Sevenless' Prospecting Guide

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Sevenless' Prospecting Guide

Postby Sevenless » Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:35 pm

This is just a collection of what I've learned from gleanings on the forums + some personal experimenting. I added the info to the wiki as well. No pictures as of yet, may consider adding them at some point. Hopefully this helps, any further tips/information about the system would be appreciated.

Recent data on prospecting distance: Q24 extract prospected a node ~50 diagonal tiles away.

A brief explanation of metal, caves, and depth:

The world consists of at least 6 layers. The first which you'll all have access to is the surface, where all players start. Directly below the surface is the first level of the underground. Caves give you access to this level by creating caverns and tunnels in the ground connected to the surface. However, below that there is at least another 4 levels assuming the underground is built the same as in W4. The level below you can be accessed by building a minehole anywhere on your current level. If you don't have a cave, you can do this on the surface to access lvl 1 of the underground world.

Many new players seem to think you must have a metal node to build a minehole, this is untrue. Mineholes can be built anywhere you can pave a 3x3 square for them. However, if you build a minehole where there is no metal, you will have to snake (a pattern of mining that doesn't require supports) to find metal. This is a horrendously slow process if you don't have high strength and/or good tools. Both of which won't be available to a beginning player.

Metal veins appear randomly in any of the 5 underground layers. They are spawned independently of stone quality and hardness of rock. As such, finding a soft high quality metal node is rare since it takes the overlap of 3 randomly distributed factors. There is no terrain types that are best for prospecting on the surface due to the randomness of how ore is located in the world. The only thing that is guaranteed is that hardness and stone quality go up as you descend in levels. Ore quality is equal to the stone quality of the stone that it is found in. It's also worth noting that metal nodes (at least of tin, copper and iron) tend to be very large. 2000 tiles in total isn't uncommon. Although preferable to build just off to the side of the vein and mine into it, you won't knock out very much of the total vein by building a minehole directly ontop of it if you so wish.

Now that my foreword is done, on to the guide itself:

The prospecting system is at the very least obtuse, and it can quite easily seem broken/bugged to people who are new to prospecting.

When you prospect, you scan an area of ground beneath you for the presence of a metal node. The higher the quality of rustroot extract you use, the more area it will scan. The formula seems to have been changed within recent worlds and is currently unknown, but Q20-30 has found an ore node more than 100 tiles away for me. It is unknown if any skills or attributes are involved in this process.

In preparation for prospecting, you'll want to collect a fairly large amount of rustroot. At least 20 is a good start as it will let you scan around a fair bit with some leftover in case you find a node signal to chase. The quality of extract seems to be dependent on the quality of the root and jar. It is unknown if any skills affect it, and it appears to ignore water quality.

When you scan, if you are standing on an ore vein, it will tell you the ore type that is below you. The next best situation is if there's an ore vein in scanning range, in which case it will give you a dowsing direction to follow. However, when scanning there is a chance that you will fail to detect ore whether or not it is present within scanning range. It seems that once you have failed, a small area (5x5?) around you will no longer give positive readings. If you have gotten on track of a node and fail, move ~5 tiles before scanning again to pick up on the node again. How exactly this failure mechanism works is unknown.

Ender's client is highly suggested for the "show dowsing direction" option that has been added in. This gives a boxed window that will tell you the direction the ore node was in, and unlike the pie slice, it will not fade unless you close it. This allows you a set reference point if you have to leave the area or are trying to get new readings but fail.

Image

When reading Enders dowsing direction information, make sure to note this game is isometric. The center top of your screen is North West, and the top right corner is actually true North. This is annoying because the 0 degree is not based isometrically.

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The delta number given doesn't appear to have any bearing on the direction, it may be related to the width of the pie slice. The dial tracks degrees as positive spinning counter clockwise, and negative spinning clockwise. Enders will occasionally give numbers like 203 degrees. If you want the negative number equivalent, simply subtract 360 from the reading. Either way, the pie slice tracking appears to be accurate if you make sure to be paying attention when each prospect attempt finishes.

