• Hail Guest!
    We're looking for Community Content Contribuitors to Stratics. If you would like to write articles, fan fiction, do guild or shard event recaps, it's simple. Find out how in this thread: Community Contributions
  • Greetings Guest, Having Login Issues? Check this thread!
  • Hail Guest!,
    Please take a moment to read this post reminding you all of the importance of Account Security.
  • Hail Guest!
    Please read the new announcement concerning the upcoming addition to Stratics. You can find the announcement Here!

[Mining] New Mining FAQ (Revised, 25 July 2018)

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
The Mining FAQ
Last Updated: 25 July 2018

This Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) List attempts to answer some of the most frequent questions concerning Mining. In addition it attempts to provide other useful information that is not typically found in mining guides. Please do post any remarks, corrections, or even new entries to the UO Craftsman forum, where someone will certainly see them and respond to them.

Also, please visit the following links for additional and VERY useful information:

Stratics Miner Essay
Stratics Mining Skill

IMPORTANT NOTES:

This FAQ has been extensively overhauled in the light of changes to the skill and related equipment over the last 5 years, plus the addition of the Fire Beetle before that.

Recent changes:

July 2018: Changes to the useful pets (including changing the links to the wiki version of the Hunter's Guide), adding in the information on the new items useful to miners from Vela/Void Pool and their Tinker/Blacksmith/Alchemy BOD Reward counterparts. Many other minor changes and changes for Eodon. Lastly, Storm's EC Mining Macro video's link went bad (video may still be there, but the method of linking broke from a forum software change, and I can't relocate it). If anyone can get me a link to it, I'll restore it.

August 2011: Updates for High Seas content, and tweaks to existing content over the last two years. Additionally, we finally have an EC mining tutorial, thanks to Storm. Thanks, man.
October 2009: Numerous minor tweaks, and the addition of Stygian Abyss information.
April 2009: minor edits, and addition of a trivia section concerning real mining that makes ore randomization seem a little less arbitrary.
22 October 2008: Revised the Fire Beetle and Gargoyle Pickaxe changes for Publish 56, currently on Test Center (And that will go live before the end of the month). Those edits will probably themselves be edited slightly, once I discover whether or not the GPA changes will allow Dull Copper Elementals to spawn, in addition to allowing DC to be mined with the GPA.
25 September 2008: Added more information to the section on mining Stone & sand, including the information about the imminent stackability of those resources.
25 August 2008: Minor edit to the Jacob's Pickaxe section. Turns out you CAN combine it with the Gloves of Mining to go over 100, but you have to equip the Pickaxe first, before putting on the gloves.
7 August 2008: edited the HTML tags that showed up in the process of the importation from the old format, removed some text in one section (and split another section) to get around the 20,000 character limit per post. Also, numerous minor edits and corrections of typing errors.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 1 – General Mining Skill Information
1.1 - I want to become a miner, how do I get started?
1.2 - How do I gain Mining?
1.3 - Does mining different colored ore affect skill gain?
1.4 - What is the best / fastest way to gain mining skill?
1.5 - How does GGS influence mining skill gain?
1.6 - My Mining Skill seems to be stuck, what do I do?
1.7 - Mining on Siege or Mugen


Section 2 – Mining Template Information (Updated)
2.1 - Basic Template Information
2.2 - The Mining Mage
2.3 - The Mining Warrior
2.4 - The Crafter Mule
2.5 - Hybrid Templates



Section 3 – Ore Color / Type Information (Updated)
3.1 - What information is available for ore colors?
3.2 - How do I find out where the colored ore is?
3.3 - What information is available for ore sizes?
3.4 - Are colored ore locations the same on all shards?
3.5 - Are colored ore locations the same on all Facets?
3.6 - Are colored ore locations be fixed forever?
3.7 - What are the current iron or colored ingot prices (for my shard)?



Section 4 – Smelting Information
4.1 - How do I do one-by-one smelting?
4.2 - What are my chances of smelting Valorite (or other high level ores)?
4.3 - Will the amount I smelt at once improve my smelting success?
4.4 - Will the amount I smelt at once improve my skill gain success?
4.5 - How is smelting success calculated?
4.6 - Information about smelting Weapons / Armor.
4.7 - Does eating food improve my smelting success chances?



Section 5 – Packy / Pet Information (Updated)
5.1 - What information is available for Pack Horses / Pack Llamas?
5.2 - What information is available for Blue (Giant) Beetles?
5.3 - What information is available for Fire Beetles?
5.4 - What information is available for Horde Minions (Necromancer Familiar)?

5.5 - What information is available for Iron Beetles (section under construction)



Section 6 – Advanced Mining Methods (Updated)
6.1 - Deciding what methods are right for you...
6.2 - Recall Mining with Bonded Pets
6.3 - Boat Mining
6.4 - Strip Mining (with and without Fire Beetle)
6.5 - Dragging Ore/Leap-Frogging
6.6 - Run Mining
6.7 - Combat Mining (digging with Gargoyle Pickaxes for fun and profit - an overview)



Section 7 – Mining Locations
7.1 - What is the difference between mining in Felucca, Trammel, Ilshenar, Malas, Tokuno, Ter Mur, and Eodon? (Updated)
7.2 - Where can I find a UOAM Ore Map for my shard?
7.3 - Where can I find a colored ore spot rune library for my shard?



Section 8 – Dangers while mining
8.1 - Monsters (and places to avoid) (Updated)
8.2 - Elementals
8.3 - Paragon Elementals
8.4 - PK's



Section 9 – Miscellaneous Mining Information

9.1 - What is a Grid Map Overlay for UOAM? Why can't I use one?
9.2 - What information is available for the Prospectors Tool?
9.3 - What information is available for the Gargoyle's Pickaxe?
9.4 - What items exist to supplement the Miner's skills (Mining Gloves, etc.)
9.5 - What information is available for Regular, Exceptional and Sturdy Shovels / Pickaxes?
9.6 - What information is available for Mining Stone and Mining Sand?
(Updated)
9.7 - What information is available for Mining Gems?
9.8 - What are the new items available from Quests and Bulk Order Deeds that are of use to Miners? (NEW)

9.8 - What information is available for mining Saltpeter? What is a Niter Deposit? (Updated and Renumbered)
9.10 - Can I use a Bag of Sending to send Ore? (renumbered)
9.11 - Valorite Elementals - how do I kill them without dying? And, can a mage even do damage to them? (Updated and Renumbered)
9.12 - The Miner's Code aka The (formerly) "Unwritten" rules of mining! (Renumbered)
9.13 - What is a script miner? Are they bad? (renumbered)
9.14 - Should I be Elf or Human? (updated and renumbered)
9.15 - Appendix: Why ore types randomly changing is NOT as unrealistic as it might seem...




Special Thanks to previous contributors to the FAQ. Thanks for all your help!

Special Thanks to Morgoth & Crafters, Inc., for their previous FAQ entries.

Thanks to: Tycolby, T'Amon-from work, rwrj88, Lilac Crypt, and all the other regulars on the old Miner and Smith forums before the accident & merger.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 1.1: I want to become a miner, how do I get started?

Tip:
If you have not yet created your mining char you should consider using the "Blacksmith" character template. It offers good starting values in both skills and stats. This will make starting out as a new miner a lot easier.
Basic Blacksmith Template
Stats: Str: 60, Dex: 10, Int: 10
Skills (all at 30): Blacksmithing, Mining, Tailoring*, Tinkering

*Prior to 2007, the template only had 3 skills. In July 2007, with the release of the ill-fated Kingdom Reborn client, characters made in it (and its 2009 replacement released with Stygian Abyss, the Enhanced Client) got a 4th skill for standard templates, or additional skill points with Custom templates. In 2011, this was extended to characters being created with the Classic Client.

