Skills/Mining

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Mining is the skill of digging metal ore out of the mountains and caves of New Bradford and smelting it into ingots. Every sword, suit of plate armor and tinker's tool in the land starts with a miner's pickaxe. With enough skill you can find rare colored metals, and at Grandmaster you can also dig workable granite and glass-quality sand.

This page explains how mining works in New Bradford, from your first swing to hunting valorite.

At a glance

Skill category	Crafting & gathering
Tools	Pickaxe or shovel (plus the special tools listed under Tools)
What you can dig	Iron and eight colored ores. At Grandmaster, with the right book: granite and glass-quality sand.
Where	Mountainsides, rocky hills and cave floors. Beaches and desert for sand.
Skill cap	100 (Grandmaster)
Stat it can raise	Strength
Starting gear	Choosing Mining as a starting skill gives you a pickaxe. Choosing Blacksmithy gives you two.

How to mine

Have a pickaxe or shovel in your backpack. A pickaxe can also be held in your hand.
Double-click the tool and you'll be asked "Where do you wish to dig?"
Click a mountainside, a rocky hill or a cave floor no more than 2 tiles away.
Your character swings once, and about a second later you either find ore or "loosen some rocks but fail to find any useable ore."
Each dig is a single swing. Double-click the tool again to keep digging.

Every successful dig puts one pile of ore in your backpack. If your backpack is full, the ore you mined is lost, so empty it regularly.

You can't mine while riding a mount, and you can't mine while transformed into a non-human shape. Mining tools wear out: each successful dig uses up one charge, and the tool breaks when it runs out ("You have worn out your tool!").

Where you can dig

Ground	What you get	Who can dig it
Mountainsides, rocky hills and cave floors	Ore, plus granite if you've learned stone mining	Everyone
Beaches and desert sand	Glass-quality sand	Grandmasters who have learned sand mining (see Sand)

Most other ground (grass, dirt, water, buildings) gives "You can't mine there."

Mining spots

Mineable ground is divided into mining spots, each a square of 8 × 8 tiles. Here's how a spot works:

It always holds the same metal. Each spot's metal is fixed by where it is on the map. It doesn't change when the spot refills or when the server restarts, so once you find a good spot, note it and come back.
It holds 10 to 34 piles of ore. Each successful dig takes one. When the spot is empty you'll see "There is no metal here to mine."
It refills 10 to 20 minutes after the first dig. The timer starts the first time anyone digs into a full spot. When it runs out, the spot comes back completely full.
Everyone digging in the same spot shares its ore.

Sand spots are the same size. They hold 6 to 12 sand and refill on the same 10 to 20 minute timer.

Metals

There are nine metals. Iron is everywhere. The colored metals get rarer and harder to work the further down the list you go.

Metal	Mining to dig	Mining to smelt	Blacksmithy to work	Armor bonus
Iron	Any	Any	Any	—
Dull Copper	65	65	65	+2
Shadow Iron	70	70	70	+4
Copper	75	75	75	+6
Bronze	80	80	80	+8
Gold	85	85	85	+10
Agapite	90	90	90	+12
Verite	95	95	95	+14
Valorite	99	99	99	+16

Mining to dig is the Mining skill you need before you can dig that metal at all. Below it, a spot of that metal only gives you iron.
Mining to smelt is the Mining skill you need to smelt the ore at a forge. Anyone can try to smelt iron.
Blacksmithy to work is the Blacksmithy skill a smith needs to craft with those ingots.
Armor bonus is the extra armor rating a smith's armor gets when it's made from that metal. Weapons and armor made from colored ingots also take on the metal's color.

How common each metal is

This table shows what share of mining spots hold each metal, and your chance of a successful dig when you're digging for that ore.

Metal	Share of spots	Dig chance at the "Mining to dig" skill	Dig chance at 100 Mining	Smelt chance at 100 Mining
Iron	49.6%	Equal to your skill	100%	100%
Dull Copper	11.2%	50%	93.8%	100%
Shadow Iron	9.8%	50%	87.5%	100%
Copper	8.4%	50%	81.3%	100%
Bronze	7.0%	50%	75%	90%
Gold	5.6%	50%	68.8%	80%
Agapite	4.2%	50%	62.5%	70%
Verite	2.8%	50%	56.3%	60%
Valorite	1.4%	50%	51.3%	52%

On colored spots, half your digs turn up iron. Each time you dig a colored-metal spot, there's a 50% chance the dig goes for iron instead of the spot's metal, however skilled you are. For example, on a valorite spot at 100 Mining, about half your digs are iron and the other half are valorite attempts, which succeed a little over half the time.

