LtGerbal

Thanks for the clarification. I probably wouldn't understand the code anyway.

I made a mistake in calculation I believe. I usually dig from Y 108 to Y 74, making it a total change of 34 blocks. Digging deeper was going to be my next step, but I was hesitant because at the current depth I was losing about 30% temporal stability per shaft dug. I'll focus on going deeper next and see what that nets me.

The 1000 blocks number comes from the in game handbook for prospecting. Screenshot attached.

I've put about 10 holes in the ground at this point going approximately 24 deep each spaced 12 apart and not gotten a single trace reading of hematite. Would you consider it worthwhile to start digging elsewhere? I based up on top of an endless plate of granite, so that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

Hello again. I have a ton of questions about the propick if anyone has any answers that may help. - What is area of the density search? The guide says 1000 blocks, but I don't know if that's a 100x100 square, a 10x10x10 cube, or a radius of 1000 blocks, if the area measured even is centered on the sample node. - Does the propick actually verify if there is ore in that chunk or does it just measure probability that it would be in that area based off of the generation criteria? I want to imagine its the former cause the latter just seems like a several hour gamble with potentially 0 payout and I feel like that'd just be poor design. - Does mining closer to the highest node in the sample areas help my chances of finding ore? I am working on an area with poor hematite (bad idea, I know, but I couldn't find much better) and my highest value was 2.13%. I dug around this sample node and so far have found nothing using the node search for the propick. My current strategy is digging a vertical hole, ore node searching every 6th block down between 30 and 40 blocks. I do this in a grid pattern skipping 12 blocks in between holes and connecting each vertical shaft with tunnels at the bottom and doing sampling in between the shafts. This is beginning to get tiresome and I want to know exactly how this works so I can actually find some damn iron and get on with the game.

Thank you for the comprehensive advice. Will definitely try my luck with this.

Hey folks. Newish player here, still below the 100hr mark. I've played a few saves and can reliably get to the copper age, but once it comes time to find tin and iron, I struggle. I find oodles of copper using the surface nuggets trick, but never properly figured out how to find ores where that trick doesn't apply. So far the only methods I've thought of are to guess and check for an asinine amount of time with the propick or just quarry an entire chunk. What do you guys do to find crucial ore? Any techniques and/or tricks to make it feel less like shooting blind?