How do you loot surface ruins?

[PurpleHairDemon]

In my old survival world where I first began playing the game I ran across so many surface ruins and gave in to entering creative and no-clipping into the ground to see if there was any loot underneath. So before I start a new survival world (probably when the next update drops whenever that is) I want to ask how do you actually search ruins without needing to dig up the entire area every single time? Is there some tell whenever a ruin has loot buried underneath or do you just have to excavate all the dirt around it?

[LadyWYT]

57 minutes ago, PurpleHairDemon said:

I want to ask how do you actually search ruins without needing to dig up the entire area every single time? Is there some tell whenever a ruin has loot buried underneath or do you just have to excavate all the dirt around it?

Generally I just take what's on the surface and don't worry about whatever's buried, since surface ruin loot is kinda underwhelming, in my opinion. As for telling whether or not a ruin has a buried portion, there are specific builds that have them, so once you learn which builds those are it's easy to tell which ones are actually worth digging up. In several cases, digging isn't necessary, since the underground portion is visible from the surface.