For iron, your chance of a successful dig equals your Mining skill: 30% at 30.0, 75% at 75.0, and every time at 100.

From ore to ingots

Ore piles

Ore comes out of the ground in four pile sizes. The size matters when you smelt.

Size	How often you dig it	Ingots when smelted
Large	3 in 4 piles	2 ingots per ore
Medium	1 in 16 piles	1 ingot per ore
Medium clump	1 in 16 piles	1 ingot per ore
Small	1 in 8 piles	1 ingot per 2 ore (you need at least 2)

You can combine piles of the same metal to save space. Double-click a pile and target another pile of the same metal. The amount of metal is kept, but if either pile is small ore, the combined pile becomes small ore. Different metals can't be combined.

Smelting

A forge

Find a forge within 2 tiles. Your ore can stay in your backpack.
Double-click the ore and target the forge.
On success, the whole pile becomes ingots in your backpack: "You smelt the ore removing the impurities and put the metal in your backpack."
On failure, "You burn away the impurities but are left with less useable metal." and you lose half the pile. A single ore drops to a smaller pile size instead.

Your smelting chance depends on the metal:

Anyone can try to smelt iron, but you always fail below 25.0 Mining. Your chance rises from there, and from 75.0 you never fail.
Colored ore needs the "Mining to smelt" skill from the table above. At exactly that skill you have a 50% chance, and it rises to 100% at 25 points above it. Below it you get "You have no idea how to smelt this strange ore!" and nothing happens.

Tip: a failed smelt costs half the pile, so smelt rare ore in small batches until your chance is high. If you split a stack of valorite into a few smaller piles, one bad roll can't burn half of everything.

Tools

Name	Uses	Where to get it	Notes
Pickaxe	50 (100 if exceptional)	Miners and tinkers (25 gold), blacksmiths (22 gold). Tinkers can make one from 4 iron ingots.	Weighs 11 stones. You can hold it in your hand, and it works as a weapon too.
Shovel	50 (100 if exceptional)	Miners and tinkers (12 gold). Tinkers can make one from 4 iron ingots.	Weighs 5 stones. Digs exactly like a pickaxe.
Sturdy pickaxe	180	Blacksmith bulk order reward	A pickaxe that lasts much longer.
Sturdy shovel	180	Blacksmith bulk order reward	A shovel that lasts much longer.
Gargoyle's pickaxe	101 to 125	Blacksmith bulk order reward. Also carried by gargoyles (2.5%), stone gargoyles (5%), and enslaved gargoyles, gargoyle enforcers and gargoyle destroyers (20% each).	Digs one metal better than the spot, and can call up ore elementals. See below.
Prospector's tool	50	Blacksmith bulk order reward	Doesn't dig. It upgrades a mining spot by one metal. See below.

Prospector's tool

Put the prospector's tool in your backpack, double-click it and target a mining spot within 2 tiles. The whole spot is upgraded by one metal (iron becomes dull copper, dull copper becomes shadow iron, and so on) for everyone who digs there, until the spot next refills.

A spot can only be prospected once per refill: "That ore looks to be prospected already."
Valorite can't be improved.
Each prospect uses one charge.
You still need the Mining skill for the upgraded metal, and colored spots still give iron half the time.

Gargoyle's pickaxe

Every dig with a gargoyle's pickaxe is treated as if the spot held the next metal up. Iron digs as dull copper, verite digs as valorite, and valorite stays valorite. This stacks with prospecting, so a prospected spot dug with a gargoyle's pickaxe comes out two metals better.
Ore elementals: every time you dig for a colored metal with a gargoyle's pickaxe, there's a 10% chance an elemental of that metal rises next to you and attacks. It carries 25 ore of its metal. The elementals are the Dull Copper, Shadow Iron, Copper, Bronze, Golden, Agapite, Verite and Valorite elementals. Iron digs never call one.

Gloves of mining

Name	Mining bonus	Where to get them
Leather blacksmith gloves of mining	+1	Blacksmith bulk order reward
Studded blacksmith gloves of mining	+3	Blacksmith bulk order reward
Ringmail blacksmith gloves of mining	+5	Blacksmith bulk order reward

While you wear them, the gloves add their bonus to your Mining skill, which improves your dig and smelt chances. Each pair is tinted a random colored-metal shade, so yours may not match the picture.

Watch out: the bonus doesn't count toward a metal's "Mining to dig" requirement, which only looks at the skill you've trained yourself. If the gloves lift you over a metal's requirement while your trained skill is still below it, digs for that metal will fail instead of giving you iron. Take the gloves off on spots you can't mine yet.

