Gold & Silver Ore: Where do i look for this? Propick info?

[ᴊʀʟ𝟙𝟘𝟙]

So i've been using black Bronze to try out some strip mining.
Using a copper ProPick i think im starting to understand the information its giving me in accurate mode.
but its somewhat confusing, is it probing in a straight line in the direction im mining the block? or is it ALWAYS straight down from the mined block?

Now gold and silver ore,
I know they arent their own block of ore.
But, does silver or gold show up in specific locations more than others?

The few gold and silver i've collected has been from panning or looting, and some silver from quarts surface bits.
Can GOLD only be found in surface bits and panning?

Im hoping theres a location/biome i can search.

DEPTH:
So on the wiki each ore has a min-max Y level, but on the wiki its in measurements on 0 to 1
To me this implies that its a percentage of world height, the wiki says "The Y values reflect proportions of the sea level" and "Sea level in the world can be determined by the Y of the surface of a big lake." The confusing bit to me is my worlds lake levels, i have several MASSIVE ocean sized lakes scattered around, but their heights are different by one or two blocks.
Do i take these levels and just choose the lowest one? in that case is the bottom of the world "zero" in height? or does it go negative numbers?

if its zero the deepest i can go, then i take the lakes height (sea level) then divide it by 100 to get 0.01 of Y and work from that yea?
I think if i can learn to use the propick correctly i'll be free to find the ores i need.

[Streetwind]

2 hours ago, JRL101 said:

Using a copper ProPick i think im starting to understand the information its giving me in accurate mode.
but its somewhat confusing, is it probing in a straight line in the direction im mining the block? or is it ALWAYS straight down from the mined block?

Depends on what you mean with "accurate mode". The ingame names are "density search mode" and "node search mode". Sometimes people also simply say "primary" (for density search) and "secondary" (for node search).

 

2 hours ago, JRL101 said:

Now gold and silver ore,
I know they arent their own block of ore.
But, does silver or gold show up in specific locations more than others?

The few gold and silver i've collected has been from panning or looting, and some silver from quarts surface bits.
Can GOLD only be found in surface bits and panning?

Gold and silver generate by exactly the same mechanism as all the other deep ores - they have hotspots on the ore density map that is probed by the prospector pick's primary mode. That means, yes, you can find gold and silver using a propick in density search mode. ...At least theoretically.

Two major differences exist compared to most other ores. For starters, the 'host rock' can only be quartz ore, as you already know. In my experience, I've only ever gotten readings for gold and silver in areas with lots of quartz, so the game seems to account for this and won't give you bogus readings in places where no quartz exists, which is good. However, the second difference is the way these ore density map hotspots appear.

Typically, ore density hotspots are very large. You can get a 'miniscule' reading somewhere, walk 30 blocks, get a 'very poor' reading, walk another 30 blocks, get a 'poor' reading, and so on and so forth. Especiall with rare ores like cassiterite, it quickly becomes apparent that most ores are drawn as large circles several hundred blocks across on the ore density map, with the highest values in the middle. With common ores like copper, the game can draw so many of these areas that they overlap with multiple neighbors, creating a 'landscape' with high-value peaks and low-value valleys.

With gold and silver, neither of these things happen. Because these two ores seem to be drawn like needles. They are extremely localized, with areas only a dozen blocks or so across that cause a few blocks of ore to generate within the local quartz layer. In practical application, that means that to get any sort of reading in density search mode at all, you'll have to hit the deposit almost exactly. I once got a miniscule silver reading, walked ten blocks forward, and discovered silver bits in surface rocks.

So the primary means of finding gold and silver is indeed just walking all over an area that has surface quartz rocks, and checking each and every one. If you find one, dig down directly below it, and you can usually find 3-6 ore blocks in the quartz at that location. But if you happen to randomly get a gold or silver reading while prospecting with density search mode, that also means that there's a high likelyhood that some of it is nearby. It'll just be quite hard to find. And keep in mind that quartz layers can generate deep underground too. It might be that the only quartz in the area is near the bottom of the world, meaning that's the only place the gold/silver can generate.

 

2 hours ago, JRL101 said:

DEPTH:
So on the wiki each ore has a min-max Y level, but on the wiki its in measurements on 0 to 1
To me this implies that its a percentage of world height, the wiki says "The Y values reflect proportions of the sea level" and "Sea level in the world can be determined by the Y of the surface of a big lake." The confusing bit to me is my worlds lake levels, i have several MASSIVE ocean sized lakes scattered around, but their heights are different by one or two blocks.
Do i take these levels and just choose the lowest one? in that case is the bottom of the world "zero" in height? or does it go negative numbers?

if its zero the deepest i can go, then i take the lakes height (sea level) then divide it by 100 to get 0.01 of Y and work from that yea?

