Would any of you be willing to trade 15 of your Refined Emerald for 20 Refined Ruby? I’m not having great luck finding Emerald myself, and I’m wanting that efficient hammer. o.o
Rubies are like 10x more common than emeralds
I don’t know the actual ratio. I feel 10x might be pushing it though. What would be a good ratio for trade?
Everyone has been saying that diamonds are extremely common, but I haven’t seen many people with diamond tools or weapons lately.
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Just gonna interject here that I’ve not mined a single gem in months 
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According to the distribution, diamond is about 4-5x as common as ruby.
It doesn’t get used much because A: Andoweem is way off the ringworlds. B: Diamond grapple is a hookshot. C: Diamond hammer has no particularly special properties that I am aware of.
As for emeralds, personal experience suggests that they are AT LEAST 5x less common than rubies, even at their distribution layers (which are not omnipresent, unlike rubies very low layers). You’ll be lucky to come out with better than an emerald a minute even at a good mining location if it’s not the very first time anyone has been there in probably a week (IMO resources seem to regen much more slowly or in lower quantities if you only harvest that type from an area and don’t strip-mine everything).
Yes, I do have a full stack of emerald hammers in my basement. No, they aren’t for sale.
My diamond hammers break 3 blocks horizontally in one hit (most of the time) sometimes 2 hits. I can gather more blocks in one hour with 2 diamond hammers than I can with 2 emerald hammers. Which is why I couldn’t understand why nobody else is using them. Of course all of my mining appropriate skills are maxed to get the one hit break, but still. I tried the emerald hammer thing and eventually discovered the diamond hammer got me more in the end.
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The thing is, every time I have went in search of Diamond, I found it very rarely. I find it hard to believe that Diamond is more common than Ruby when I always find so much more Ruby. >.<
Is Diamond really more efficient for mining blocks overall? The Hammer Gradation testing didn’t talk about that. :o
Today I spent some time mining at Andoweem, and I found about 14 rough diamonds; the rest of the haul was about 150+ gold ore, less than 50 silver, 9 or 10 titanium and a mix of about 400 soft and medium coal. I mostly ignored iron and copper that run, but still grabbed about 90 copper. For reference, I went through 1 silver alloy hammer, and about 5 copper hammers, so I didn’t mine that much (I have 10+10% durability damage reduction only)
In comparison to when I’ve been looking for other gems, I found diamonds more frequently than when I’ve looked for rubies and topazes. But in every single occasion, I’ve consistently found less titanium than gems.
Perhaps I’ve been unlucky with ruby, but both looking in caves at the known depths of occurrence and also attempting to strip mine, the frequency has not been as common as I would be led to believe from people’s comments. I can’t say I’ve mined looking for gems enough to make a well informed opinion in regards to gems though.
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There are times where I strip mine for diamonds and find very little. But yesterday I mined for 2 hours and found 313 rough diamonds (best run ever) You win some and you lose some. But when it comes to gems? Diamonds are my choice. I was thinking of doing an episode on the ins and outs of diamond mining.
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313 in 2 hours? Incredible. You strip mine for them, though? Rather than caving? Is it more efficient BECAUSE you’re using Diamond Hammers?
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Absolutely, much much more efficient. Plus I get tons of exp through rock mining and refining.
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Also, what level specifically do you strip mine on?
10 blocks up from the absolute bottom. I have a prime spot which I’m about to open a public portal to, for everyone to enjoy.
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diamond I mostly find at 25 ish - you’ll need to strip mine for bigger numbers; rubies - well, strip mining not so easy cause of topography but they spawn on cave walls like crazy so you dont even need to dig in rock that much;
as for usefulness of hammers - well, I dont use diamond hammers cause I dont do strip mining; so properties of hammers are there for different styles and whats good for one is not good for another
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are diamonds only from andoween
Yes.
A post that will help you out. 
Your absolutely right. And I love boundless even more because of it. Everybody has a hammer that works best for their style.
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Yes, when I was looking for rubies I found it very awkward to strip mine because of the way caves occur in Vulpto.
What approach do you take to strip mining? I will usually make a continuous tunnel with branches every 2 blocks, but also mining upwards on the intersection of each of those branches. I guess with a 3 block horizontal break, you can do things quite differently?
What I do looks a bit like this:
That’s very nice of you to do, do drop us some info when it’s all set up 
Also, this might be relevant about mining for rubies: Post Your Screenshots! - #227 by Spoygg (@Spoygg’s ruby highway)
Yeah, vulpto caving at lava level is pretty patchy so it’s a bit hard to do proper strip mining. From my highway it might be easier because you have a starting point. I have freed up 37 plots at the beginning 
so all the plots around them are exposed.
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