The Official Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate Topic

Table 6, I meant. Also, where can I find Machalite Ore? It eludes me.

Oh, right. I should have realized that. For some reason I was thinking Tier 6 which made no sense.

Machalite Ore comes from pretty much every mining spot, even in the Island. It's a little rarer there, though. If you have access to the Desert, try there, cause you need Ice Crystals for some Jaggi stuff too so you can get them both in one spot. If you're not getting lucky, try mining on a regular quest and not a resource gather.

I believe in the Island the purple colored mining spots are better for Machalite, but I could be wrong. I honestly don't remember if the color actually matters.

It's a very good idea to always bring Iron Pickaxes and Bugnets, and constantly be getting both on every mission you go on. Mushrooms and Herbs are far less important for gear, however a lot of gear uses bugs and ores, and you can typically fit a map's offerings of both in your Inventory although that can depend on how lucky you are and how many items that particular area gives. Stocking up as much as possible on those things now will save you hassle later when you need to make something and it wants like 25-30 Iron Ore and you have 3.

Once the farm really gets started up you should be better off, but until then you have to do most of your gathering on your own.

I would recommend trying to keep gathering like that to your offline quests though, since it can piss some people off if you go off gathering. If there's a consensus to gather though, that's a different story. It all depends on who you're with.

To everyone:
I recommend checking out the DLC section already. They have the 5,000p freebie up already, as well as some random Bullfango quest that is probably for Raw Meat like it always is.