PC The Iron shortage is real in A18

Ghostlight

Ghostlight

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So stone boulders no longer give ores or nitrate. I need to find an Iron surface node (and the few blocks right below it) for my Iron, same for Nitrate, Lead and Coal. Thing is, those surface nodes (specially the Iron) seem overly scarce. I've seen 3 in total after 4 hours play. Having real issues getting the amount of Iron I'm used to (and need) with the new build.

Am I missing a better early game Iron source?

 
It took me half a day to find a boulder. I scrounged together 5 rocks off the ground and made a shovel. Dug up the gravel by the side of the road to get rocks.

Iron nodes seem to be laying around. Ran into a few of them before I found a boulder.

 
Right, the surface boulders point out some of the veins but not nearly all, that hasn't changed from A17.

 
So stone boulders no longer give ores or nitrate. I need to find an Iron surface node (and the few blocks right below it) for my Iron, same for Nitrate, Lead and Coal. Thing is, those surface nodes (specially the Iron) seem overly scarce. I've seen 3 in total after 4 hours play. Having real issues getting the amount of Iron I'm used to (and need) with the new build.
Am I missing a better early game Iron source?
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Stay off the roads and travel through the spaces and you'll find loads of them. Go mine cars for metal too.

 
Iron shortage? I take all the iron out of each POI I go through and I'm absolutely swimming in Iron. Caveat: I'm playing on max player block damage.

 
I chased down a few un-bouldered gravel patches before I found an iron vein outside Diersville, it's f'in massive, I lit up god mode to get top-end gear to mine it out, see how big it really is, and I give up, it just goes on and on and on. First vein I hit, you do have to chase every least little fibril and seam at times, some of them look paper-thin, even missable until you know what you're looking for, but some judicious shovel use before giving up helps a lot.

Here's what the mining face looks like now, I have taken thousands of iron out of here already and the face is bigger than ever.

Screenshot from 2019-10-07 21-04-03.jpg

 
I chased down a few un-bouldered gravel patches before I found an iron vein outside Diersville, it's f'in massive, I lit up god mode to get top-end gear to mine it out, see how big it really is, and I give up, it just goes on and on and on. First vein I hit, you do have to chase every least little fibril and seam at times, some of them look paper-thin, even missable until you know what you're looking for, but some judicious shovel use before giving up helps a lot.
Here's what the mining face looks like now, I have taken thousands of iron out of here already and the face is bigger than ever.

View attachment 29332
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Just watch the size of the cavern or put in some support pillars, I got a crazy triple mine that had 3 ores in it and the roof fell in :) I almost got rekt from avalanche.

 
Ok am I doing this wrong? I have NEVER built a mine in this game despite being the group's miner - and I never want to be forced to do so either. Surface boulders have always been the better choice. So now when I find an Iron node, I mine it and that exposes precisely 3 blocks immediately underneath that contain further Iron. After that, it's only stone or dirt underneath so I walk away. Should I keep digging? How far? As I say I have no interest in digging actual mines. I prefer the experience of exploring while flitting from boulder to boulder.

 
Just one boulder and underneath have given me 2k raw iron in one night. With a iron pick and 2 levels in 69er and yield.

Its still not mined out

When running round, spot a resource boulder ---- mark it on the map . Mine it later.

 
Collapse those iron pillars in some PoIs (I'm sure you can find more examples, like the grain silo in one of the barn PoIs) and collect the goods afterwards. Destruction for fun and profit!

 
I'm leaving behind all of the resources nodes for later. Marked a few on my map to just be sure i have everything if i ever start digging. I will need a few points into Miner 69'er, as well as Mother Load for that. Finished with the first HN, so i'll most likely push into that idea.

 
Can one still mine potasium nitrate? Is there a particular biome I should be searching for Nitrate in? I know I can get it from some other sources, but Id like to mine it in mass.

 
Mining is the easiest its ever been in this game.

There is no need to ever dig down to base level searching for veins to mine.

Every single node I have mined so far has turned out having 3 different ore types.

Currently have 2 mines going

Coal, Iron, Lead

Nitrate, Lead, Iron

Mined in excess of 6k of each and have barely scratched what is in them.

Lead is super abundant, came across one chunk in the desert that had 5 lead and a shale node all really close .

 
Ok am I doing this wrong? I have NEVER built a mine in this game despite being the group's miner - and I never want to be forced to do so either. Surface boulders have always been the better choice. So now when I find an Iron node, I mine it and that exposes precisely 3 blocks immediately underneath that contain further Iron. After that, it's only stone or dirt underneath so I walk away. Should I keep digging? How far? As I say I have no interest in digging actual mines. I prefer the experience of exploring while flitting from boulder to boulder.
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One thing I have noticed is that sometimes the clue that something is ore is either very subtle, or maybe absent. I've gotten into the habit of hitting all exposed faces with my pick to see which is the x/600 that ore is, as compared to the x/200 for dirt or x/500 for rock. If you see x/600 and hear a clang sound it's ore, even if it might look like dirt. On a nitrate deposit this showed no nitrate immediately under the boulder and top surface vein, until I dug down 1 more layer of dirt, and then I found the vein stretching down.

Like others have said, there's usually a heck of a lot of resource under the surface, but yes, you have to mine. I usually throw up a quick wood frame wall around the resource poi and then I have some warning if I get company. And unless you fortify it, mining at night so close to the surface is like a zombie magnet.

 
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