You can also take an existing character to New Haven, and follow these same paths, but gains will probably be slower.

SP Players can skip ahead to the section on the differences with that shard (the big one being this section is not applicable, as New Haven does not exist there).

The Custom character creation method has been rendered moot for most templates by the New Haven quests. Only a few professions would find the custom character useful on normal shards, and those are typically ones that have extremely hard skills to train, that would be best worth spending the money on an Advanced Character Token (Tamers & Bards).

Tutorial:

Step One: You will arrive in New Haven in front of the bank. In your pack will be some ingots, a pickaxe, a tinker tool, a sewing kit, and some gold. In your hand will be a Smith Hammer. Step up to the bank, open your bankbox, and put half the gold, all of the ingots, the sewing kit, and the hammer into it. Retrieve your other pickaxe from the bankbox.

Step Two: Now, go southwest, following the coastline of the bay that was once Haven's lake. This will take you to the mines. Buy Mining (and Arms Lore & Blacksmithing, if you intend to be a Blacksmith) as high as possible from Jacob (important to do this first, as you cannot buy up skills while under the effects of any skill gain quest), then take Jacob's quest.

Now you are ready to mine. Head to the nearby mountain and start mining to your hearts content! You will notice how by using your skills they automatically start to rise making you more and more proficient in your craft.

To mine, just Double Click on the Shovel or Pick Axe and then target the mountainside or the cave floor. Any Ore that you successfully mine will be deposited into your backpack. Watch your weight while mining. As a beginner miner you can not carry that much weight. Don't worry, this will get better with training. When you have reached your weight limit head for the nearest forge (such as the one by Mugg and Gervis) to smelt your ore into ingots. Smelt your large ore pieces (the ones that weigh 12 stone each) one at a time, to get the most benefit, in terms of skill gain.

You can also take Mugg's quest at this point. Jacob's quest will train your mining up to 50 quickly (about 10-15 minutes). Mugg's quest will let you trade 5 large ore for more tools to dig with, if you run out. Later on, if you retain and train the tinker skill, you can use your ingots to make your own tools, or you can use gold to buy more tools (note that for purposes of weight, shovels are better than pickaxes).

Step Three: Once you complete Jacob's Quest, you will be at 50 mining, and the Jacob's Pickaxe he gives you has 20 uses, regenerates one use per 5 minutes (back up to 20), and gives a +10 Mining Bonus when held.

Description: The best use for Jacob's Pickaxe is to be held when you smelt items or ore during training, as it gives you a higher mining skill. It is best to smelt 1 ore at a time to maximize mining gains without the pickaxe in hand, both during and after the quest, but once you hit about 70 mining, you are better off smelting the iron in large piles, only smelting colored or in small piles or piece by piece. It cannot be held when using another tool to mine, so its bonus has no easily usable bonus to your mining in the field, as its low number of uses makes it a tool for mining only as a last resort (such as your regular tools run out mid-way through a vein). It does, however, come in handy for Treasure Hunters who only have the mining skill to make finding chests easier, as they can save 10 skill points by using it to dig for the chests.

For training Tinker & Blacksmith skills, one can continue this tutorial in the Blacksmith FAQ elsewhere on this Forum, in section 2.5 of that FAQ, starting with its step 2.

End Tutorial.

Some things to be aware of...
*If your backpack is filled to its limit (550 stones), any further ore you mine will be lost!!! Please keep track of your weight to minimize this waste of time and energy! Bear in mind also that once you are over your characters weight limit, which as a beginner is considerably lower then your pack capacity, you will no longer be able to move. In this case you will have to drop some ore to the ground until you are no longer overweight.
*Shovels and Pick Axes have a limited number of uses (50 normally, 100 for exceptional crafted by a high-level tinker, on normal shards). If you hover your pointer on the tool, it will tell you the uses remaining. Something to consider when buying or making new tools: Shovels are far better as mining tools then pickaxes. They have the exactly the same mining capabilities but weigh less and thus are less of a burden. Later on, if you work Blacksmithing, there are "Sturdy" tools that come from turning in low-value BODs (described below), with considerably more uses when new. All these two have several times more uses on Siege Perilous, than on the standard shards.

*STATS: For sure you want to try to maximize your strength to carry as much as possible. Depending on your template as described in Section 2, you may have to trade off your strength for Dexterity or Intelligence depending. This will limit the amount of Ore, or Ingots you can carry, but will result in your other skills being stronger. Just make sure you have this in mind when choosing your skills.


Section 1.2: How do I gain Mining?

Basically all you have to do to gain in mining, is MINE and SMELT! Both actions will steadily increase your mining skill. Below 50 skill, you can make use of rapid gains from using the mining quest in New Haven (see directions, above).


Section 1.3: Does mining different colored ore affect skill gain?

This is more complicated a question than one would think.

From the Five on Friday, August 31, 2007

"Is mining skill gain affected by the resource changes?"
Yes and no. No, because skill gain by actual mining is not difficulty-based - it doesn't matter what ore type you're digging up, you have the same chance for gain, so changing the ore types won't affect the rate of gain there. Yes, because smelting IS difficulty-based, and if you're getting less of the higher-level ores, you'll have fewer chances to gain skill by smelting.


To clarify:

For actual Mining, as one is not 100% to bring up ore until one is at the maximum skill of 100.0 (without equipment), one still has a small chance to gain during any mining, until you reach that level. Whether you go for ore quality or quantity, depends on your play style, and your ingot consumption if you are actively pursuing the advancement of the Blacksmithy and Tinkering skills. But, ore type doesn't affect your ability to gain from digging AT ALL.

Smelting Ore also results in a chance to gain skill. It is smelting, not the digging aspect of mining, that has its skill gain chances influenced by ore type. It would be wise to break down your piles of Ore into smaller chunks when you smelt. This will give you more skill checks than smelting just one big pile. Especially break down colored Ore piles!! Not only do these result in greater skill gain opportunities, but the failure rate will not hit you as hard smelting a few Ore at a time, if the random number generator hits a streaky point (UO's RNG has a bad tendency of producing streaks that, while theoretically balanced in the long run, are devastating if they catch you in one). It's best to use powers of 2 (1, 2, 4, 8, etc.) as your pile sizes for smelting ore you are not 100% success in, as that way you do not lose ore from rounding fractions on a failure.


Section 1.4: What is the best / fastest way to gain mining skill?

Lets assume that you actually do have real skill points to be gained. Mining skill gains from two activities: actual mining and smelting ore to ingots. Both activities are difficulty based, which means that as you gain in skill, your chance for a gain gets correspondingly smaller. While there is little one can do about the gains directly from the mining process, mining gains relatively steady through regular use. But, one can affect the smelting gains by your choice of ore to mine.

To make maximum use of this effect you should always concentrate as much as you can on your highest two ore colors (obviously only applicable after reaching shadow ore mining level). When you smelt your ore and you are still training your mining skill you should definitely use the 1-by-1 smelting method (Described in the Smelting Section).

The truth is there is not really a sure fire / fastest method to gain mining, once you get past the new character quests that take you to 50. There are scrolls of Alacrity that gave gains like those of the quest, for 15 minutes, at higher skill levels, but these are rare (originally event items, now Treasure Map chest loot, and there are as many different scrolls as there are skills). There is also a training method that temporarily lowers all your skills, involving the Satyrs of the Twisted Weald, but it is very hazardous, and beyond the scope of this FAQ. Look (or ask) on the Player's Center forum for information on "satyr training".

