False positives when prospecting?

[Taels]

I was prospecting and got an arrow pointing to ore, but when I took several more readings in that direction, they were all negative.

Then I tried several more spots nearby in other directions, just in case I was misreading the arrow, and they were all negative as well.

Is it possible the first reading was a false positive?

[TeckXKnight]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18450&hilit=Mining

[Sevenless]

Nope, those other readings were false negatives. That or the node is quite far away and your extract quality dropped so it doesn't scan that far anymore. Walk a good 30-40 tiles in the direction it pointed and start rescanning over there. No harm if you miss it, the extract scan radius is pretty large.

[Taels]

All the readings were from the same jar of rustroot extract. Can the quality change as it's used?

Thanks for the excellent guide, by the way.

[MagicManICT]

All the readings were from the same jar of rustroot extract. Can the quality change as it's used?

Nope. The readings can just be that random. Personally, I just like to know the direction and then I'll start mining that way until I run into it. Odds are, you'll likely run into something along the way, anyway.

[btaylor]

It might also be detecting a vein underneath you.