Mining

Mining is a tier 1 crafting skill. It allows to prospect for minerals and to acquire common ores, precious ores, gems and sometimes rare mineral ingredients using a pickaxe.

Required tools

 * Primitive pickaxe/Pickaxe - a tool used for mining mineral veins
 * Primitive shovel/Shovel - a tool used for putting the collected ores to the ground and picking it up

Supporting Mine
If a mine is not supported, it will cave-in overtime. The supported mine will also eventually break down, but will happen over a longer period of time. Support beams are needed to support a cave from collapsing. If an area of a mine is incapable of having a support beam due to no adjacent blocks, it will require a support column or it too can collapse. If there is adjacent blocks and there a support beam in place, then there is no reason to also have a support column.

conclusion, for each tile of tunnel :
 * with walls build simple support : 4 boards of any kind
 * if no walls, a support beam : 2 building log

Prospecting
Basic prospecting skill allows to search only for copper and iron ores. This ability is available at level 0 of Mining skill with very small searching radius and ability to only look for copper ore. With skill level going up, prospecting radius will greatly increase and ability to search for iron ore will be unlocked. Precious Prospecting will allow to search for precious metals, silver and gold.

Initial search
What do you have to know about the ore? Ore veins are located in rock terrains, that is why you won't find much in sands, plains or swamps. It doesn't mean you will find nothing as there may be rocks beneath the layers of soil, mud and sand, so no one can say for sure where you can find ore.

Prospecting skill level determines the maximum distance at which you search for ore veins. When you use the ability, you prospect a sphere, centered on the tile you use the prospect ability on, with radius you set when use the skill. So, the max horizontal search distance is on your level and max vertical search distance is where you stand.

Initial search must be performed with max radius in order to find any vein of the ore type you are searching for.

Locating the ore vein
So, you've finally received a positive prospecting result and are jumping around! What should you do?

First, you should determine the ore vein direction.
 * 1) In case you prospect somewhat flat terrain, you have to determine the minimal radius at which you can prospect the vein from the current location. To do so, continuously repeat prospecting while reducing the search radius by 2 (or even 4-6-10 points as you can raise it again if you get a negative result).
 * 2) After you determine the minimum range at which you can prospect the ore vein from the current position, you have to prospect 8 tiles around you with exactly THE SAME radius. Negative and positive results will show you the direction to the ore.
 * 3) After you determine the direction, you have to locate the spot above the ore vein, and it's stratum depth. Move in the direction you've found and prospect every 5-8 tiles. If you don't get a positive result, then increase the prospecting range a little bit. If you move up/down the slope, you have to correct your search radius as every 2 vertical meters(character's height) are equal to 1 tile height and equal to 1 additional search radius. Your task is to find the location, where search radius will be the lowest while taking the terrain elevation in to consideration. This should show you where the ore spot is.
 * 4) After you locate the ore vein, you can start planning the mine entrance. You have to take in to consideration that when you dig tunnel downward or upward, the elevation changes at the rate of 1 vertical tile to 3 horizontal tiles, meaning you have to dig 4 tiles downward in order to get 2 meters (1 tile) down. That is why start mining right above the ore vein may not be the best idea. Usually, you will spend much less efforts if start mining from some lowland nearby.
 * 5) As you proceed with your tunnel, you have to correct the mining direction by prospecting the walls, floor and ceiling of the mine:
 * 6) * search for the minimum radius where you prospect the ore in the direction of the mine.
 * 7) * prospect left and right walls with the same radius. It will tell you to turn if left and right results are different or even less that in the digging direction.
 * 8) * prospect floor and ceiling with the radius+2 (or search for the minimum radius both for the floor and ceiling) - it will tell you if you need to dig downwards or upwards if you receive different results.

Try to avoid digging in the diagonal direction as it increases the number of tiles you have to dig through. And good luck!

Tips/Cautions
When you are tunneling, if you tunnel down there is a chance that the area you open up is too small for you to enter. To avoid this problem, tunnel forward first, then, while standing in the same spot, tunnel down on the floor that was just opened up.

Once the mine reaches one of several critical sizes, you will need to support it.

As you tunnel/mine, check the right-click menu to see if it needs supports. You may find it handy to drag a log to the edge of the mine, so you can saw out board(s) or building log(s) to support the mine.

You can actually DIE while mining, by just standing too close to the wall with other tools equipped. Advice: Do not stand too close while swinging the pick for tunneling/mining.

Gems
At skill level 60 and above there is a small chance to find gems with every mining action. Chance of finding a gem is increased with Luck, but the base value is 0.5% chance, increased to 0.75% at skill level 100.

Mineral Ingredients‎
At skill level 90 and above there is a small chance to find alchemy ingredient with every mining action. Chance of finding a mineral ingredient is increased with Luck, but the base value is 1% chance, increased to 1.5% at skill level 100.

Training Tips
''Have a piece of advice for effective training? Edit this section and place it here!''


 * It's best to just keep using "Prospect for Copper" ability to increase your mining skill.
 * Prospecting areas to actually find some ore is of course a good thing to do while training.