Note: Steady does not mean fast, but it is faster than the GGS (Guaranteed Gain System)!


Section 1.5: How does GGS influence mining skill gain?

The Guaranteed Gain System (GGS) is a system to assist you in gaining skill. This basically negates skill gain "Walls" by automatically making a gain happen if a couple of factors are met:

1. No gain has been made in the past (time factor) for a successful use of a skill.
2. The time limit from the last GGS for your skill level has elapsed.

Basically, if you are successfully using mining, and you receive no gains, after a certain amount of time, GGS will award you with a gain. However, since mining normally gains so easily, it is rare for GGS to be a factor, except in your first gain of the day for mining, after logging in.

Please see this article on stratics for more in depth information:
The Guaranteed Gain System .


Section 1.6: My Mining Skill seems to be stuck, what do I do?

First, check if you have free skill points to gain from. The skill cap (maximum sum of all real skill points) is 700.0 to 720.0 (depending on your account age). To gain in a skill after reaching the skill cap you must explicitly set a skill with real points in it to going down. A typical error with starting characters is that they see a skill they only have a few points in, and set it down, not realizing that the only points that are there are from their jewelry, and that the skill is already at 0 real skill points. Enabling (ticking) "Real Skill" will only show the real values of each skill, so you can make sure that the skill you are setting to go down actually has points in it to drop, for Mining (or some other skill) to gain.

Note that with GGS (guaranteed gain system) is has become impossible for a skill to not gain within a specified period of time, if there is room for it to gain (and you are not trying to do something "too easy" / chance of success as a percentage (without equipment bonuses, (and ignoring rounding down to 100% for skills with power scrolls) is lower than your skill cap for that skill). Therefore if your mining skill seems to be stuck it is most likely that you have no real skill points free (or marked down) to gain from. As the Jacob's Pickaxe and Mining Gloves don't count as real skill, they don't prevent gains if still under 100 real skill - however the gains from skill use appear to come slower if you are using them (As it effects the difficulty in both mining and smelting). It's not SUPPOSED to work that way, but it seems to happen.

Note also that if you've accumulated a huge amount of ore to train using just smelting, you cannot get a gain (GGS or otherwise) from smelting any ore that you have a 100% chance to smelt successfully.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
There are several differences to the UO rulesets when playing on the Siege Perilous or Mugen shard, that are beyond the scope of this FAQ. So...
If you are playing on them and want to take up mining, please see those forums for tips, as well as Lum's guide to SP & Mugen (see miner guy section) . Note that Lum's guide is probably a bit out of date, by now.
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 2.1: Basic Template Information.

Obviously, the first thing you will need is the Mining Skill.

The second thing you will need is a skill that enables you to travel easily, unless you want to be beholden to a Scribe making Recall spells for you for your entire career. Your best choices are Magery, Chivalry, or Necromancy. The benefits of each are as follows....

*Magery: Ability to move unbonded pack animals that aren't also mounts around with gates, and spells for healing, defense and other uses. Is the only skill that can mark runes, via the Mark spell.
*Chivalry: Ability to move self and bonded pets around with the Sacred Journey spell. Ability to heal, cure poison and (most importantly) remove curses with the Chivalry spells. Excellent combat boosters for the Miner that likes to fight. Best of all, no reagents to steal - spells have as their "reagent" tithing that one does at shrines, donating gold, leaving more room in your pack for ore and tools. And, note that many shrines are conveniently near minable rock faces or outcroppings, allowing you to tithe any gold you've accumulated in the field if you pass by one.
*Necromancy: Can cast recall at 0 magery, when in Wraith Form. Ability to kill creatures with your evil spells, and animate their corpses. Also has the ability to summon a Horde Minion familiar, that can act as an emergency pack animal, if your normal pack animal is dead, or you get overloaded in the field without a pack animal (but it doesn't recall with you, so you have to walk to town -and if you have hiding/stealth, monsters ignore the minion if you're stealthed). Note that the Mage and Warrior templates below can be changed into Necromancy-based templates simply by replacing their casting skill with Necromancy, and Eval (mage) or Healing (warrior) with Spirit Speak.

NOTE: If you use Pack animals, (explained later), once the animal bonds with you, there is no need to run around, or walk if your packy is slow, and no real reason to gate anywhere (except on SP & Mugen, where recall & Sacred Journey do not work, but Gate Travel does).

There are a whole host of other skills that compliment the mining skill and will be determined by your style of play, or your needs. The templates offered below are typically the most common, and reasons for each are listed with the template.


Section 2.2: The Mining Mage.

This is basically a Mage Template with mining. For example:

100+ Magery
100+ Evaluate Intelligence (not needed if all one plans to cast are summons, healing/curing spells, travel spells, and mind blast against monsters, and not PvP)
100+ Meditation
100 Mining
Other skills as required...
This template can be a PvM or PvP Miner. There are several advantages to this template, some of them being:
a. Self Defense / Offense: to ward off Monsters while mining, or to ward off PK's while mining in Felluca.
b. Making Money: Some will use this template for the Magery Skills being primary to fight monsters, and as a side job to mine.
c. Able to gate your Packy's around while you are waiting for them to Bond.
d. Able to cast EV's or other summons to fight for you if you are attacked while mining. (Assuming you have the control slots available.)

Disadvantage: pets and most spells do not work at all on Shadow Iron elementals (Gargoyle Picksaxe, or in Yomotsu mines) or Valorite elementals. So, if you use gargoyle pickaxes, you may be at a disadvantage.


Section 2.3: The Mining Warrior.

This is basically a fighter template with mining. For example:

100 Tactics
100 Anatomy
100+ Fighting Skill (Swords, Mace, Archery, Fencing)
100 Parry, Resist Spells or Lumberjacking (player's choice - the last for an swords axer)
100 Healing
100 Mining
80 in either Chivalry or Bushido
Any remaining points, put into skills of choice in the template

This template can be a PvM or PvP miner. There are several advantages to this template, some of them being:
a. Self Defense / Offense: to ward off Monsters while mining, or to ward of PK's while mining. The combat skills can be a real surprise to the unsuspecting Miner-killer that typically preys on miners because "real" PvP is something they can't compete in.
b. Making Money: Some will use this template primarily to fight monsters, and as a side job to mine. Going the Swordsmanship/Lumberjack route gives you two income streams, and the LJ gives a bonus to axe use.
c. Ability to use Gargoyle Pickaxes without being in any real danger from the ore elementals (unless the blackrock elemental spawn is ever reactivated - and even then the skills might allow them to survive long enough to escape when others could be killed before they could react).


Section 2.4: The Crafter Mule

This is basically a template that combines the major crafting skills into one template. While you can split these between multiple characters, this is a common theme:

Part 1: All the templates will have (200 skill points):
100 Mining
100 Arms Lore

Part 2: Train all 3 of the below. Options are to use 2 soulstones to rotate through them as needed, as you only have room for 2 on the character at a time, or keep all 3 on, at the expense of one less 100-point crafting skill. (240 or 360 skill points). If you are going to collect and fill BODs, you'll want the first two on most of the time.
  • 120 Blacksmithy
  • 120 Tailoring
  • 120 Imbuing
Part 3: Pick 2 (if using soulstones for the above) or 1 (if keeping the big three skills on full-time) (200 or 100 skill points). If you wish, get more soulstones and rotate between them.

