A Sustainable Flow of Copper in Early-Game Multiplayer

[Cameron Hall]

Hi guys, I have been playing VS Vanilla 1.14 with a 3 friends on private server together. We are having a blast, but I'm running into the issue of being able to sustain copper for our whole group. We have exhausted most of the surface copper( and the veins right below), and we have tried venturing deeper into caves, but without armor (can't afford the like 2500 copper per set) it is very difficult. We can locate some descent density copper with the propick, but tracking it down can cost us a pick or two. So end the end even when I do find copper I may only be netting like 500-700 units( after quite a bit of effort), and for 4 players that's almost nothing. Basically my question is: How do you find enough copper to be able to sustain armor, equipment, alloys, and everything inbetween because it seems you need copper to do almost anything in the early/mid game.

[redram]

Ideally you'd move on to bronze, and then to iron.  Iron should be much easier to keep sustainable, because it spawns in such huge veins. 

That said, when "tracking it down" with the propick, which mode are you using?  If you're not using the first mode, which gives per-mille densities, you really should get familiar with that mode.  You may have to travel a ways, but just propick cliffs and cave entrances as you travel, every 1-200 blocks if you can, and eventually you'll run into a deep copper zone.  tighten your search till you've found the dense core, and hopefully find some caves in the area.   Deep copper occurs in pretty huge veins, often-times.  The first propick mode is the key to getting yourself in the right area.  The second mode is only for short-range searches, and is best used once you're already in a high density zone.

[Cameron Hall]

I have been using the first mode and the second to try to track the ores down. I had it set to the 8 size scan, but I realized from the wiki that is way way too  big of a scanned area. I haven't even had deep copper show up on any of my type 1 scans, so I may need to do some traveling and go for that instead.

[Streetwind]

Copper is really abundant on the high end of spawn chances. After finding an area that read "ultra high", I dug one shaft down from surface to bedrock. Along the way I pierced three deposits directly and found a fourth one that I just barely missed by using the secondary propick mode. "Decent" is okay too; you'll have a pretty good chance of finding at least one deposit... but you should be aiming higher. If there's four of you, prospecting large swathes of terrain for good mining locations should be easy. Just yesterday, someone asked about using the prospecting pick in this thread, and I posted a reply about sleuthing down ore hotspots and how they look (including a visual reference). Check it out, it might help.

On the opposite side, you can make your copper last longer by reducing its consumption:

• Make bronze. It may not save much in the way of nugget input, but the resulting tools also last longer. For example, in a copper pickaxe, you pay 20 nuggets for 300 durability (= 15 each). With tin bronze, you'd pay 18 nuggets for 450 durability (= 25 each). With bismuth bronze, you'd pay between 14 to 10 nuggets for 500 durability (= 36 to 50 each). So you could make the same amount of copper last more than three times as long, given enough zinc and bismuth.
• Optimize tool use. If you're prospecting randomly, use a fixed grid with large intervals instead, to get a general overview first; halve the intervals to get more detail. (Did you look at the image I posted in that other thread? Grid pattern!) If you're digging a staircase down where you want to mine, dig a two-wide shaft instead, and use ladders. Cast as many tools as you can, as smithing rapidly devours hammers.
• Don't use copper where you don't have to. Hoes and knives can be kept as stone for pretty much no downside at all. If you split logs into firewood via the crafting grid, use stone axes. Learn to love stone spears as throwing weapons for cave exploration. If there's four of you, and everyone brings one copper melee weapon and four stone spears, you're going to simply just murder anything that spawns underground before it even reaches you. Larger groups of enemies may take more work, but while they chase some of you the others can go and pick up the spears and throw them again. Also, improvised and wood lamellar armor is better than nothing.

[Cameron Hall]

I read your post and got most of the gist. Use propick for hot and cold pretty much, and once you get to a solid density dig shafts. I'm guessing if I'm going for copper I stop at the min native copper spawn Y.

[Xuhybrid]

Only use tools you actually need. Making copper armour for 3 people is definitely not worth it. I can see you making a ton of copper pickaxe from your surface copper until you can make bronze or iron. Maybe you'd want a couple shears to build up saplings and sticks. Everything else can remain flint though right?