Mining
Description
Mining is a skill gained by creating caves. Mining skill affects a number of Characteristics: body strength, body stamina, mind logic and soul strength.
Method
Mining is primarily done in caves. Activate a Pickaxe and right-click a rocktile, then select Mining -> Mine. Not all mining actions done on a rocktile give rockshards, however every mining action done inside a cave gives a rockshard. +/- 60 mining actions creates a cave entrance. Within a cave, +/- 50 mining actions are required to continue the tunnel.
To find specific ores, you should prospect on the surface. Prospecting in the cave itself will only tell you the quality of the tile (assuming you have at least 20 prospecting skill).
Skill and difficulty
Higher mining skill can get you higher quality Rock Shards or ore. As with most things in Wurm, mining too easy ore gives little skill, while mining too hard ore gives high chance of failure. Failure can be estimated as the number of QL 1.0 ores.
Rock is the easiest to mine, while Gold is the most difficult.
Rock - Iron - Silver - Gold
Reinforcing cave walls
You can reinforce cave walls by adding a Support Beam to it. You cannot mine a reinforced tile, but it will prevent cave collapse. To prevent a tile from collapsing, you must reinforce all of it's walls. Veins count as reinforced walls.
Multiple tunnels
Remember that the Wurm world is a 2D world and that all tiles are pillars. You can mine up and down but you can't make a tunnel above or below another tunnel. It is possible but it will make a big hole between the tunnels.
Mining Messages
Sometimes while mining a tile you will get a message meaning that you can not continue to mine there.
- Dirt will flow in: This means that that the tile you are mining is under dirt and is very close to the surface. You can sometimes continue the cave if you start to mine down. You could also uncover the rock tile with digging, then you can complete the entrance.
- Dangerous Side Shaft will appear: This message appears because the tile you are about to mine is diagonal to another tile already mined out. Below is an example of this. The X's represent the tiles already mined out and C is the tile currently being mined.
+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | X | X | . | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | X | . | C | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | X | | X | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | X | | X | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | X | X | X | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ | | | | X | | | | +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
You cannot mine the tile out at C unless you first mine one of the tiles marked with a '.'
Types of ore
The following types of ore can be found in caves
- Iron
- Copper
- Gold
- Silver
- Lead
- Tin
- Zinc