  • 100 Carpentry
  • 100 Bowcrafting/Fletching
  • 100 Tinkering
  • 100 Lumberjacking
  • 100 Alchemy
  • 100 Cooking
  • Note that Cooking and Alchemy are the ones least needed on this template, as between them they only have Alchemy/glassblowing's glass weapons that can benefit from Arms Lore. On the other hand, both Tinkering and Bowcrafting make weapons, and Carpentry has both weapons and armor.

Part 4: Leftover points: these need to be used with equipment to make the character functional, especially if you are going to be a Carpenter.
  • Enough Magery to be raised to at least 80 with equipment*. This will allow self-powered travel through recall and possibly gate travel, and there are carpentry add-ons that require 80 Magery skill.
  • Musicianship (for instrument crafting with carpentry) - note that you will be using +Magery equipment in the same slots most of the time (And as Magery and Music are in the same skill group there's no equipment with both). You can use real points for this, but you can use magic items for most, if not all of it.**

* To make certain mage-related items, as well as for improved self-defense. Will be able to cast Blade Spirits & Mind Blast normally (with regs, arcane clothing, or LRC suit), and use scrolls to cast Gate Travel and the 8th level summons. If you can get up to 100+ you can cast those without scrolls from the book, with a failure chance.
** Since the introduction of the new loot system, it is possible for all characters to rely on equipment alone for the music skills to make instruments with Carpentry. Bards use exceptionally made instruments to get bonuses against things that don't fall into a slayer instrument group.
  • Rings and bracelets can be imbued up to +15 Music or Magery, and you can find jewelry in loot on rare occasion that has +20 of one of the two.
  • A Singing Axe (smith craftable weapon, using a recipe found in Treasure Maps or gained through quests in Heartwood/Sanctuary) gives a +5 Music bonus.
  • The Friends of the Britain Library Community collection "Tales of a Traveling Minstrel" Talisman also gives a +5 Music bonus
  • Song Woven Mantle (elf leaf armor craftable, using a recipe acquired as above) gives an elf wearing it +10 Music
  • I might be possible for music to be on a runic-crafted fishing pole, but I've not seen one (As they can have random skills).
  • Dryad Bows (Doom Loot) can have +5 or +10 random skill bonuses, but are relatively hard to come by with a skill you need.
  • The same goes for the Mark of the Travesty mask from the Travesty peerless in Tokuno - it spawns in several iterations with two related skills at +10 (Music and Provo for the bard version) but costs WAY too much to be using on a crafter.
Typically, the way to go is to start with 2 +15 jewelry (easy to come by), add 15 real, then exchange the real points for points in magery as you acquire +20 jewelry and other items on the list. Before the +20 jewelry came around, most non-elves had to settle for 5 real points plus the axe & talisman. Now, my mule has both +20s and uses the axe.

The advantage of this template is that the crafter can make most things on one character (the exceptions: Inscription, and whatever skills you don't have in your trained skill collection of soulstones).

This template is one where Soulstones come into a regular part of day-to-day play. One might choose to train up Alchemy, Imbuing, Lumberjacking, Cooking, and Bowcrafting, stored on Soulstones (or on other characters, and moved over with Soulstones as needed). One can then alter the template as needed (say, to go log for the carpenter).

The disadvantage is obvious: One goof with a soulstone and you could be working a skill back up from scratch.

Another option related to this one is to have a different character have 120 Smith & Tailor (and possibly Imbuing), plus 100 Arms Lore and 100 Mining, and limit the mule to 70 real points in Tailor and Smith (using a +10 ASH or Hammer of Hesphaestus when making carpentry add-ons that require 75-80 smith), the minimum for colored BODs in those two skills and make most carpentry items that require them. This frees up another 100 points for a crafting skill (220 for 2 skills, if Imbue is on the other crafter)



Section 2.5: Hybrid templates

It is not uncommon for people to attempt to combine multiple templates into one.

For example, as the changes in 2010 make Mining nearly mandatory to finding the new randomized treasure Map spots, one will want to have mining on a Treasure Hunter. This might be one of the skills to "swap" with soulstones. Cartography is only needed to decode the maps, so you can stone Cartography off (but only for maps you were the first person to decode), and only have mining and lockpicking (or even just mining for level 1-3 maps if you are a high-level mage) when out in the field.

Another common hybrid template combines 1 or 2 skills from the "Crafter Mule" template to the Mage or Warrior miner template, sacrificing some skills, unless they can make them up with equipment (Example, my Smith/Miner/Paladin, with almost 100 points of skills from equipment in addition to his base 720)

The last common hybrid is termed a "Resource Gatherer". Specifically, Mining, Lumberjack, Carpentry (to turn the logs into boards), swords (for Axe use, to get the Lumberjack combat bonus), and a mix of other Warrior skills to allow quick killing of things that produce the high-end leather types.

As you can see, there are any different ways one can go with this, so feel free to explore your options, if the three main templates don't fit your needs.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Once again, there is no real need for 1 single post each section (as in the previous version), especially in light of 2007's changes to Ore locations rendering much of the previous Section 3 to the dustbin of history.


Section 3.1: What information is available for ore colors?

There are 9 known colors or types of Ore listed below in order of difficulty. Iron is the default ore that ones starts mining up a 0 skill. Each ore color afterward requires a specific minimum mining skill before you can find it while mining. Even when mining up another color of ore, some of your take from that color ore vein will be normal Iron ore. I have included rough percentages that the older versions of the FAQ provided of the relative rarities of the different Ore Veins. While relatively accurate, the system of changes in ore veins introduced in Publish 46 (August 2007) makes the actual numbers constantly in flux.

50%......Iron..................0 Mining Skill
11.2%....Dull Copper.....65 Mining Skill
9.8%.....Shadow Iron.....70 Mining Skill
8.4%.....Copper............75 Mining Skill
7.0%.....Bronze............80 Mining Skill
5.6%.....Golden............85 Mining Skill
4.2%.....Agapite...........90 Mining Skill
2.8%.....Verite.............95 Mining Skill
1.4%.....Valorite...........99 Mining Skill
(note that this adds up to 100.4% - not my numbers, folks - probably rounding to blame)

Note: While the actual fraction of spots being only Iron Ore was not given in the official UO Playguide, what is noted is that Valorite is the rarest, Verite (the next highest) is twice as common as Valorite, and so on, down to Dull Copper (the most common colored ore) being 8 times more common than Valorite. If Mining holds true to the same pattern as other skills and resources, then 50% will be iron, and the percentiles above for the other numbers will be accurate to within 0.1%, at least for static veins as existed prior to Publish 46. There were some indications that Valorite MIGHT have gotten tweaked to be 2% (leaving the others in their steps of 1.4%), making Iron 49%, and the colored ores 51% in total, but I've been unable to track down where it was that one of the Developers stated that intent, or if the change ever saw the light of day.


If you mine a spot that would normally yield colored ore, but you do not have the skill required to mine that color, you will only get iron out of that spot. So as a beginner, bear in mind that each iron spot might just be a colored ore spot that you currently lack skill for.

When used with the Blacksmithy & Tinker skills to create weapons and armor, the different colors will generate different base properties of the item being created. For instance, Golden Ore will add 40 luck to the item being created.

For a detailed list of the properties generated by the different colors, The skill required to mine the different colors and a whole bunch of other information, please go to The Blacksmith FAQ elsewhere in this forum, or better yet (I've not gotten around to updating the other FAQs), the Material Bonuses page of the uo.com Wiki. Follow the "Mining" link in Section 3.3 for picture of each individual ore type, by color; However, the colored ores are typically identified by name when dug up, as well as an identifier tag, if moused over, so it is rare that you will have to identify an ore type by sight.