Granite


Granite	Dull Copper granite	Shadow Iron granite	Copper granite	Bronze granite	Gold granite	Agapite granite	Verite granite	Valorite granite

Grandmaster miners can learn to dig granite, the stone stonecrafters work with.

Reach 100.0 Mining (trained skill; gloves don't count).
Buy the book Mining For Quality Stone from a stonecrafter for 10,625 gold. Put it in your backpack and double-click it. You learn stone mining for good, and the book is used up.
Single-click your pickaxe or shovel and use its menu to switch it from mining ore only to mining ore and stone. Use the same menu to switch back.

While your tool is set to ore and stone, 1 in 10 of your successful digs gives granite instead of ore: "You carefully extract some workable stone from the ore vein!" The granite matches the dig's metal, so valorite digs give valorite granite. Each block weighs 10 stones, so watch your weight.

Sand

Grandmaster miners can also learn to dig glass-quality sand for glassblowers.

Reach 100.0 Mining (trained skill).
Buy the book Find Glass-Quality Sand from a glassblower for 10,637 gold. Put it in your backpack and double-click it. You learn sand mining for good, and the book is used up.
Use your pickaxe or shovel on beach or desert sand within 2 tiles.

Sand is slow, hard work:

Each dig takes about 9 seconds (six swings) instead of one.
Your chance per dig is low: about 9% at 100 Mining, or about 10.6% with +5 gloves of mining. When you fail you'll see "You dig for a while but fail to find any of sufficient quality for glassblowing."
Each success gives one sand, and sand doesn't stack.

Without the book, or below 100 Mining, sand only gives "You can't mine there."

Vendors buy either book back for 5,000 gold, but once you've read it, it's gone.

Training Mining

Every dig and every smelt can raise your Mining skill, whether it succeeds or fails.
Below 10.0 you gain on every attempt, sometimes several tenths at once. Above that, each attempt has a chance to gain 0.1.
The harder the attempt is for your skill level, the better your chance to gain. Your chance also drops as you get closer to 100 Mining and to your total skill cap.
Iron spots work for the whole climb, since your iron dig chance always matches your skill.
Mining tops out at 100.0 (Grandmaster). There are no power scrolls for Mining.
Reaching 100.0 adds Mining to the Skills Mastered count on your achievements.

Strength: each successful dig or smelt has about a 6% chance to raise your Strength by 1, at most once every 10 minutes (as long as your Strength is set to rise).

Suggested path

Mining	What to do
0 to 65	Dig iron anywhere and smelt it. Your iron dig chance matches your skill, so it gets easier as you go.
65 to 99	Keep digging. Each time you pass a metal's "Mining to dig" requirement, the spots of that metal you find start paying out. Smelting colored ore near your limit is good practice too, but use small piles.
99 to 100	Valorite opens up at 99. At 100, think about the stone and sand books.

Digging for treasure

Your pickaxe or shovel is also how you dig up buried treasure. Once you've decoded a treasure map, double-click your tool and target the spot to start digging for the chest.

Messages you'll see

Message	What it means
Where do you wish to dig?	Target ground within 2 tiles.
You can't mine there. / You can't mine that.	There's nothing you can dig there.
That is too far away.	Get within 2 tiles.
You loosen some rocks but fail to find any useable ore.	The dig failed. Try again.
There is no metal here to mine.	This spot is empty. Move to another spot, or wait 10 to 20 minutes for it to refill.
Your backpack is full, so the ore you mined is lost.	Make room in your pack.
You can't mine while riding.	Dismount first.
You carefully extract some workable stone from the ore vein!	You dug granite.
You have no idea how to smelt this strange ore!	You need more Mining to smelt that metal.
You burn away the impurities but are left with less useable metal.	The smelt failed and you lost half the pile.
That ore looks to be prospected already.	Someone has already used a prospector's tool on this spot since it last refilled.
You have worn out your tool!	Your tool broke. Grab a spare.

Tips

Carry a spare tool. A plain pickaxe or shovel only has 50 uses.
Shovels are lighter. A shovel weighs 5 stones and a pickaxe 11, and they dig exactly the same.
Smelt as you go. Large ore piles become twice as many ingots, and ingots are far easier to haul home than ore.
Remember good spots. A spot's metal never changes, so a valorite spot stays a valorite spot. Mark a rune or keep a note.
Move on when a spot runs dry. Spots are 8 × 8 tiles, so a short walk along the mountainside usually puts you on a fresh one.
Bring a weapon with a gargoyle's pickaxe. Ore elementals appear right beside you and attack straight away.
Rarer metal makes better armor. Armor gets a bigger bonus the rarer its metal, up to +16 for valorite.