Where's the copper?

[Thorfinn]

Sorry to hear your frustration. My original post was about exactly the situation in which you find yourself -- sometimes you cannot seem to find copper, but IME, it just means you need to move to a different locale. I rarely settle within a couple thousand of origin, anyway, and usually it's more like 10,000.

Either that or you can take a chance panning enough bony soil to be able to make enough black bronze to go straight to iron. If playing with the map, finding ruins is easy, and from my recollection, it only took 8 stacks or so. Or keep your eyes peeled for bismuth. A single deposit plus a little sand panning will reliably get you to iron. Or luck out finding a commodities trader.

There are several ways of doing it, but IMO by far the best way is to just restart if you find yourself in a world that is no fun. I don't think I'd want to something I enjoyed for 12 straight days...

[DX65]

5 hours ago, lOgAnmalONE said:

@DX65, @Thorfinn,  @Maelstrom:

Thanks for the replies and I really appreciate your feedback. 

I've completely lost faith in the games ore search mechanic to provide a reliable method in finding copper during the winter season other than using visual observations at the surface given that copper is covered with snow. Using the pro pick was very interesting in testing although it fails in both Node and Density search modes for copper. Pro pick usage results provided me with data that strongly suggests that it’s very likely  to be unreliable at finding other ores given that it can't even find basic copper deposits. I'm exhausted from searching for copper over the last 12 days [real life days] and I've decided to shelve the game until early 2024. I hope that the game mechanic using the pro pick is addressed and fixed by then. I'll definitely continue to support the game because I want to see it succeed.  Someone mentioned that it could be a mod, however the only mod I'm using is the primitive survival mode for fishing and trapping animals. It has nothing to do with mining ores. 

I get that frustration that's why I am mainly focusing on world edit, creative building and recreationally panning for resources. But I like making my own worlds and artistic endeavors more. But it can get really frustrating when I don't have know how or way to create what I want too. I haven't even bother with prospecting pick truthfully,. I have seen people on YouTube use it and they seem to do it successfully but I also heard lot of people go on about the struggles like you had. I would probably struggle miserably if I attempted it or tried to do things that lead me to me to frustrated that why I only do creative worlds right now.

I get that not everyone desire to do creative or build in games.

But if you do play this game before 2024 I strongly encourage you to do whatever you want in your single player game even if it means creatively summoning the resources you want and stick with fun parts of the game.

I got the game last month after watching this game for years. I think I have created and deleted many worlds. Some stuff I wish I could transfer like my chisel blocks but it wasn't worth the hassle, sometimes new world with new settings is just what is needed.

Edited March 26, 2022 by DX65

[Copperman]

This is really sneaky and cheating but I wrote an Auto Hot Key script to Automatically pan for copper nuggets. It only works until you run out of sand or die of starvation though
 

[logAnmalONE]

Thanks for the offer. It’s winter season in my game and I’m more  inclined to stay out of cold water during the freezing temperatures. Lol. My only option is to find copper in a cave or use the prospecting pick search function because copper is covered in snow at the surface level and you can’t see it due to the snow. The game is designed this way for realism which I truly appreciate. The devs must know some other method to find copper. I’ve not seen copper deposits in any caves at all nor have I found any using the pro pick. If you use the fly mode and check caves that way, you see no copper deposits. Copper is coded as only a surface deposit. If the devs have no alternative method of finding copper during the winter then the game is either broke or the game forces you to be well beyond using copper in the tech tree by the time the winter season arrives. I’ve  stopped playing the game in March and won’t touch it until it’s fixed. I’m doing other things and hopefully this issue will be fixed by 2024 when I return. I do read the conversations in the forum periodically. 

[Ashery]

Copper exists both as surface and deep deposits. The deep deposits will only spawn at 60% of the surface height, so you have to go much deeper to reach their first potential spawns than for most other ores. Zinc starts at 95%, tin at 75%, and iron at 85%, though iron is relative to sea level and not the surface.

That said, when a region has deep copper, it has tons of it. It won't all be in one vein like iron, but you'll be hitting a vein or two on practically every shaft.

[Maelstrom]

On 4/23/2022 at 3:36 AM, lOgAnmalONE said:

Copper is coded as only a surface deposit. 

The Native Copper reading on the Pro pick (density search mode) is the larger deep veins.  Pro pick does not pick up surface copper in the density search mode; but surface copper will show up in the node search mode.

[HugoCortell]

On 4/25/2022 at 11:08 PM, Maelstrom said:

The Native Copper reading on the Pro pick (density search mode) is the larger deep veins.  Pro pick does not pick up surface copper in the density search mode; but surface copper will show up in the node search mode.

Would it be a valid strategy to make a hole straight down every X blocks and as soon rock is reached, to use the prospecting pick on the density/precise search mode to try and locate surface deposits? I've had no luck whatsoever with veins so far, maybe I there are unmarked (without stones on top) surface deposits I can exploit near my base instead?

[Zane Mordien]

35 minutes ago, HugoCortell said:

Would it be a valid strategy to make a hole straight down every X blocks and as soon rock is reached, to use the prospecting pick on the density/precise search mode to try and locate surface deposits? I've had no luck whatsoever with veins so far, maybe I there are unmarked (without stones on top) surface deposits I can exploit near my base instead?