Section 3.2: How do I find out where the colored ore is?

Simply, you get the proper skill, and some tools, and dig until you find it.

In the past, ore types went over FIVE YEARS without a change, and people built up libraries of rune books for their mining, each rune book filled with 16 runes going to one specific ore type. Some were even made available to the public via rune libraries or sets sold on vendors. However, this made the metals much more common than the game's developers had intended, and to an extent encouraged certain unethical types to using complex unmanned programs to mine the materials for real-world profit (selling the mined ingots for gold, then selling the gold for real money).

In Publish 46 (August 2007), Ore randomization, which was originally part of the plan for the ores many years ago, was finally put into effect, with a random turnover time many times more rapid than the original plan from long ago. As a result, rune books of specific color veins became worthless within days, if not hours.

In the current system, any place that is capable of producing ore, can eventually change to colored ore, or to iron only, or between colors. Your best bet for getting a specific color of ore is to simply go to an area to mine, and mine until you find it. You will find some, eventually - and there are tools that can change lower ore type veins to higher ones - see the sections on Prospector Tools and Gargoyle Pickaxes.


Section 3.3: What information is available for ore sizes?

There are three basic weights and four basic sizes that Ore comes in: Small (2 stone, equal to 1/2 ingot), 2 different types of Medium (each 7 stone, equal to 1 ingot), and Large (12 stone, equal to 2 ingots).

These are the four ore sizes, graphically: Large, the two mediums, and small


Please note that for the different sizes of Ore, if you are mining and insist on carrying Raw Ore around with you, the smallest pile gives you the best ratio for weight to ore! Both medium sizes are a total waste of time and effort, as 2 of them weigh more than the 1 large they are equal to in ingots. You should either convert them to small size or smelt them immediately.

You can convert ore from a larger size to a smaller size, but does not work in the other direction (combining the two medium styles produces the more spread-out graphic). To convert a pile from one size to another, you must double click on one pile of Ore and then target a different sized pile. This often will not work for large piles of ore, unless both piles are on the ground.


Section 3.4: Are colored ore locations the same on all shards?
Section 3.5: Are colored ore locations the same on all Facets?
Section 3.6: Will colored ore locations be fixed forever?


The answer to all three of these is No. Ore locations differed in color between facets, and between shards, from the point of their introduction.

Other than one early change, though, colored ore locations on each shard's facets had stayed relatively permanent for five to seven years.

However, with Publish 46, ore veins began to randomize every few days - much sooner if mined often, as there were two triggers put into the system. One trigger has a change chance determined every few days; this chance is low enough that in some cases, some veins in rarely-mined areas lasted 6 months or more before having their first type change. The other chance was based on the frequency of mining. Each visit to a spot to mine, by any miner, has a chance to change the ore type when the vein "refills" from a mining attempt.

Despite rumors otherwise, there is no magical "number" of mining attempts that can be made before triggering this effect; even one dig has the same effect as emptying the vein. This question was answered by the developers.


Section 3.7: What are the current iron or colored ingot prices (for my shard)?

There is no real set answer for this. Ingot prices can vary wildly depending on color, shard, facet, availability, quantity and the whims of the individual vendor.

Up until March 2008, prices had steadily dropped from illegal automation programs allowing some people to mine 23 hours a day. Then, prices took a dramatic upturn, as one person nearly cornered the market on every shard (driving most other ingot sellers out of business, or visiting their shops every day ON ALL SHARDS, buying them out, then reselling their ingots on his vendors). This person was eventually caught and banned by EA (the person was using prohibited methods to make more RL cash in a month selling in-game stuff, than most players make in their real-life jobs in 3-6 months). The convergence of this house-cleaning (literally - he had multiple houses on each shard, 1 with vendors in Luna, the others for storage) with the randomization of ore veins has made ingot selling a seller's market, with prices the highest seen in years. The prices started to settle, then Stygian Abyss came along. More crafting, enhancing and BOD filling is done now, as an adjunct to Imbuing, so the demand for certain ingot types has increased accordingly. The introduction of the BOD point system several years ago (to where BODs could now be turned in for any reward of less value than its stated value), also caused some waves, as now some ore whose BODs were uniformly of little value, could now be used for lesser runic hammers and Powder of Fortification, and there were also BOD rewards added to make smelting high-risk metals risk free (charges, and a 1 day timer), guaranteed dig spots (also limited and on a timer), and cauldrons that do 3/1 conversions between two metals (limited and timed as well). Gold ingots also became fairly easy to get this way as well (you can use up a Gold smelting talisman with 6000 charges in 45 minutes in Blackthorn Castle's dungeon, farming gold elementals), so much so that some people do it to use the gold in a gold-to-agapite cauldron.

The best ways to find out what you should sell your ingots for are:

Visit the local Bank that has high traffic; on most shards, this will be Luna Bank; West Britain Bank is also active on a number of shards; other banks will become active occasionally, due to events, but that traffic is usually transitory.

Ask around, and see what others are selling for. There may be someone here advertising their Ingots at the bank, or advertising other items that a smith might use; typically, they will have a better grip on prices than your typical non-crafter. If selling their own ingots, these sellers will often give discounts for people that buy in bulk. The advantage to selling at the bank is the amount of people you can reach, Bulk Resource Deeds are sold right there at the bank and transactions are typically easier as everyone has their money there anyway.

Visit Vendors throughout your shard. Typically a shard will have a few Giant Vendor Malls. On Atlantic, and many mid-range shards, these usually have at least one vendor selling ingots. On smaller shards you may be out of luck from speculators buying ingots and shipping them to Atlantic. Take a look at what they charge and for how much. 2011 also saw the addition of commodity brokers to New Magincia, but to set one up requires buying one of the 2011 mini-boosters. However, those brokers can be set up to both BUY AND SELL ingots, and those prices (if someone else has an ingot broker up) can be used as a guideline for your own prices.

Additionally, Stratics maintains one shard specific forum per UO shard (for the Western shards - the Oriental shards share forums to an extent, based on language). The players in the forum for your shard should be able to offer accurate and up to date advice on shard specific questions, like raw material prices.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 4.1: How do I do one-by-one smelting?

One-by-one smelting basically involves taking piles of large or medium sized Ore and smelting it one piece at a time, OR, taking your pile of Small Ore and smelting it two at a time. It is a training tool, and if you are 100% to succeed with that ore type, it is just wasting time.

Large Ore smelted one at a time will result in 2 ingots upon success, and Small Ore (2 at a time) will result in 1 ingot upon success.

The point of doing this is that it maximizes your smelting, (by dragging it out!), to increase the opportunities for a skill gain. Each time you smelt Ore that you have a chance to fail smelting properly, it makes a check for skill gain! It also minimizes the amount of ore one would lose from a failure.

While it is tempting (and sometimes necessary, from time constraints) to want to smelt a pile of 64 valorite ore, hoping to get 128 ingots, there is still a 48% chance that one will fail, and lose half the ore - and you can fail over and over! Fail once, and the most you'll get is 64 ingots; fail again, and it's only got the potential for 32. It's not unheard of, for someone to fail 8 times in a row on Valorite, and end up with NO ingots out of 64 ore. However, smelting the ore singularly, 8 consecutive failures would have only lost 8 ingots, allowing probability to average out the failures. While you won't get 128 ingots, the laws of probability almost guarantee you'll get back more ingots, than if you'd failed one time, trying for the whole pile at once. Even doing stacks of 2 or 4, instead of large stacks of 10 or more, substantially increases your average ingot return in the long run for Agapite, Verite and Valorite at 100 skill (or even higher, if mining gloves worn). See the next section for a further elaboration.


