must be made out of metal. That means, before you can start mining and using the ore you found below the surface bits, you will need to have found at least 40 naturally occuring nuggets (enough for two ingots, so you can cast the two tools). You chiefly get them out of the opper bits on the surface. But if you are very unlucky and cannot locate many deposits, you can try panning for nuggets.

Panning is a relatively simple affair - it just takes a lot of time and patience. There should be a writeup on how to do it in the ingame handbook.

Once you start exploiting the surface ore deposits and have metal to spare, you can make the prospecting pick, which lets you find larger quantities of ore further down in the bowels of the world. Using the prospecting pick is a minigame in itself, which takes some player skill and practice; I recommend looking up tutorial videos.

Edited by Streetwind
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14 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Assuming you play with the standard settings, you should regularly encounter copper bits lying on the surface - exactly in the same way you found lead and quartz. Personally, I keep finding spots within roughly a hundred blocks of each other.

Unless, of course, your local stone type is bauxite. Copper cannot generate in bauxite. But then, neither can quartz, so I doubt that is your issue...

It is possible that you have a stone type that is somewhat orange-ish, like claystone; that might make it harder to spot copper bits in stones than if you had, say, basalt or chalk. Perhaps you simply missed the copper bits because they didn't stand out very well, and you don't yet know what to look for. All I can tell you in that case is: keep looking. Investigate everything that looks even the slightest bit off-color to you.

Once you have found copper bits on the surface, dig straight down where you found them (or make a waypoint to come back later). There will be a small deposit of copper ore in the stone below. It usually sits just one or two blocks below the dirt, but it might sit as many as ten blocks below.

Of course, you will have to break rock to get to it, and then you will have to break the ore itself; both things which require a copper pickaxe. Then, before you can smelt the ore, you need to smash it with a hammer, which also must be made out of metal. That means, before you can start mining and using the ore you found below the surface bits, you will need to have found at least 40 naturally occuring nuggets (enough for two ingots, so you can cast the two tools). You chiefly get them out of the opper bits on the surface. But if you are very unlucky and cannot locate many deposits, you can try panning for nuggets.

Panning is a relatively simple affair - it just takes a lot of time and patience. There should be a writeup on how to do it in the ingame handbook.

Once you start exploiting the surface ore deposits and have metal to spare, you can make the prospecting pick, which lets you find larger quantities of ore further down in the bowels of the world. Using the prospecting pick is a minigame in itself, which takes some player skill; I recommend looking up tutorial videos.

I did not change any settings but I cant seem to find copper around my spawn like the lead bits. I played a few different worlds and I found copper easily there but not here for some reason.

My stone type is limestone I think. Yes I have I used panning and gotten enough for a pickaxe. 

I have found copper bits now but they were far away from my spawn and a different biome I think, the stone type was slate here.

Is copper not found over limestone or was I just unlucky? 

 

 

 

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29 minutes ago, Osama Nawaz said:

Is copper not found over limestone or was I just unlucky? 

You can actually look this up ingame by finding the limestone rock block in the handbook. It shows all the ore that can spawn in it.

I just checked, and the answer is kind of "yes and no". Copper can indeed be found in limestone. However, native copper cannot. You can only find it as malachite, which is a different copper ore. And I believe that malachite does not generate in surface deposits like native copper does.

So it would seem that you were neither unlucky nor crazy: you cannot find surface native copper in limestone areas. Only malachite in deep veins.

Edited by Streetwind
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1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

You can actually look this up ingame by finding the limestone rock block in the handbook. It shows all the ore that can spawn in it.

I just checked, and the answer is kind of "yes and no". Copper can indeed be found in limestone. However, native copper cannot. You can only find it as malachite, which is a different copper ore. And I believe that malachite does not generate in surface deposits like native copper does.

So it would seem that you were neither unlucky nor crazy: you cannot find surface native copper in limestone areas. Only malachite in deep veins.

Thanks for the info. I wish I had known about this earlier, would not have wasted so much time looking for copper in a place where there is no copper. 

 

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On 5/10/2020 at 3:59 AM, Maxwell Ellington said:

An additional note, a stack of 64 sand or gravel should almost guarantee you enough copper for a pickaxe, and as far as I know the copper is found in any sand or gravel. 

How many stacks for a temporal gear?

 

I did get one but dunno how rare it is. 

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Chances of finding such rares items are simply very small, most < 1%. I think I got a TG once, a few pieces of jewelry, some metal scraps, metal gears, a few gold nuggets and a nugget of lapiz lazuli from a total of about 8 stacks I processed in my SP game and on 2 servers I played on in past months. All fun surprises to get as by-products from an otherwise tedious task in early game. At some point panning isn't that useful anymore but it can provide a nice distraction, especially if you don't fancy fighting drifters during a temporal storm. The quiet of a panning spot in the middle of a lake can be a quite relaxing and effective way to pass the time while a storm passes. I always keep a stack of gravel or sand in stock for such occassions. 😁

Edited by AlteOgre
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