Halite not Generating?

[gilt-kutabe]

Hello,

Recently I found a reading for halite on one of my worlds. With the help of the Prospect Together mod, I mapped out every chunk with a halite reading and a boundary of chunks with no reading. I made a west/east tunnel through the middle of the area, and north/south tunnels every 10 blocks, between the chert (sedimentary) and peridot (igneous) layers. After finding no halite I checked the wiki again and found the radius was 10 +/-8 blocks (2 to 18 blocks?), so I made additional north/south tunnels every 4/5 blocks, and still found no halite. I really did not want to go through the process again, so I downloaded an x-ray mod (Block Overlay), and found that there wasn’t actually any halite there to begin with. What could have caused this? I have Tera Prety (landform mod) installed, but I don’t believe it alters ore generation, and both propick modes have been accurate otherwise.

[MKMoose]

6 hours ago, gilt-kutabe said:

Recently I found a reading for halite on one of my worlds. [...] I made a west/east tunnel through the middle of the area, and north/south tunnels every 10 blocks, between the chert (sedimentary) and peridot (igneous) layers.

What was the reading, though? For halite, you're generally looking for "poor" or better.

How deep the sedimentary layer is also matters. You're generally not gonna find much halite if it only reaches ~20 blocks deep.

 

6 hours ago, gilt-kutabe said:

[...] there wasn’t actually any halite there to begin with. What could have caused this?

It just didn't generate, as it's a matter of chance. Density readings only correspond to the internal probability that the game uses to generate deposits. While for several common deposits a high reading is essentially a guarantee, for less common deposits including halite it is ultimately random. As for how likely it is for it to not generate at all, it depends on what kind of readings you actually had.

Halite also happens to be affected by a small bug which makes is less likely to appear at low readings, which is related to why the sedimentary layer thickness matters and you generally want either a ~40-block thick layer, or potentially a ~20-block layer if it's under basalt.

 

6 hours ago, gilt-kutabe said:

With the help of the Prospect Together mod, I mapped out every chunk with a halite reading and a boundary of chunks with no reading.

Just FYI, taking density readings every chunk is almost always excessive. You don't need to take readings any more often than every ~100 blocks in most circumstances, because it doesn't provide you with any significant new information. It can be even better to go every ~200-300 and only narrow down to ~100 when you find a reading you're looking for.

Edited October 17 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

In addition to what @MKMoose said, in my experience halite is one of those goofy ores that's a little tough to find in the conventional prospecting method. I'm not sure I've ever actually found it via prospecting--the times I have found it have been by accident. I think the better way is to use prospecting to figure out the area it's likely to have spawned, and then explore the caves in that area to see if there's any exposed domes. The domes are pretty big, so it's not unusual for part of them to be exposed in a cave, and it saves you the trouble of digging holes.

Don't forget though that commodities and survival goods traders both regularly have halite for sale, so trading for it is also an option, provided you are playing with lore content enabled.

[Zane Mordien]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

the times I have found it have been by accident.

Same, I don't think I've ever found it on purpose. I'm usually looking for something else and there it is.