Section 4.2: What are my chances of smelting Valorite (or other high level ores)?

At GM Mining you will fail 48% (!) of all Valorite smelts (ie. 52% success rate). Each failure leaves you with 50% of the ore, though. Smelting what remains gives you another 52% chance to succeed and so on.

The basic rule is this: At the exact level where you start mining an ore color you have exactly 50% chance to smelt it successfully. Each additional 0.1 in mining skill adds 0.2% to the success rate. Thus at 99 mining skill your chance to smelt Valorite is 50% and at 100 skill its 52% (and at 105 skill it is therefore 62%)

At 100 Mining Skill, your smelting chances are as follows:

100% Iron
100% Dull Copper
100% Shadow Iron
100% Copper
90% Bronze
80% Golden
70% Agapite
60% Verite
52% Valorite

In the end the OVERALL gain rate from Valorite ore to ingots will be about 64.5% (at GM Mining).

52%*2+(48%*52%*1) = average ingot payout per large ore, smelted individually.
1.04 + 0.2496 = 1.2896 ingots.

In other words smelting 1000 valorite ore pieces individually will on average give some 1290 valorite ingots. The numbers change slightly as your piles get larger.

4 ore example:

(52%*8)+(48%*52%*4)+(48%*48%*52%*2)+(48%*48*48%*52*1) = average payout for 4 ore smelting.

4.16+0.9984+0.239616+0.05750784 = 5.45552384, or an average of 1.36388096 ingots per ore.


HOWEVER, this is misleading to an extent. If one fails 4 times in a row, smelting 4 ore, 1 at a time, one loses 2 ore completely, but still has a chance of getting 1-4 ingots from the remaining two ore. If one fails 4 times in a row on a pile of 4 ore, smelted as a unit, one is left with ZERO ingots. Given that the UO Random number generator is excessively prone to streaks (granted, ones that can be either to your detriment or benefit), it all comes down to a form of loss prevention decision.

Either you can smelt high-end ore in smaller numbers, sacrificing the chance for maximum gain, to get something closer to the expected average ingots returned,

OR....

You can go all at once, hoping for a 100% return, but risking an automatic loss of 50% on one failure, 75% on 2 failures, 87.5% on 3 failures, etc.

One should EXPECT the number of successes and failures to balance out in the end, but one has to consider one does not have the same number of ore, each smelt. Failing once on a 1000 ore smelt, statistically, is the still the same as failing on a 1 ore smelt, despite the fact one has a loss of 1000 ingots potential, and the other, only 1. Choosing a set amount to smelt at one time, you can limit your short-term losses, by forcing your results to more closely approach the mean (theoretical average).

*************

Real in-game Example:
It is near certain that one will get over 1000 ingots from smelting 1000 Valorite ore, in groups of 4. In fact, the average amount one will get back is about 1364 (1363.88).
However, smelting the pile as a whole, gives you a 52% chance of getting 2000 ingots, BUT a 48% chance of getting 1000 or less! In fact, there is about an 11% chance that you will get 250 ingots or less (a little under the odds of flipping 3 heads in a row on a coin, which is 12.5%).

If one is needing to fill a 10-count Exceptional Valorite Plate LBOD for a Verite Hammer, one will need at least 1000 ingots. Which is the method most likely to give you the ingots you need, without having to go back and mine more?

*************

Even though you know that it will even out with future smelts it will still frustrate you to see all that ore being lost, and having a short-term big failure is not helped in the slightest by a future offset - a future offset that is statistically likely, but not in anyway predictable as to WHEN it could happen.

The best bet is to do the following, if you are in immediate need of the ore you are to smelt:
A. For an ore that is your worst chance of smelting, pick a single-digit power of 2 (1, 2, 4 or 8). This will be your base number to smelt. Powers of 2 are best, because you will not lose ingots from rounding errors (for example, 3 small ore are reduced to 0 on a failure, and other rounding issues along the way from odd numbers can lose the equivalent of a small ore piece). Use this number for that range, whenever you need the best average payout.
B. For the next lowest ore, double this number. For example, if you choose to smelt Valorite in piles of 4 or less, smelt Verite in piles of 8 or less.
C. Continue doubling as you progress to easier ores. Ores at 100% can be done as one pile without worries.

Now, if the need for the ingots is NOT pressing, it is your choice to stick to the routine, or make the gamble for a higher return, as you have less riding on success or failure. Still, it would probably be best to go for piles in the 3-digit powers of 2 (128, 256, 512) or maybe 1024 if you are working with piles in the 10k to 60k range (like looted from a house fall). As great as it might be to succeed on the first try on a pile of 10,000 Valorite ore, do you really want to live with the memory of failing 3 times, getting only 2500 ingots from it? 10 groups of 1000 would get you closer to 13,000 ore, and very unlikely to be under 10,000 (as you will average 5+ first-chance successes over 10 tries).

Plus, consider a 100% success of 10,000 will hit the ground on the whole pile (and won't fit into a packy), while one can hold up to 2500 ore's worth of ingots in your pack, if you have only 50 stone of the pack taken up with essentials, with the rest empty. The smaller piles are less likely to be lost to an opportunist, as you will get ingots into your pack (to quickly move to a pack animal, or put in the bank) rather than them fall where anyone can grab part or all of them (not like they are gonna grab the remaining ore all at once - you weren't going to, either). There is also a bug that can cause stacked items to lose part of their return, if converted to a different type of item that has a higher exchange rate. For example, while you can have a stack of 60,000 fish, cutting them into fish steaks (normally 8 steaks per fish, after getting 4 for the first one) will result in a stack of 60,000 fish steaks, instead of 479,996. Similarly, smelting more than 30,000 large ore, will lose the ingots for all ore above the 30,000 (as a stack can only be 60,000). Similar issues might occur trying to combine large ore to medium or small or stacks, that would result in more than 60,000 in the stack.


Section 4.3: Will the amount I smelt at once improve my smelting success?

No. Your chance to succeed is the same for one as it is for a pile of 60,000 (the largest possible pile) - do note that the maximum size of any pile is 60,000, so attempting to smelt 30,001 to 60,000 large ore as one pile is bugged, and you will lose all the ingots over 60,000 (not to mention the fact that the ingots WILL be on the ground, from weighing 6000 stone).


Section 4.4: Will the amount I smelt at once improve my skill gain success?

Not exactly. Your chance to gain skill is the same for one as it is for a pile of 60,000 (the largest possible pile). In fact, it is because each smelt is a separate chance, that it is recommended smelting your hardest possible ores one at a time, to get the most possible skill gain chances. So, by smelting ore in as many small piles as possible, you can get many more skill gains than all at once.


Section 4.5: How is smelting success calculated?

It's a simple random number check. The game's random number generator generates a number between 0% and 100% (well, technically, it's between 0 & 1, as all RNGs do, before multiplying them by the size of the range), and compares it to your chance to successfully smelt that ore. If the result is lower or equal to your chance, you "win", and that much ore's ingots are produced in exchange for the ore. Roll over your chance, and you lose, and half of the ore is removed from your ore pile.


Section 4.6: How do I smelt Weapons & Armor?

Smelting Weapons & Armor (either stuff rejected during crafting, or loot pulled off fallen monsters) is an excellent way of keeping your stocks of iron (and other metals you use to craft with) at a decent level, between mining trips.

