Just one more Ore

I'm sure a lot of us have a habit of going into the crust of the planets we visit, sometimes unprepared as we search the windy, cavernous depths. I'm a little bit of a gambler myself, I'll scout out the planet surface saying to myself "I'm sure there is a village over this next hill." and would mentally say this over each hill. Likewise, as I go into the caves, I would dig down further and further, collecting ore, pixels, and occasional randomly generated dungeon loots. I would keep telling myself to go deeper and find more, I would almost never "quit while I'm ahead." Saving and exiting, and usually the only reason I end up on the surface is cause a hostile monster pounced on me in darkness after i JUST ran out of all my torches. So how many people remember to quit while their ahead and return to the surface at regular intervals, so as to not waste a good chunk of pixel?

 

I always have a stack of coal and wood on me

and i usually just dig down 8)


terraria habit

 

never played Terraria, but I share this habit, dig straight down until I hit a cave, splunk to the bottom of it, and continue down further, however eventually i reach a point of no return, a massive cavern, USUALLY I fall in it after disturbing some sand, then I'm like "well guess i'm not going back the way I came" *keeps digging downward*

 

Yea

then I just jump into the core and im like

I HAD A GOOD RUN, ITS TIME TO GO HOME.

*dies*

idc about pixels cause i usually get a ton of extra ores and i just refine them all

 

well early on pixels are somewhat tough, but i supposeing sector X, pixels are negelectable as you can just refine gold or something(forget which) for 100 pixels each ore... which obviously adds up pretty quickly

 

Last time I seriously played I had no idea coal could be crafted from wood, and I knew coal was my only ship's fuel source for Tier I, thus resulting in me being reluctant to craft torches and being reluctant to explore the dark depths. All i did was tunnel around the surface, avoiding the existing caves, in order to collect ores at a snail's pace while not having to bother with laggy combat.

Waiting for the patch to finally do some proper playing.

 

You really missed out, Terraria is awesome.

 

I usually dig straight down for a while, and then I put my cursor at my char's nose (maybe a littler further away and slightly up). This way, I dig a sloping 45 degree tunnel upwards without having to adjust anything. It's boring, but it makes for effortless tunnelbuilding that can then be revisited, lighted, and branched off.

 

My mining style means I take forever to collect anything decent. I build my tunnels across the map in a 'snake' style building a cobblestone brick floor with cobblestone or packed dirt walls, lighting the way as I go. When I hit a cavern I tend to close off any exits with a block type not normally found in that area of the map. I then check the rest of the cave and hollow it out to an obviously man made shape. I again replace floors and walls and light it up.

This does mean that I always know where I have been, and I have plenty of space for expansion, but it also means slow progress!

 

I fluctuate between (possibly) too cautious and hopelessly reckless playing. Yes, I play bipolar!

 

I think I read somewhere on reddit that if you bring a chair in a cave and sit in it you're able to teleport out of there. Not sure if that's true though.

 

I've heard that if you destroy the background blocks underground you can teleport out, but haven't tried it yet.

 

Not quite Mr Spoon, chairs allow you to jump a very short distance into the chair you've placed (or one you find) but it can go through walls.

I'm entirely haphazard when I mine, snaking down through the easiest material; dirt or sand. I avoid caverns as they're "dangerous" and I hardly ever use torches since a got the lantern on a stick. Then I usually save and quit when I've gone too deep to shortcut back to my ship. I probably miss loads of ore but I get enough and I know there are chests and things in the caverns but mining is unthinking therapy for me, exploring mainly takes place on the surface or just below.

 

You can destroy background blocks and teleport out, but only when the background shows the sky. Another trick is to destroy the background in pools of water/acid to allow it to drain into the background.

 

You can only TP out of holes that are considered "above ground". Just look at the background through the hole... if it is a cave background, then no TP. If it is the above ground background, then you can TP. You can also just save and quit, then re-enter the game. This is what I do on my 4-5 core mining trips to gather ore and materials.

 

I almost never have less that 100 torches (having less that 100 is the trigger for me to build 500 more), I always have the best armor at tier (Step one of a new sector is collect 127 bars of the "new" ore (40 for the new blueprint so I can skip the non-coal version), I have roughly as many bandages as torches... the biggest thread I find is lava and extreame cold.. and even the cold can be avoided. While looking for ore on a planet with creatures tough enough to kill me I just tunnel through solid dirt and avoid the pre-dug areas. Usually, I'll collect all the bars i need for the new armor in my first mining excursion on a planet of the proper threat level.

 

Pretty much sums up my play-style exactly I do some pretty serious mining, so I've never had problems having enough of any resource. And doing Save & Quit makes soooooo much more sense than jumping into lava at the bottom of a world.

 

I usually reach the magma core at some point or another

To save time I usually suicide since I never carry more than 2k pixels

Besides my ores usually more than make up for what I lose

 

I just dig down until I'm satisfied with the amount of the ore that I have or until my backpack is full and I cannot grab any more loot... or just until I get bored with the underground.
In any case I just go back the way I came down there in the first place, it's never boring for me =P

 

Generally my mining consists of me going along the surface of the world. If I find a cave entrance, I go in it until I hit the bottom. Look around for another nearby cave with my flashlight / light-producing gun and dig into that cave. Once I can't find another one nearby I leave. Usually doesn't take me too far down, but in the cases that it does, I usually just dig my way up if I can't remember where I came in at.