If your lake heights are off by one or two blocks, why does that matter? The middle between 0 and 130 is barely any different from the middle between 0 and 132. And yes, the deepest possible y-level is 0.

But, take it from a master prospector: ore spawn heights are a trap that Minecraft players fall into. In Vintage Story, they are ancillary information that is useful in some few cases and completely useless in many others. In most cases, you have no need to even bother checking. The only case where they are relevant is if you have only a single rock layer that can host the ore you are looking for, and you have determined where that rock layer starts and/or ends, and now you need to know if it gets deep enough (or reaches high enough) to be able to spawn the ore you want. Halite is the poster child example. But if you're looking for copper? That stuff exists in all igneous layers, and you always have at least one guaranteed igneous layer, so just start digging. There is no spot anywhere in the ingame world where you cannot encounter native copper, as long as the ore density map provides a chance to spawn it. The fact that you have to dig to a certain minimum depth first is true, but completely irrelevant.

I'm also leery of your use of the term 'strip mining', which is another trap that Minecraft players fall into. If you make horizontal tunnels in Vintage Story in hopes of finding ore, you're going to end up trading your pickaxe durability for a backpack full of disappointment. Vertical shafts is where it's at, because of the way that ore deposits generate as flat discs. You'll also need a 'decent' or better reading on the density search mode to make the endeavour worth your while, unless you really cannot find anything better than 'poor'. In which case, be prepared to try multiple shafts scattered over the area.

 

Edited January 21, 2021 by Streetwind
Typos

[Ivan Stamenov]

When in search for gold or silver, just probe each quartz deposit you encounter with the propick in node search mode. It seems that the density of gold/silver ore blocks is somewhat the same across the host quartz deposit, so if the node search reads large amounts of gold, the chances are that this particular quartz deposit will contain huge amounts of gold.

It also seems that the density readings of the propick can be quite misleading when searching for gold and silver. So far I've found accidently 3 gold/silver rich quartz deposits, each of which yielded more than 100 ingots of the respective material while the propick density search didn't even mentioned there might be gold or silver in the area...

[ChubbyDemon]

On 1/23/2021 at 1:10 AM, Ivan Stamenov said:

When in search for gold or silver, just probe each quartz deposit you encounter with the propick in node search mode. It seems that the density of gold/silver ore blocks is somewhat the same across the host quartz deposit, so if the node search reads large amounts of gold, the chances are that this particular quartz deposit will contain huge amounts of gold.

It also seems that the density readings of the propick can be quite misleading when searching for gold and silver. So far I've found accidently 3 gold/silver rich quartz deposits, each of which yielded more than 100 ingots of the respective material while the propick density search didn't even mentioned there might be gold or silver in the area...

If you were to use node search mode of a propick on a vein of quartz, and I'm talking about seeing the vein of quartz intersect a cave and using the propick on it, would that propick tell me that there was silver/gold in the quartz vein?  Or would it just tell me there was a huge amount of quartz and leave me to stumble onto the metals myself while mining?

[Ivan Stamenov]

9 hours ago, ChubbyDemon said:

If you were to use node search mode of a propick on a vein of quartz, and I'm talking about seeing the vein of quartz intersect a cave and using the propick on it, would that propick tell me that there was silver/gold in the quartz vein?  Or would it just tell me there was a huge amount of quartz and leave me to stumble onto the metals myself while mining?

The check is done for each block within the node search radius, regardless if this block is a rock or air. And the vast majority of quartz veins I found gold/silver in had the precious metals spread across the enire quartz vein. So I'd say you have to be very unfortunate to take a 0 gold/silver node search reading in a quartz vein which does have some. But, even if this happens, the gold/silver contents will be very small and most likely don't deserve the grind to be found and extracted...

[Maelstrom]

I've had some quartz deposits yield stacks upon stacks of silver chunks of all grades (I think it was over 2 stacks of poor and about 1/2 stack of bountiful with about 2 stacks of medium and 1 stack of rich).  Typically, there's better yielding ores the lower you go.  The quartz I mentioned was somewhere around y level 40 on default world height.

[ChubbyDemon]

On 9/18/2023 at 8:15 AM, Maelstrom said:

I've had some quartz deposits yield stacks upon stacks of silver chunks of all grades (I think it was over 2 stacks of poor and about 1/2 stack of bountiful with about 2 stacks of medium and 1 stack of rich).  Typically, there's better yielding ores the lower you go.  The quartz I mentioned was somewhere around y level 40 on default world height.

Lower ores being better yielding seems accurate.  There is an enormous quartz vein in an open cave near where I'm living and the best I've found in it is medium gold density and small silver density.  I think having both of the precious metals in one vein of quartz is lucky though right?

[Maelstrom]

Yes.  Usually I find only silver or a smaller amount of gold.  Both in one is uncommon. 

If you're getting a medium reading on the pro pick (node search) then you've got a LOT of gold