Remember that only items made (or can be made) with the Blacksmith skill can be smelted; tinker-skill items (knives, hatchets, etc.) currently cannot be smelted.

One needs a Blacksmith-skill crafting tool, and be standing next to a Forge & Anvil, to attempt to smelt such items,
BUT....
The actual amount of ingots returned is based on the MINING skill (times 0.66%, rounded down), not the Blacksmith skill.

At GM Mining, one gets 66% of the metal back, rounded down. This means that if something takes 12 ingots to make, you will get 7 back. Why not 8? 8 is not given, because 8 would be 66.667%, and is rounded down.

At 105 Mining (Grandmaster plus wearing the +5 Ringmail Gloves of Mining), one gets back 69.3% of the metal, so one would get 8 ingots back.

The Salvage Bag is a tool for smiths (and tailors) to make such material recycling much easier, introduced in November 2007. It smelts all possible metal items in it at once, by selecting "Salvage Ingots" from its drop-down menu, when clicked. Until recently, it had the added bonus of returning one extra ingot per smith item salvaged, but the current devs decided that this INTENDED feature of the bag introduced by their predecessors was a BUG, and nerfed it.

The Salvage bag costs a little over 1000 gold from Provisioners, but STILL requires the user have the appropriate tools for the job (blacksmith tool of some sort, and be at a Forge & Anvil). For Tailor recycling ("Salvage Cloth"), one has to have Scissors, and the amount returned is based on Tailoring skill (up to a maximum of half the material at 100 skill).

A full Essay on Smelting items (and the usefulness of the Gloves of Mining & Salvage bag) can be found in this post on the Smith Forum: http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=66112


Section 4.7: Does eating food improve my smelting success chances?

The answer is MAYBE. Together with a friend, former moderator Morgoth did some tests (with a reasonable attempt at being scientifically controlled) regarding the influence of eating food on smelting ore, years ago. They both smelted through a large pile of Verite ore (500) with the same method (4-ingot piles). One of them was and remained well fed and the other was practically starving. The result was clear to them: being well fed gave a better success rate (ie. more ingots in return) then being hungry.

HOWEVER.... The Developers have stated that they have repeatedly checked the game code, and found NOTHING tied to the state of being full or hungry. Not Smelting, nor any other skill or combat related function. Even at the sample size used in Morgoth's test, the random number generator used by UO is so prone to streaks, that the test cannot be considered truly scientific (to understand how bad this generator is, just watch when crafting - sometimes one can make 10 normal items in a row, when at 90%+ chance of exceptional, or making 6-10 items in a row exceptional, when once should only be 10% likely to make one, and it happens a LOT more than a normal distribution curve would allow).

Whichever you wish to believe, is up to you. At worst, eating the food will have no result at all, so it won't hurt you to do it...
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
:eek:A general note of warning concerning pack animals: :eek:


Pack Animals, while they will recall with you when bonded, will only insta-log with you when they are either being used as a mount, or are COMPLETELY EMPTY. If you log out or lose connection, they can and will go wild over time, if they are left unattended with stuff in their pack. This stuff will fall to the ground and decay, USUALLY (and might be lootable by anyone). Worse, there have been occasions in the past where persons made the mistake of keeping their ENTIRE BOD COLLECTION in a beetle, only to have it go wild after a client crash, and get guard-killed by the first "bank macro"-spouting passerby - and all of their books disappeared with the kill, instantly. This shouldn't happen with the change to packs dropping, but you don't want the packs to be looted while you're gone, either. Never carry your most valuable possessions in a pack animal that you are NOT riding (except when doing a shard transfer, and you don't have any other choice).


Section 5.1: What information is available for Pack Horses / Pack Llamas?

Pack Horses and Pack Llamas (Packy's) are animals with a backpack that can carry things for you. They require NO Taming Skill to own.

They are not found in the wild typically, (Unless someone releases one - and humans can often retame someone else's released ones, with a few attempts, thanks to the "Jack of All Trades" ability), but can be purchased from any Stablemaster NPC. Pack Llamas are usually about 100gp less than a Pack Horse.

Packy's are limited to the same number of items that you can carry, (125), but can carry A LOT more weight, 1600 Stones. This equates to about 16,000 Ingots, 800 Small Ore, or about 133 Large Ore (and one small).

More detailed information about Packy's can be found here: Packy's

More detailed information on the Pack Horse, please go here: Pack Horse

More detailed information on the Pack Llama, please go here: Pack Llama


Section 5.2: What information is available for the Giant (Blue) Beetle?

The Blue or Giant Beetle can be used as a mount AND as a pack animal, which like a Pack Horse can carry 1600 stones. After the Publish 97 pet changes, newly tamed Blue Beetles are 1 slot pets. No taming skill is required to own or ride it.

HOWEVER, if you were to do something crazy like make a Tamer/Miner, the beetle can be trained up to being a 5-slot pet, requiring a minimum of 108 Taming & lore to control - but in the process it becomes one of the best pets in the game (with Poisoning, Rune Corruption, and Armor Ignore, while retaining the ability to ride it and use it as a pack animal.

When mounted (and ONLY when mounted) the beetle's pack load can cause problems for the rider, if still a 1-slot pet. It can only move freely, when mounted, if carrying about 400-500 stones of weight, or less. If there is more in its backpack, the beetle will run out of stamina. Without stamina a beetle can only walk but not run (In other words it becomes slow as a snail, and you can't outrun anything - you can still recall/teleport, as long as the rider isn't overloaded as well). When NOT mounted the beetle enjoys the same speeds and 1600 stones carrying capacity as pack horses and can run at full trot behind you. If you go the Tamer/Miner route, you can add Strength points to the beetle, and eliminate the weight issue completely. But taking a beetle up to 2 slots will make it require taming skill (At least into the 70s, of not all the way to 108, depending on what was added).

The Beetle's pack can be accessed by using its context menu while you are not mounted.

Another nice thing about beetles is that they are decent to good fighters, even at 1-slot (5 slot, people use them to solo champ spawns!). This makes them excellent protection for miners against small to medium monsters. After some practice (having them fight small stuff until they hit their natural skill and stat caps) they become quite good fighters and can take on some of the stronger monsters one can encounter when mining in the wilds of Trammel and Fel, like trolls, ogres, ettins, earth elementals, etc. Dungeon monsters and Dragons, not so much (hop on it and RUN AWAY).

Beetles can not be bought from NPCs. They are found in the wild (specifically, the solen tunnels, and where those tunnels break the surface) and must be tamed by players with sufficient taming skill. Once tamed, though, they can be transfered to any character, as explained above. In order to get a blue giant beetle (and YES, as a miner you will want one for when you go out mining stone or sand instead of ore) you must find a tamer and ask him/her to sell one to you. For current prices, please check with your Tamers at your local bank, or ask on the Shard Specific Forums. Typically, prices range from 5k-10k, though some tamers might even get you one for free. They can be sold by player owned Pet Brokers in New Magincia.

For more information on the Blue (Giant) Beetle, please check here: Giant Beetle


Section 5.3: What information is available for the Fire (Orange) Beetle?

The Fire Beetle is another breed of rideable Giant Beetle. The main difference other than the color is that the Fire Beetle does not have a backpack, but to make up for that a miner can use it to smelt the ore he digs up on. It is essentially a ridable orange forge on six legs (in fact, one can park it next to an anvil with no nearby forge, dismount, and use the smith skill, using it as your forge). It has the same pet control slots to own as a Giant Beetle, so thanks to the Publish 97 changes you can now have both a blue beetle and a fire beetle with you (or even 4 blues and a fire). Find out for yourself what suits you best.

