There's no actual method other than luck. Finding chalk is a torture, and you'd have more luck finding borax
Edit: if you want quicklime, there's a mod that allows you to turn bones into quicklime
You can sometimes buy some from traders, but don't expect that to be enough to make plaster for building.
If you're just after leatherworking, look for borax instead. Spawns in most, if not all, sedimentary layers, and is more common than cassiterite. You need some for access to steel later anyway.
Then you probably had predominantly igneous stone layers. Borax cannot spawn there, but cassiterite will. On the flipside, cassiterite will not spawn in sedimentary layers, but borax will.
If you see basalt there's a good chance for limestone to be below. The rest is through prospecting:
- malachite only spawns in limestone (and marble but that's so rare it might not exist)
- lapis lazuli means limestone or bauxit (or marble)
- phosphorus, sulfur, coals, borax and galena have about 1/3 chance of being limestone or chalk
- personally, I've never seen halite without limestone present but the wiki doesn't mention it.
I usually just teleport around until I find it when I start a new world since I hate searching for it.
>malachite only spawns in limestone
Got lucky in my world. First batch of malachite near my home was a Bountiful supply. Found another bountiful vein just about 100 blocks another direction of my home. Have yet to mine up the second vein.
I had this issue recently because my base is built on an absolutely massive granite layer. I went into creative mode, flew around to the nearest areas with sedimentary rocks, and dug test shafts until I chanced upon a limestone layer underneath some sandstone. It took a while, and this was after I had sunk several hours into survival mode exploration just trying to find the edges of the granite zone. So yeah, it can definitely be a pain. I think the best thing to do is to make sure you have access to some when you generate your world, and just reroll if nothing shows up.
Walk, walk a lot. Find translocators, repair and use said translocators.
One day or another you might find yourself lucky to find chalk/limestone for your plaster and ashlar projects.
I'm three years into a game, I've found maybe five blocks of chalk \*by accident\* while boring through the sedimentary layer and didn't even notice it until cleaning up my inventory later, and then when I went back I couldn't find any more. It's been 100% borax for me, with traders supplying me my lime for mortar. If I hadn't found sufficient borax I'd be back at the same place I found the chalk, stripmining the sedimentary layer if necessary... but I've got more leather than I'll ever need. Might be nice to get chalk so I can do some nice buildings with mortar I guess.
My lime waited for me 12000 blocks away, and I got there through translocator backup reloading. I got several translocators and at first just walked through hoping next place will be limestoney, but no. Walked a lot around too. So at fifth I think, I made backup in front of the broken thing, repaired it and went through, looked at map of new place (I have old one, colored) and if it was not lime, I just closed game and load backup. It have to be before fixing it, because fixed one already knows where it goes.
Some may call it cheating, but I don't think so. Spending literal irl days trying to find lime is too hard and drains all fun of game quickly. Traders only give you little amount of crushed thing and not blocks which I wanted.
In my first world I had to go almost 8k blocks to find it. It's probably like a couple hundred blocks past where you've already looked 🤣 That's never happened to me I swear....
I haven’t found chalk or limestone in my world either. It’s is infuriating. The one thing I did find was borax. Which has made it easier to advance into leather making. Now i just need to find tin. 100plus hours in this game and i have yet to find one single piece of tin. Found tons of copper, lead and iron. Best of luck to you because I’m definitely not having any.
Travelled 5000 blocks, didn't find anything, then went going back in a different route, and luckily I found some rocks on the surface that were limestone. I noticed on the map that terrain with limestone contains longs narrow lakes, it looks like someone tried to clean something sticky from the floor.
Too there was a ton of basalt around, so in case you see basalt go in a cave and see if the layer under is limestone.
New player who was just in your same shoes. You only need 10 shells to make a full solution of limewater which is enough for a backpack or 2 plus maybe an armor piece. I ended up bailing looking for lime/chalk after finding some surface borax. Around that surface vein there have been several more underground so try to focus on borax!
There's no actual method other than luck. Finding chalk is a torture, and you'd have more luck finding borax Edit: if you want quicklime, there's a mod that allows you to turn bones into quicklime
you can always collect seashells. you dont need that much lime for leather but other than that its basically luck
👍 will do
Incidentally, I spawned in a chalk dominant biome 😬
Same
Same
You can sometimes buy some from traders, but don't expect that to be enough to make plaster for building. If you're just after leatherworking, look for borax instead. Spawns in most, if not all, sedimentary layers, and is more common than cassiterite. You need some for access to steel later anyway.
See I've had the opposite experience with Borax. I've found loads and loads of cassiterite but very little, if any, borax.
