by
Zourin
» 01 Nov 2014, 08:06
Using prospecting is a matter of echolocation.
Set up a large radius, say, 20 blocks, and wander around pinging the area until you get a hit.
Now, this could be 20 blocks in any direction, including straight down. Reduce your prospecting radius to, say, 18, and wander in a small circle from the initial position, to get an idea of which direction it may be pinging from.
If you get a hit in every direction, odds are, the vein is below you. You can then continue to prospect in shorter distances to figure out about how far below you it is, to see if it's close enough to the surface to warrant digging. There's no harm in digging up dirt to get to metal ores, since low-grade dirt is good for terraforming.
Otherwise, keep pinging until you either come up on a surface/near surface vein or give up and pick up a game that isn't a bad second-job.