WIKI
Mine, Cave, Veins and Rare Resources
Ore veins, mineral grams, the miner license, ilmenite, sapphire, gold, silver and bronze.
Veins
Rare minerals are mined from veins, special rocks. It's a long channeled capture (like in MIR4):
- Aim at the vein and press F ("Mine vein").
- Stay close (no farther than 5 meters). Taking any damage interrupts mining.
- A bar shows your progress, and a counter shows how many units you've collected. The reward drops when the vein crumbles at 100 %.
- The vein comes back in a new spot after a few hours.
To mine, you need a miner license (see Licenses) and permission from Enlil, the Elder (obtained in the story).
Minerals and grams
Rare minerals are counted in grams: the number in the stack equals its mass. A vein drops nuggets of 10–50 g.
| Mineral | Average per vein | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Sulfur | ≈ 90 g | gunpowder, ammo, industry |
| Quartz | ≈ 70 g | glass, optics, filters |
| Graphite | ≈ 50 g | filters, lubricants |
| Ilmenite (titanium ore) | ≈ 30 g | titanium and all weapon metals |
| Sapphire | ≈ 7 g | artifact for top-tier gold weapons |
Ilmenite is the most valuable of the common ones: the buyer pays about 0.40 ASD per gram, and the board has a job "300 g of ilmenite → 120 ASD".
Gold Mine island and precious metal ore
On Gold Mine island (and in its cave) you mine gold nuggets, silver nuggets and bronze ore (also in grams). You need licenses to mine bronze, silver and gold, in that order (Licenses). Ore is recorded in a server log: you can drop it, gift it and sell it for gold, but not for ASD, at the Auction or by raven. The blacksmith smelts ore into GOLD coins or ingots (1,000 g of metal per ingot; a gold ingot = 10 coins, silver = 1, bronze = 0.25). More details in Forge and Islands.
Caves
Caves are home to zombie hordes; the veins there are richer but dangerous. Bring a torch or a lamp.