Hello fellow minors!
In reading through the crafting data chest, I'm seeing that it's recommended that I use multiple pack mules and a fire beetle.
Questions:
- Why fire beetle?
- If I don't have taming, can I control the beetle?
- Any reason to not have like 4 pack mules?
- Being a typical crafter, I don't have any fighting or defensive skills. Thus, I tend to hang out around the mountains near my house for mining. What are some of the safest places for a crafter like me to mine?
- Got any tips for safety? Defense?
Thanks in advance for your advice!
Robyn (Rhiannon's Sister)
The reasons were all explained in the FAQs. To recap...
1. The Fire Beetle can be controlled by anyone, but requires a tamer to tame (before transferring ownership to a miner) because the actual taming part requires beating it into submission AND high taming skill. It also spawns in a rather nasty part of the Tokuno mines, so the Tamer better have help or something better than just spellcasting to defend with.
2. The Fire Beetle acts as a mobile forge that you can ride. This allows you to smelt in the field.
3. As 120 ingots' weight = weight of 1 large pile of ore or 6 small ore, taking 4 packies to collect ore to take back to smelt is downright foolish.
Amount one can gather with 4 packies = 532 large (and 8 small) ore or 3200 small ore (1068 ingots, or 1600 ingots, respectively), plus about another 25-40 ore on your person.
Amount one can get with a fire beetle and 2 packies = 32,000 ingots, plus whatever you can carry on your person (about 2500-4000 ingots)
Roughly ~35 THOUSAND ingots is substantially greater than 1500-2000 ingots. So, you can mine all day without having to return home to drop off ingots.
4. Safe places to mine for a no-offense crafter:
a. The edges of the "moat" around the city of Umbra can be mined on both sides - the inside edge is mostly in, or steps away, from a guard zone. The outside is mostly housing areas, with no hostile spawn with the exception of stuff that might wander in from stuff chasing people from the direction of Doom (extremely unlikely occurrence, these days).
b. The mining cave outside Umbra, and the mountain face there, running west. No hostile spawn unless you go deep into the desert, and accidentally blunder into the lost Pyramid (which is WELL away from the mountain face). DON'T go into the desert THROUGH the cave, unless you have a means of killing giant scorpions and the occasional rare Sand Vortex.
c. Also in Malas, the passage through the mountains between Umbra and Luna. Get a rune there. As long as you don't go near the exit on the Umbra side (where there's an orc fort), the most dangerous thing you will run into is a vampire bat, and your beetle (or even trained packies) should be able to take those down, or you using wands or explosion potions, if you really have to.
d. Trammel Delucia & Cove, and Ter Mur Royal City have lots of mining in a guard zone.
e. Ilshenar Mushroom cave (near Spirituality - has entrance to Twisted Weald): no natural spawn, and unnatural spawn is pretty much only elementals dug up by other miners with garg pickaxes, or (if you're neg karma) Cu Sidhe released there by tamers.
f. The entire rock face from Spirituality gate to Sacrifice gate in Ilshenar is spawn-free as well, unless meer or brigands chase someone to Sac gate.
g. Minoc has lots of relatively safe (barring event spawns) mining areas, from the mines, up north through the castle-infested housing area between the city and the cave to the lost lands.
5. The best defense - train your Fire beetle up (packies too, but they are considerably more fragile). Bond them all (so they recall with you and so they can be rezzed) before they train. Best means of training involves mining up a shadow iron elemental with a gargoyle pickaxe, have your pets fight it (they can't hurt it), and have a tamer friend there using vet on your pets to keep them alive (or someone with magery, and max mana regen and LMC)