Guides/Mining

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To get to the Mining Technology Page click here: Mining

Tips

When done mining a public mine, please press "Stop working this mine" so the crystals disappear and won't cause lag.

Public Mines

See the Maps/Public Mines page.

General Description of Mining

• Anyone can see what type of Ore Mine it is. These mines do not crumble so there is no repair cost.

• When dowsing, 'Unrecognizable ore' means the required Perception is double your current rounded up. That's the current theory.

• Work the Mine, Normal hotkey [W] to get the first set or new set of ore stones. There should be an option for Color Blind Mode. (There is, but you need to do a GM call to get it set for you permanently)

• Minimum number of Ore Stones in a successful Workload for any ore seems to be a minimum of 3 Ore Stones chosen.

• Gems and coal are produced when one of the Ore Stones crumbles. When a specific Ore Stone has been selected in a correct workload 7 times it crumbles. (In Beta, Lithium stone crumbled after only 3 workloads)

• "All same or all different" means that each set needs to be either of the same or of a different type. E.g., the crystal color could be all red or 3 different colors.

• "Some same and some different" means that each set must contain a pair and one different from the pair. E.g., the crystal colors could be 2 yellows and 1 red.

See the Gems page for a list of which gems are mined in which regions.

Ore Type	Number of Ore Stones in a set	Varying Characteristics	Characteristic Rules for a Successful Workload	Tutorial Link for Ore
Aluminum	9	4 Stone Colours, 4 Stone Shapes, 4 Base Colours	All Same or All Different
Antimony	14	5 Crystal Colours, 5 Crystal Shapes, 2 Base Shapes	All Same or All Different
Copper	8	3 Stone Colours, 4 Stone Shapes	All Same or All Different
Gold	12	3 Stone Colours, 3 Stone Patterns, 3 Crystal Colours, 3 Crystal Shapes	All Same or All Different
Iron	7	3 Stone Colours, 3 Crystal Shapes	All Same or All Different
Lead	9	5 Stone Colours, 4 Stone Shapes, 3 Crystal Colors	All Same or All Different
Lithium	10	7 Stone Patterns, 7 Crystal Shapes	2 Same and 1 Different for each characteristic. Four stone workloads are possible but yield almost no ore. Stones crumble after 3 loads.
Magnesium	9	7 Stone Colours, 3 Stone Shapes, 3 Stone Patterns	All Same or All Different
Nickel	?	?	?
Platinum	12	5 Stone Colours, 5 Stone Patterns, 5 Crystal Colours, 5 Base Shapes	Some Same and Some Different: If mining 3 orestones, 2 must have same stone color and 3rd be different; 2 must have same base shape and 3rd be different, etc. Note: if 'A' is the orestone with the different stone color, either 'A', 'B' or 'C' can be the orestone with the different base.
Sand	7	7 Stone Colors	All Same or All Different
Silver	10	5 Stone Colours, 5 Base Shapes, 5 Base Colours	3+ All Same or All Different
Strontium	10	7 Stone Colours, 7 Crystal Colours, 7 Base Colours	2 Same and 1 Different in each of three categories
Tin	9	4 Stone Colours, 4 Marbling Patterns	All Same or All Different Observations: 3-stone pull usually yields 25-75 ore. 4-stone pulls can yield 500-2000 depending on previous pulls. Needs verification. MrStoned 18:40, 8 October 2010 (EST) 2nd 4 stone pull (after several 3 stone pulls) yielded 3200+ for me. Milythael 7 December 2010 ~7:00 PM CDT
Titanium	12	5 Stone Colours, 5 Stone Shapes, 5 Base Colours, 5 Base Shapes	Min 3 stones, All Same or All Different
Tungsten	12	3 Stone Shapes, 3 Body Patterns, 3 Crystal Shapes, 3 Base Shapes	2 Same and 1 different
Zinc	10	3 Stone Colours, 3 Base Shapes, 3 Crystal Colours	All Same or All Different

Playing the Mining Game

• We will use a Copper Mine in this example. Copper Mines use the Ore Stone characteristics of body colours and body shapes. You will always play the Mining Game with this type of mine with those characteristics. In the chart above, successful workloads will have characteristics that are either all the same or all different for copper.

• Click on the Mine and choose Work this Mine, Normal [W] to bring out a new Ore Stone set.

• Left-click the stones that you think will be either All Same or All Different as in the chart above for this Ore Stone Set and choose Add this to the Workload [A]. In this example I chose All Different for both colour and shape, so all stone shapes must be different and all stone colors must be different (yellow, purple, blue). A blue rotating ring appears around each stone you choose. Two Ore Stones have been chosen and a blue Ore Stone is about to be chosen.

• Left-click the last Ore Stone and choose Add this to the Workload and Finalize [S]. If you chose a correct set of Ore Stones then you will see the flyaway message as below! You win some ore! The ore amount is added into the pot and you can Take.

A Small Guide to Efficient Copper Mining

The basics of efficient copper mining is to generally ignore the small loads from the 3-stone combinations and to go for the much more rewarding 4-stone combinations.

• If the current set of stones does not contain any 4-stone combinations, do a few 3-stone combinations to get timer to 0, then get a new set of stones.

• Soften up the stones in the 4-stone combination(s) by doing 3-stone combinations first. This will ensure a bigger return from the 4-stone combination(s). Be careful not to break any of the stones you need in the end.

• Now do the 4-stone combinations. You will notice that even though it takes some time building up to this, the reward is also great. Happy mining!

Mining Helper Tool

There is a helper tool available for mining many kinds of ores. It's written in Python 3 and available here.

Sand Mining

Check out the Sand Mining Guide for pictures and charts that explain this process. Now in living color!

Sand mines have 7 stones varying only in Body Colour. All 7 colours are possible, but unlikely to come out all at once. Having only one varying property makes sand mines much easier to mine for gems. The aim is to find groups of 3+ with all same or all different colours, and to work as many stones as possible seven times so that they crumble into gems (and coal).

If there are no triples having the same colour, it is possible to collapse all seven stones according to a simple rule: Make a workload of three stones using one from each pair (including other stones if there are fewer than 3 pairs), then make a workload of the four other stones. Repeat this seven times, and all stones will crumble yielding seven gems.

With just a triple (and four singles), you can get 5 gems by making all possible workloads of 3 stones using one from the triple, and then a workload of 5 stones.

You can take out 6 of the ore stones with this combination, Using one of the triple and the 4 singles will give you 6 sets. Do this with a 2nd of the triples, then with the 3rd of the triple you will have 2 sets and take out the 4 single stones then complete with doing the triple and that will take out two of the triple leaving you with just the one stone left. (Fez)

With a triple and a pair, you can get 3 gems by doing all possible workloads using stones from each of the triple and the pair (there are 12 of these), then a 4-workload.