New player progression stop

[Sangii]

Hi! New player here. I have been really enjoying this mod and the challenge it presents. It is much more than just an arbitrary grind to extend the life. It has breathed new life into the game for me. I have managed to claw my way up to having a small house, hemp farm and a few chickens. I've gotten to the point where I would like to make my first windmill. I see it requires gold and redstone. So I start digging down and hit a rock I've never seen before. Hmmm. Goto the wiki and the forums and do some digging. I find that there are stratas/layers of rock (cool just like DF) that require higher types of picks than stone to get through. Ok go work myself up to an iron pick. I can dig down further but hit another layer. Ok there should be gold here so I can make the next pick to get down to the sweet sweet 16 layer. I do a little branch mining but I don't find anything. Hmm. Head back to the wiki and forums. Can't find anything.

So I am appealing for help as I don't know what to do from here. I am sure that it is something both easy and completely different that what I would expect to have to do. If some one could point me in the right direction or throw me a hint I would be much obliged.

[AmishGoat]

You need to go caving for diamond. Gold might work, but I've never tried using gold tools myself.
Edit: Sorry, misread, but the advice is still the same. Go caving, you can mine ores within strata you can't normally mine.

[FlowerChild]

Yup, and what I personally find to be the easiest approach, especially since you've mined down there already:

Start digging tunnels along the top of the strata layer you can't dig through. Listen for cave, water, and mob sounds, and dig towards them as it likely means there's a cave there that will likely take you into the deepest strata layer where you can find diamonds. Your iron pick will still be able to mine ores down there, just not the stone.

The MC world is lousy with caves, so it never takes too long to find one.

[ExpHP]

Gold can be found in the second strata, you just have to look hard. Try to intersect a cave; listen for when you hear monsters bobbling about, and dig towards them.

With respect to that, my advice is not to branch mine, but rather just dig straight until you hear noises. If you keep mining branches side by side, you won't cover nearly as much ground with your pick, and the time it will take to find a cave increases significantly.

[Sangii]

Ahh I knew it would be something I didn't think of that was lateral to my normal thinking. I'm so used to just branching mining out at the levels I need items at I didn't even think of the cave system. Thanks all. I'll be giving this a shot tonight.

[Six]

Good luck to you, look forward to hearing how it goes. Caving at that level can be quite.. interesting.

[ExpHP]

Ah, I just realized that you were planning to make a gold pick. Heh, don't do that. :P