Gregtech veins - How to find them?

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madnewmy

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Jul 29, 2019
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Soooo, I have been finnaly starting bronze age in gregtech and now, I am stuck to find 2 diamonds for a macerator...

Anyone has tips to find those required diamonds? I can't seem to find them by exploring lower caves system, I bet there is a trick :p

Oh and another question: do tin (and casserite) vein only spawn over 70? I can't find any tin vein underground either...

Thanks
 

madnewmy

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Jul 29, 2019
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It's cool. :p
I have no idea how stock Gregtech veins work.
I will probably start it tmrw :p i got swarmed by school work in the past few days xd

From what I understand, they spawn in huge chunk in specific y levels. That's all I understand so far :p
 

Blastedsura

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Jul 29, 2019
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So far I've only found them mixed with huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge coal veins. Mostly coal, but there were quite a lot of diamonds too, considering the veins are about 3x3 chunks in size :p
 

madnewmy

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So far I've only found them mixed with huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge coal veins. Mostly coal, but there were quite a lot of diamonds too, considering the veins are about 3x3 chunks in size :p
Do they spawn with surface coal veins? Ive found a few of them but didnt see diamonds D:
 

Pyure

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Aug 14, 2013
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In GT5+, diamonds will typically spawn in giant graphite mines at low depth (around 20)

Tin/Cassiterite do only spawn at high elevation as you mentioned. Its easiest to find simply by wandering near high hills with exposed rock faces: you can see veins of it. (although it *is* faint so you need to look pretty carefully)

You'll find something like 10 magnetite veins for every tin vein you find, sadly.
 
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madnewmy

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Jul 29, 2019
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Gtech for MC 1.7?
Greg mentioned something about finding 'tiny diamond ore' first- as the large graphite seams require diamond grade or better to mine.
(I think the initial diamond gem is about 6x rarer than vanilla)
This doesn't rule out looting temples/villagers ect...
Already got tier 3 tools so i should be able to mine it :p

Are they some in looting chest from the dungeon mod enabled? Might look for those
 

abculatter_2

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Jul 29, 2019
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Small diamond veins spawn at y level 10 and below. For your first macerator, this is definitely your best bet.
Also, since you're using beyond reality, I highly recommend you make an aqua shard pickaxe for the small veins. GT thaumium pickaxe also works, but isn't as effective. These both give you fortune, which while it doesn't work on the normal ores, the small ores give significantly more yield.
I also recommend getting the Thaumcraft metal transmutation researches. If you haven't already, you may find a few nice surprises.
 

asb3pe

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Jul 29, 2019
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I'm playing BeyondReality as well with GT, and I'm already lost. I need a good beginner's guide or something. Right now I have a good source of coal and spruce wood, and I've got my food supply covered thanks to a tiny little pond that spawns squid (and their delicious Pam's Harvest calamari) like you wouldn't believe. I know I'm supposed to get to the Bronze age with steam power, but yeah, that tin and copper... I spawned in a Spruce Forest way up at elevation 80-90 with exposed mountainsides all over the place, but I think I've only found 4 or 5 small tin and small copper ores so far and I've explored all the exposed faces carefully. I doubt I missed any tin. So now what? Just start digging randomly into the mountains? What is my best strategy to get enough tin and copper to be able to make bronze ingots? Should I dig (go vertical), or should I expand my exploration of the terrain out even further (stay horizontal)?

Also, any other tips for a beginner are appreciated. What is the first tools I should make? The first machine? I built an AE Quartz Grindstone like I always used to do right away... but it's useless and sitting idle. Grinding coal ore gives me coal dust which doesn't seem to have any use right now. I smelted all my coal ore, one coal gives 8 coal in a furnace, so I net 56 coal for every stack of coal ore. And what is this "Lignite Coal Ore" (or similar)? What do I do with that? NEI doesn't show anything? I also found a bit of "Bismuth" ore, no idea what that's used for. And at the very top of a mountain (y=100+) I found a huge vein of... hmmm... Tetrahedrite maybe? Not sure what that is used for either. The wiki page for GT oregen is not up to date for all the version 5, sadly. But it does say this:
"In newer versions, when Tetrahedrite Ore is Macerated or smashed with a Hammer, it returns Tetrahedrite Dust. This dust is functionally equivalent to Copper Dust. When smelted straight, Tetrahedrite Ore returns Copper Ingots.
Tetrahedrite Ore can be mined with an Iron Pickaxe or better."

If that still applies, then once I find iron and figure out how to make an iron pickaxe, I guess I'll have plenty of copper! I hope I don't need bronze to make an iron pickaxe, but I bet that's certainly gonna be the case... sigh
 
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madnewmy

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Jul 29, 2019
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Explore caves and ravines for copper and explore mountains for tin. Found my tin vein at arouns 1k blocks from my base, but you only need one decent size one at first (maybe 3 stacks of tin ore max)

Try not to process them. I actually had enough tin (missing a few copper) from small veins to make a macerator and a coal generator

Then slowly but surely double everything. I was doing:

Copper,tin and iron ore: macerate, smelt for 10 nuggets

Other "ores" : macerate (doubles but smelts into 3 nugget) then hammer and smelt

After, use the mortar to make dust and 3 copper + 1 tin DUST = 3 bronze dust. Do this until you have access to induction smelter thingy doodler. This out eats your steam (I have 4 solar and 3 coal for steam prod)

I went in this order:
Macerator and coal boiler
Solar
Compressor (block of restone for SFM)
2nd macerator and SFM system and a drum
Forge hammer and 2nd coal boiler
3 more solar
Induction smelter
3rd macerator
Steam furnace
Another coal boiler

Then i made the blast furnace
 

asb3pe

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Jul 29, 2019
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Thanks madnewmy, for the tips. I explored the Tetrahedrite vein again, and lo and behold - there's copper in there too! Hidden inside as I dug thru it, copper ore mixed in with other ores, and plenty of it (almost a full stack). So now I just need to find tin or Cassiterite using the same method, but I have renewed confidence now that I found copper fairly easily.
 

madnewmy

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Jul 29, 2019
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Thanks madnewmy, for the tips. I explored the Tetrahedrite vein again, and lo and behold - there's copper in there too! Hidden inside as I dug thru it, copper ore mixed in with other ores, and plenty of it (almost a full stack). So now I just need to find tin or Cassiterite using the same method, but I have renewed confidence now that I found copper fairly easily.
That hardest part of a macerator is the diamond ore vein :p