Metal fate confirmed?

[MightySheep]

I've seen a ton of malachite veins, 1 chalcopyrite vein, never any gold though

I do feel like there is something weird going on with metal though because when I was in Tortuga I found about 3-4 iron veins per level all the way down to lvl 5, it was seriously annoying, not 1 tin or copper or silver or anything. It was just black ore / iron ochre / heavy earth and bloodstone on every single level.

[abt79]

... but the fact that it probes the level below means it's pretty much useless unless you plan to dig a minehole, which I really don't.
All I want is a way to see past cave walls

You can do that, by prospecting on ground over the cave.

Yes, but some caves twist and turn miles away from the cave entrance and it's nearly impossible to follow the path of the cave while aboveground

[barra]

Yes, but some caves twist and turn miles away from the cave entrance and it's nearly impossible to follow the path of the cave while aboveground

Use a mapping program that overlays the cave map. Or just keep hitting the wall every few tiles - even if it caves in it only does SHP damage, you can never die from it. I found my first Heavy Earth node at least a week before I ever saw rustroot - this was before the change in hardness too, I was doing it with a Q12 stone axe and a crappy bear cape I got using bone arrows and a q16 bow. Think of rustroot as intermediate prospecting, you don't need it right away but it helps.

[MagicManICT]

I didn't hit up mining right away in this world, but I never had an issue finding iron on day 2 or 3 of a world, and from my experience this world, I wouldn't have had that issue, either, if I had hit it hard and fast like in the past.

edit: also should have mentioned that the entire map is generated at one time. It's the reason it takes a day for a server reset. Generating that much procedural data takes a lot of time. The only "fate" in finding metal is in which direction you and/or your village chose to travel and which area to settle in. Pray to RNGesus before settling.

[abt79]

I didn't hit up mining right away in this world, but I never had an issue finding iron on day 2 or 3 of a world, and from my experience this world, I wouldn't have had that issue, either, if I had hit it hard and fast like in the past.

edit: also should have mentioned that the entire map is generated at one time. It's the reason it takes a day for a server reset. Generating that much procedural data takes a lot of time. The only "fate" in finding metal is in which direction you and/or your village chose to travel and which area to settle in. Pray to RNGesus before settling.

This seems to be my problem, I've scratched in caves for days to no avail

[Asgaroth22]

I didn't hit up mining right away in this world, but I never had an issue finding iron on day 2 or 3 of a world, and from my experience this world, I wouldn't have had that issue, either, if I had hit it hard and fast like in the past.

edit: also should have mentioned that the entire map is generated at one time. It's the reason it takes a day for a server reset. Generating that much procedural data takes a lot of time. The only "fate" in finding metal is in which direction you and/or your village chose to travel and which area to settle in. Pray to RNGesus before settling.

This seems to be my problem, I've scratched in caves for days to no avail

I've had the luck to settle near a cave, and the first wall tile i uncovered was iron ochre. This vein was so large that i extracted over 800 bars from it and i still use, though i have found a similar one on lv2. No Tin/Copper whatsoever.

On topic, tbh i never got an empty cast from iron ochre, always at least one bar, sometimes up to 9 bars.
Jorbtar made fate mechanic more unpredictable and mysterious than anything, but i don't think it applies to fate. Just good ol' rng.

[Granger]

So, I mined huge vein of iron ochre with max skills. On first rounds of smelting i got lots of cast. Like 4-6 cast iron per smelter. This lasted for 2-4 first rounds. But then cast iron per smelter started gradually drop, and now ½-1/3 of smelters are empty on almost every round and I dont get much cast over all. I did all this in short period of time <24h

I have seen similar effects. First smelter rounds looked good, after that the yields seemed to drop and empty smelters show up - my impression is that somehow the ore forgot the skills it was mined with.

Also we mined quite a bit by now, no copper found while minig, none at all.
We drown in everything else (oceans of tin, the iron ores, more silver and gold nodes than we'll ever be able to raise cattle to get goldbeater skins ever), but no copper.

Apart for that: a smelter or ore turning into pure stone just sucks and drains will to play.
Lower yield ores (be it type of ore, or skill used when mining) should at least fall back to giving nuggets or pebbles to avoid empty smelter depressions.