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Last edited by Sevenless on Sat May 07, 2011 2:44 am, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Bugssy » Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:51 pm

Nice guide! Pics would be good too :D
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Sevenless » Wed Apr 13, 2011 11:56 pm

Bugssy wrote:Nice guide! Pics would be good too :D


I agree about pics, I'll be working up some pics for it once I finish mining this tunnel to my node. I'll also be able to get an actual reading on how far away that node was. I swear I was able to detect it from 200 tiles away or something weird like that.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby MagicManICT » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:31 am

There's a lot of outdated information still searchable in the "How do I?" forum that brings up the old w3 and earlier mining stuff. (True of quite a few other, older topics that are defunct, too.) The information on the wiki is current, though.


From the wiki:

[quote="Ring of Brodgar wiki: Mine Hole"]
Rustroot Extract is required to determine the location of an ore vein, but mines may be built anywhere. If you don't have access to rustroot, building a mine may just take more underground labour before it digs up any ore. [quote]

Good guide. Maybe it will get linked into the "how to" post.

edit: Well, I was just going to link this thread in the wiki, but I see the guide is already posted there in full. Quick work, Sevenless!
Second edit: Maybe rewording the mine hole page might make it a bit clearer.
Third edit: Ok, so I'll just clean the page up some, add in some missing links, and put a bit of missing information in.
Last edited by MagicManICT on Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Sevenless » Thu Apr 14, 2011 1:40 am

MagicManICT wrote:There's a lot of outdated information still searchable in the "How do I?" forum that brings up the old w3 and earlier mining stuff. (True of quite a few other, older topics that are defunct, too.) The information on the wiki is current, though.


From the wiki:

Ring of Brodgar wiki wrote:Rustroot Extract is required to determine the location of an ore vein, but mines may be built anywhere. If you don't have access to rustroot, building a mine may just take more underground labour before it digs up any ore.

Good guide. Maybe it will get linked into the "how to" post.

edit: Well, I was just going to link this thread in the wiki, but I see the guide is already posted there in full. Quick work, Sevenless!
Second edit: Maybe rewording the mine hole page might make it a bit clearer.


Pretty sure I was the one who edited the rustroot page actually XD I'm fond of messing with the wiki when servers are down.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby a_Ficus » Thu Apr 14, 2011 2:20 am

Thank you for posting this. One quick question:
Ender's client is highly suggested for the "show dowsing direction" option that has been added in. This gives a boxed window that will tell you the direction the ore node was in, and unlike the pie slice, it will not fade unless you close it. This allows you a set reference point if you have to leave the area or are trying to get new readings but fail.

I don't get this box. Do I have to turn something on, or should it pop up automatically?

EDIT - Yes, I am using Ender's client.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Iolith » Thu Apr 14, 2011 3:38 am

Sevenless wrote:Many new players seem to think you must have a metal node to build a minehole, this is untrue. Mineholes can be built anywhere you can pave a 4x4 square for them.


even tho this is a minor detail I thought I should correct you on this.... a Minehole perfetly fits a 3x3 paved area

For the rest I bet it's going to help quite a few
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Sevenless » Thu Apr 14, 2011 4:49 am

Iolith wrote:
Sevenless wrote:Many new players seem to think you must have a metal node to build a minehole, this is untrue. Mineholes can be built anywhere you can pave a 4x4 square for them.


even tho this is a minor detail I thought I should correct you on this.... a Minehole perfetly fits a 3x3 paved area

For the rest I bet it's going to help quite a few


>.> Hmm, I'll edit that. For some reason I thought it was like the log cabin and not like a chicken coop.

Thank you for posting this. One quick question:

Ender's client is highly suggested for the "show dowsing direction" option that has been added in. This gives a boxed window that will tell you the direction the ore node was in, and unlike the pie slice, it will not fade unless you close it. This allows you a set reference point if you have to leave the area or are trying to get new readings but fail.


I don't get this box. Do I have to turn something on, or should it pop up automatically?

EDIT - Yes, I am using Ender's client.


The checkbox option appears in the first panel of the options menu second from the bottom. If you still don't have it, try updating your enders client if you haven't in a while. I believe it's present in both x32 and x64 versions.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Bugssy » Thu Apr 14, 2011 5:17 am

wiki wrote:the extract scans a ((Q-10) * 5) x ((Q-10) * 5) tile area around you


Is this not true anymore? The correct formula would make prospecting MUCH easier.
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Re: Prospecting Guide

Postby Grable » Thu Apr 14, 2011 7:21 am

Good guide but needs pics :)
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