How do I reasonably get Metal?

[MagicManICT]

The energy you burn up from that exploratory mining can be made up with a few hours questing. The number of double digit hunger reductions I get isn't even funny. I'll note I get a lot of 1-5%, too... Looks to be relative to how much the hunger bar is filled, I think, and bit of dedication to doing quests.

Exploratory mining is good advice. you're not nerfing your character any in the long term, but you are trading off some. With the early metal, you can get a pickaxe, meat grinder for sausages, plus more, and be a bigger contribution to your group (or yourself) than by waiting days more to push enough exploration for rustroot, and then there's no guarantee that you can reasonably get to the metal you found without cave ins or needing a significant increase in strength.

[Ysh]

I think this strategy of rustroot is more effective than strategy of poke and hope.

[Audiosmurf]

I think this strategy of rustroot is more effective than strategy of poke and hope.

To clarify, I'm not saying that skipping prospecting completely is a good plan, but as magicman says, even if you can prospect up some ore there's a fair chance you can't even mine it.

For someone who just wants metal and wants it now, which is what you want when you're a small early game group, locating a soft cave (10+% ticks) and mining every 5-10 tiles has gotten me extremely early metal every world since W8.

[Ysh]

I think this strategy of rustroot is more effective than strategy of poke and hope.

To clarify, I'm not saying that skipping prospecting completely is a good plan, but as magicman says, even if you can prospect up some ore there's a fair chance you can't even mine it.

For someone who just wants metal and wants it now, which is what you want when you're a small early game group, locating a soft cave (10+% ticks) and mining every 5-10 tiles has gotten me extremely early metal every world since W8.

Maybe I am just unlucky this world. In previous world it seem to me that metal is much more common and I can find it by probing cave wall easily. This world I spend some hours trying to do this before using rustroot and finding some metal very quickly. As far as problem of wall hardness, I prospected in area that I know is soft enough for me to mine. A kind of combination strategy maybe.

[Miss_Min]

Maybe I am just unlucky this world. In previous world it seem to me that metal is much more common and I can find it by probing cave wall easily.

Yes, you're not the first person to say this. I found metal easily last world (heavy earth and chalcopyrite), but this world it's all New!rocks and caveins. I will be doing some quests to try and sort out my hunger while this concussion heals.....

ETA: My neighbours have metal. They seem friendly so far, and in a few days will probably be in a position to trade if I can afford the price they want....

[MagicManICT]

World 7 I had two different ores day 1. I got lucky, and I was solo. Last couple of worlds, I've taken a few days to find metal in rock soft enough for a hermit to mine reliably. Results do vary. In any case, I still didn't have enough exploration to see rust root yet... at least not reliably.

[buzzardpl]

I'm noob, lazy player... solo.
I have found 3 Cinnabar boulder rocks in cave near my start. I chipped it (~100 units) and it looks like ore. I put it into smelter ! Need to wait for coal few days... to get quicksilver. Its not a hard metal, but still metal

[azrid]

You fell for the powergamer memes.
As a regular hermit player that likes to play the game as it was intended to, you should get your exploration score high enough so you can see rustroot.
Make a bunch of rustroot and start mapping your minerals around you. You can put flags on your map to remember where you explored before.

[ricky]

I'm noob, lazy player... solo.
I have found 3 Cinnabar boulder rocks in cave near my start. I chipped it (~100 units) and it looks like ore. I put it into smelter ! Need to wait for coal few days... to get quicksilver. Its not a hard metal, but still metal

Looks like the mercury poisoning has already set in.


RE:thread: both approaches are standard fare. rustroot helps you find ore, but as others have said, it might be impossible to reach that spot by cave, and mineholes are currently too expensive to lay down anywhere in the hopes of an 8 tile copper vein.