Article

Detecting an x-rayer in caves: the test that replaces the ore counter

The "ore per 100 blocks broken" ratio collapses underground, as we have already seen: an honest explorer picking up ore that is already exposed produces exactly the same signature as an x-rayer. That does not mean nothing can be checked in caves anymore — it means you have to ask a different question, and ask it block by block rather than as an average.

Updated 5 September 2026

The question that replaces the ratio

Counting is useless until you have answered a narrower question, asked for each ore taken individually:

The question that settles it

At the moment this block was broken, was it already touching a void nobody had ever opened?

If yes, any player passing by could see it without digging. If no, either the player dug blind and stumbled onto it by chance, or they knew it was there before reaching it.

What actually makes a block visible

The nuance that makes this question worthwhile — and more reliable than a quick glance at the map — fits in one sentence: an adjacent void proves nothing if it was dug open itself. A passage opened by a player (the suspect or someone else) looks like a natural cavity without being one: nobody could have seen through it before that passage existed.

A — Seen. One of the block's six faces already touched a cavity nobody had ever opened. Anyone passing by could have seen it without digging.

B — Blind. The block was surrounded by solid stone — or by a passage someone dug open since. Nothing made it visible short of digging blind or already knowing it was there.

Stone Never-opened cavity Ore

Answering correctly therefore requires two things at once: looking at the actual state of the terrain around the block at the moment it broke, and checking in the logs that this neighbour was never touched by anyone, before or after. A neighbour with a history — even a recent one, even one caused by a different player weeks later — no longer proves anything about what naturally existed at that spot.

The vein trap

Applying this test block by block backfires if you stop there: a perfectly honest cave explorer who spots an exposed diamond on a wall will naturally keep digging the rest of that same vein, following the solid stone to collect the blocks right next to it. Those blocks were not individually visible — but that is not blind targeting, it is the logical continuation of a discovery already made.

The right scale to judge, then, is not the isolated block but the whole vein: as soon as one of its blocks was seen, continuing to mine the rest is no longer a signal on its own.

Top vein. The first block touched a never-opened cavity: the player could have seen it, then naturally followed the rest of the vein by digging alongside it. None of the three is a signal on its own.

Bottom vein. None of the three blocks ever touched a pre-existing void. The player either had to dig blind until stumbling onto them, or already knew they were there.

How to check this by hand with CoreProtect

On an isolated case, the manual method is still workable. Note the coordinates of an ore that catches your attention, then:

/co inspect

Click the block itself, then each of its six faces. Two questions to settle for every neighbour:

Is it air, in the world's current state? If not (solid stone), it is not a cavity and the test stops there for that face.
Does this neighbour have any history at all? A single log entry at that spot — even a player who placed then broke a block weeks after the fact — invalidates that neighbour as proof of a natural cavity.

The block is "seen" as soon as a single one of its six faces passes both tests. To map out the whole vein, widen the inspected area:

/co lookup a:-block r:8 t:7d

Check your retention before concluding

If a neighbour's CoreProtect history has been purged by your configured retention, you can no longer know whether it was touched — the absence of a log entry does not mean "never dug," it means "unknown." On a short retention, this method becomes less reliable on old ore, not more permissive.

The honest limits of this signal

A single blind block proves nothing. An ordinary miner tunnelling through virgin stone is blind by construction on every block — this test only makes sense applied to a session that claims to be a cave traversal, not ordinary strip-mining.
The signal is helpless against a cheater who covers their tracks. A method relying on neighbours' history only sees what the logs recorded, within the configured retention window.
It remains a clue to corroborate, not a sanction. Cross it with the path — a detour towards an invisible vein, an early turn — and leave the decision to a human who has looked at the case.

What to remember

Underground, the question that settles it is no longer "how much" but "did this specific block already touch a void nobody had ever opened?"
A neighbour with a history — even one caused by someone else, even after the fact — no longer proves anything about the terrain's natural generation.
Judgement happens at the level of the whole vein: a single seen block is enough to clear continued mining of the rest.
Check CoreProtect retention before concluding "never touched" on an old ore.
An isolated blind block is only a clue — the decision belongs to a human who cross-checked at least two signals.

TunnelVision applies this test automatically

TunnelVision reads back your CoreProtect history and the terrain's actual state to judge, vein by vein, whether an ore was visible before it was broken — never treating a continuation block as an isolated signal. Combined with the player's path, this signal remains a triage aid: every session that surfaces comes with the indicators explaining its score, never an automatic sanction.

Request beta access See the interactive demo