Digging straight down is a valid way to find deep copper. Surface copper nuggets can be hidden sometimes in the brush and grass. 

[Maelstrom]

4 hours ago, HugoCortell said:

Would it be a valid strategy to make a hole straight down every X blocks and as soon rock is reached, to use the prospecting pick on the density/precise search mode to try and locate surface deposits? I've had no luck whatsoever with veins so far, maybe I there are unmarked (without stones on top) surface deposits I can exploit near my base instead?

No.  Surface ores (lead, tin, gold and silver in addition to copper) will ALWAYS spawn nuggets on the ground.  If you don't see ore nuggets on the ground there will absolutely, positively be no surface ore.

[HugoCortell]

57 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

No.  Surface ores (lead, tin, gold and silver in addition to copper) will ALWAYS spawn nuggets on the ground.  If you don't see ore nuggets on the ground there will absolutely, positively be no surface ore.

Since I suck at prospecting, I suppose I'll do a long trek to try and find a bronze deposit. Thank you for the heads-up.

[Thorfinn]

2 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

If you don't see ore nuggets on the ground there will absolutely, positively be no surface ore.

In single-player. The context of this thread was originally multi-player, and there are lots of players who pick up nuggets but never dig out the surface vein. I think those are just lost. Once upon a time, I think there was a dowsing rod mod, but that might just be my imagination.

[Maelstrom]

On 5/10/2025 at 4:51 PM, HugoCortell said:

Since I suck at prospecting, I suppose I'll do a long trek to try and find a bronze deposit. Thank you for the heads-up.

Bronze is an alloy of copper with other metals.  There are three kinds of bronze in the game but you will need copper.  Copper is pretty common, just look for "Decent" or better readings on the prospectors pick results and dig down looking for copper deposits.  Higher readings only means copper will be more prevalent.  As an example, I demolished an entire steel pick from finding so many different deposits of copper from just one mineshaft.  I took home over 6 stacks of rich copper ore chunks, over 8 stacks of medium and about 3 or 4 stacks of poor only because I was avoiding it and only mining it if it was adjacent to medium or rich copper deposits.  A different part of my world has ultra rich sphalerite but poor copper and I've STILL mined out deposits of copper.

edit: Prior to your first pick, hammer and pro-pick, you need to either find surface nuggets and/or pan sand or gravel for your first 40 nuggets.

Edited May 12, 2025 by Maelstrom

[HugoCortell]

11 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Bronze is an alloy of copper with other metals.  There are three kinds of bronze in the game but you will need copper.  Copper is pretty common, just look for "Decent" or better readings on the prospectors pick results and dig down looking for copper deposits.  Higher readings only means copper will be more prevalent.  As an example, I demolished an entire steel pick from finding so many different deposits of copper from just one mineshaft.  I took home over 6 stacks of rich copper ore chunks, over 8 stacks of medium and about 3 or 4 stacks of poor only because I was avoiding it and only mining it if it was adjacent to medium or rich copper deposits.  A different part of my world has ultra rich sphalerite but poor copper and I've STILL mined out deposits of copper.

edit: Prior to your first pick, hammer and pro-pick, you need to either find surface nuggets and/or pan sand or gravel for your first 40 nuggets.

My bad, I meant to say copper (though my goal is to make bronze). My highest reading of Cassiterite within a day's travel of my base has been "very poor" and I failed to find any Malachite at all.

After reading in another post that going into caves and shafts is a death sentence unless you have good armour (I have no armour, and a very worn copper sword that I can't afford to replace), I decided to try digging straight down and prospecting using the proximity thing every X blocks. Half a pick later, the best I got was some useless quartz.

Assuming that I'm just unusually unlucky, I'll stick to using my metal tools as little as possible to conserve them until my farm produces sufficient food so that I can go on much longer expeditions in search for deposits.

[Maelstrom]

Yeah, digging in a vertical minecraft style of "let's dig here and eventually I'll find something" does not work, unless you want to end up with a lot of stones and no pick axes.  In your case, while you wait for food to grow, why not dig up a bunch of sand or gravel and pan for copper.  While it's a grind, it will get you a pick and hammer (or maybe a pro-pick and hammer since you have at least a bit of pick left) to go mining wherever you've found copper deposits.

[V1ncent]

Didn't think a three year-old topic would be dug up...

20 hours ago, HugoCortell said:

My bad, I meant to say copper (though my goal is to make bronze). My highest reading of Cassiterite within a day's travel of my base has been "very poor" and I failed to find any Malachite at all.

After reading in another post that going into caves and shafts is a death sentence unless you have good armour (I have no armour, and a very worn copper sword that I can't afford to replace), I decided to try digging straight down and prospecting using the proximity thing every X blocks. Half a pick later, the best I got was some useless quartz.

Assuming that I'm just unusually unlucky, I'll stick to using my metal tools as little as possible to conserve them until my farm produces sufficient food so that I can go on much longer expeditions in search for deposits.

If you are already into copper pro-pick, you'd be better off getting your hands on all the copper prospects first. As for bronze, just follow the existing Cassiterite and try further to see if there are better yields. Ore tends to expand tentacles from a central high yield. You do not need a lot of tin, as only around 10% of tin is in tin-bronze. Copper is still your priority before the iron stage. Do remember you need a bronze anvil to smith any iron tool, so skipping the copper anvil and going straight to a tin-bronze anvil is feasible.