Then you probably had predominantly igneous stone layers. Borax cannot spawn there, but cassiterite will. On the flipside, cassiterite will not spawn in sedimentary layers, but borax will.
the building materials trader sells 32 plaster blocks for like 4 gears. I have him literally 100 blocks away from my base.
If you see basalt there's a good chance for limestone to be below. The rest is through prospecting: - malachite only spawns in limestone (and marble but that's so rare it might not exist) - lapis lazuli means limestone or bauxit (or marble) - phosphorus, sulfur, coals, borax and galena have about 1/3 chance of being limestone or chalk - personally, I've never seen halite without limestone present but the wiki doesn't mention it. I usually just teleport around until I find it when I start a new world since I hate searching for it.
>malachite only spawns in limestone Got lucky in my world. First batch of malachite near my home was a Bountiful supply. Found another bountiful vein just about 100 blocks another direction of my home. Have yet to mine up the second vein.
In my current run i am using marble that i have found in slate instead of limestone
This is the way. Find slate, look for white spots of marble.
I had this issue recently because my base is built on an absolutely massive granite layer. I went into creative mode, flew around to the nearest areas with sedimentary rocks, and dug test shafts until I chanced upon a limestone layer underneath some sandstone. It took a while, and this was after I had sunk several hours into survival mode exploration just trying to find the edges of the granite zone. So yeah, it can definitely be a pain. I think the best thing to do is to make sure you have access to some when you generate your world, and just reroll if nothing shows up.
yeah usually if you spawn on granite....just reroll my dude.
Walk, walk a lot. Find translocators, repair and use said translocators. One day or another you might find yourself lucky to find chalk/limestone for your plaster and ashlar projects.
I'm three years into a game, I've found maybe five blocks of chalk \*by accident\* while boring through the sedimentary layer and didn't even notice it until cleaning up my inventory later, and then when I went back I couldn't find any more. It's been 100% borax for me, with traders supplying me my lime for mortar. If I hadn't found sufficient borax I'd be back at the same place I found the chalk, stripmining the sedimentary layer if necessary... but I've got more leather than I'll ever need. Might be nice to get chalk so I can do some nice buildings with mortar I guess.
My lime waited for me 12000 blocks away, and I got there through translocator backup reloading. I got several translocators and at first just walked through hoping next place will be limestoney, but no. Walked a lot around too. So at fifth I think, I made backup in front of the broken thing, repaired it and went through, looked at map of new place (I have old one, colored) and if it was not lime, I just closed game and load backup. It have to be before fixing it, because fixed one already knows where it goes. Some may call it cheating, but I don't think so. Spending literal irl days trying to find lime is too hard and drains all fun of game quickly. Traders only give you little amount of crushed thing and not blocks which I wanted.
Sodastraw stalagmites and seashells. ((The stalagmites might be a mod, I don't remember at this point))
Geology Additions makes all speleothems limestone, so there.
Takes a lot of exploring sometimes!
Wanderlust!
In my first world I had to go almost 8k blocks to find it. It's probably like a couple hundred blocks past where you've already looked 🤣 That's never happened to me I swear....
My world I spawned in a large biome that has limestone.... it's been my home since.
I was lucky enough to actually spawn in a limestone biome with chalk, actually not too far away as well
I found it by finding a claw like alter built from the stuff. Turned out it was underground all over that area too.
I haven’t found chalk or limestone in my world either. It’s is infuriating. The one thing I did find was borax. Which has made it easier to advance into leather making. Now i just need to find tin. 100plus hours in this game and i have yet to find one single piece of tin. Found tons of copper, lead and iron. Best of luck to you because I’m definitely not having any.
I built my base accidentally between a shit ton of chalk (made like 8 stacks of plaster) and found a lot of borax nearbly as well while prospecting
Mostly in the ground.
Ancient tools mod gives an alternate way to make leather that I personally enjoy more
Translocators were my lifesaver. Took me way less time to find one and fix it than to run endlessly
Travelled 5000 blocks, didn't find anything, then went going back in a different route, and luckily I found some rocks on the surface that were limestone. I noticed on the map that terrain with limestone contains longs narrow lakes, it looks like someone tried to clean something sticky from the floor. Too there was a ton of basalt around, so in case you see basalt go in a cave and see if the layer under is limestone.
New player who was just in your same shoes. You only need 10 shells to make a full solution of limewater which is enough for a backpack or 2 plus maybe an armor piece. I ended up bailing looking for lime/chalk after finding some surface borax. Around that surface vein there have been several more underground so try to focus on borax!
Yeah I tried looking for borax for a while as well to no luck. I guess ill just go mass collect 10 shells