Additionally, you can smelt Ore on a Fire Beetle that does not belong to you. From its first appearance until Publish 56 (End of october, 2008), you could also smelt Ore on the ghost of a bonded Dead Fire Beetle (no worries about keeping it alive). While this was considered okay for the first 4 years of the Beetle's existence, even when devs were told about it, apparently the devs changed their mind (or figured out how to recode the beetle to fix it - the original dev reply was they didn't know how to fix it to work only when alive), and corrected this "unintended feature" of the fire beetle.

One of the main reasons to own a fire beetle is that it effectively multiplies your ore capacity by 60!

As noted before: 1 large ore = 2 ingots = 12 stone weight.

For the same 12 stones, one can be hauling 120 ingots, after smelting them on a fire beetle. In fact, one can potentially stay mining for an hour or more, without need for a pack animal, when using the fire beetle.

For current prices, please check with your Tamers at your local bank, or ask on the Shard Specific Forums. Typically, prices range from 10k - 40k. They can be sold by player owned Pet Brokers in New Magincia.

For more information on the Fire Beetle, please check here: Fire Beetle


Section 5.4: What information is available for the Horde Minion?

With the Necromancy Skill, one of the spells you can use is Summon Familiar. This will give you a list of Familiars to Summon, (depending on your skill). The first on the list is the Horde Minion, who is a very handy little friend for a miner!

The Horde Minion has several abilities:

A. Decent Combat Assistant - Can help you fight off light monster spawn while mining! It will automatically attack whatever creature you attack in melee, and defend itself, but is incapable of other actions.

B. Picks stuff up - He will pick up gold, reagents and bolts / arrows off the ground.

C. (most important for us) He has a backpack to pick up that stuff into - The Horde Minion has a backpack not much different than that of a character. He is limited to the same 125 Item limit as most containers are, and a weight limit of 400 stones. This is not a lot of carrying capacity (it's comparable to what characters had before Mondain's Legacy), but every little bit helps! Used in combination with a fire beetle, this can double your capacity for ingots, and has the benefit of, if it dies, you just summon another one to finish the trip back in, once you kill what killed it. (No looking for a rez for the packy). Just be sure to dismiss it when you're done.

D. Monsters ignore it if they can't see you (you are invisible/hiding/stealthing)!

The only real downside to the Minion, other than the above, is that since it's NOT a bonded pet, it does not recall with you. You will need to travel on foot, or use gate travel, to get it around.

For more information on the Horde Minion (Familiar), please go here: Horde Minion (Familiar)


Section 5.5: What can an Iron Beetle do? What about Vollems?

The Iron Beetle was introduced with Stygian Abyss. It will dig some ore, which causes its body to temporarily change to the color of the ore. Once the time expires, it excretes the metal. Currently, it requires taming, but that is supposed to have changed with publish 61 (I've not heard of much since). What the ingots do FOR the beetle, and if one will be able to use this as a mining pet, remains to be clarified.
Iron Beetle

On the other hand, there is the Vollem. Vollems come in two forms - a tinker-created golem form (tinker to heal, cannot bond), and the Stygian Abyss upgrade version which is a living animal (bonds to owner, can be healed with vet or spells, and can be rezzed by a vet if killed - and you can get these as the highest-cost Clean-up collection reward as well). Vollems are statistically identical to Nightmares, except that they cannot be ridden, and take 2 control slots. But, they can be owned by anyone, and make good protective animals for a miner or other resource gatherer (especially if they have tinkering, and are using golem versions - but I prefer the ones from the SA crystal gift). Vollem
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
This section is heavily edited from pre-2007 versions of the FAQ (which were mostly LBR and earlier material), as much of the strategies behind them have been invalidated by game changes introduced from AoS to ML (but especially the introduction of the Fire Beetle in Samurai Empire, and the ore changes of 2007).

The older versions can be found in the previous version of the FAQ at this link. http://vboards.stratics.com/showthread.php?t=28753


Section 6.1: Deciding what methods are right for you.

All these methods have advantages and disadvantages, and its up to you to decide which you are going to use. With pack horses, boats and strip mining you should be getting over 2000 ingots an hour once you have settled into a method. It depends on your additional skills and play style to what method you should use. The changes of the last few years has cause many of the old methods to blur together, and radically altered the rest (including rendering some totally moot).


Section 6.2: Recall Mining with Bonded Pets (especially the Fire Beetle, for Recall Mining 3.0)

For most of modern UO history (going back to the introduction of rune books), this was the preferred method of mining, until 2007. Recall mining (with or without a pack animal - pack animals became a staple when pets gained the ability to bond) became so common, that many miners gave up mining when the Ore Randomization changes occurred, having used it for so long, they'd forgotten all other methods.

A Historical Look at Recall Mining, Prior to the 2007 Ore Changes

Rather than running back to a forge, which might be some distance, when you are loaded up, you would recall to a forge and smelt and recall back to that mining spot's rune (or the next in your mining pattern) and continue. It was good for gaining skill as you were always moving, and for finding ore, up a mountain side. However the cost of constant recalling was a downside - then along came Chivalry, and the ability to sacred journey a lot cheaper than recall. Still, you needed to have some magery (or a cooperative Mage friend) to help you mark the runes you needed for a typical ore rune set , as described below.

The real power of this method was the gathering of colored ore of one specific (and high) color for miners of high skill (95+). Basic requirement was a set of runebooks. Miners would fill one or more runebooks with runes for each color. You would recall to the first spot, mine it empty, drop the iron ore and recall to the next. When your pack was fully loaded, recall home and either smelt it or store for a later smelt. In some Trammel locations, one could even find public houses along the hillsides to smelt your ore. And, if you could keep your pack horse and/or blue beetle out of trouble, they could go along for the ride if bonded.

Then came the fire beetle, and the second incarnation of this method. Now, one could then smelt as you went, able to stay out longer before recalling home, and even being able to keep the iron as well as the colored ingots.

THEN CAME THE ORE RANDOMIZATION

With one fell swoop, this method became obsolete, as every time you mined a spot, you could change its type. Within a week, nearly every marked Gold and Valorite spot had changed. The lamentations of the recall miners filled the air. But, some of us took heart, for as bad as we were hit, the poor lumberjacks were totally destroyed by the change.

And, that's when some of us realized - while the ores were changing, they were still putting out colored ore in the same ratios as they did before, just a different color (well, if they'd changed to iron, we had to use a Prospector's tool first). Over the years, many people reduced their runes to only their best producing sites, and now that would pay off. While the ore was random, the sites were still good producers - and like a box of chocolates, you never knew what you'd get until you dug in.

The Recall Method in its old forms, is dead. Recall Mining 3.0 lives; long live the king.

Essentially, this version of Recall Mining involves taking your most productive (in terms of ore output and average percentage of colored ore) runes, be they new or from the old books, and recalling with a fire beetle, to smelt on the spot. Return home to unload when you get to the point where you start losing ore from a full pack. If may take longer to get more of a specific ore, but you're bound to come back with a lot of colored ingots (especially if you're a "Combat miner" - see below).

And, with the pet changes in publish 97, and beetles dropping to 1 slot, one can now take a herd of pack animals, plus a fire beetle out, and mine until the cows come home.


Section 6.3: Boat Mining

Boat Mining refers to mining while on a boat. This is done by sailing out on a boat to places you can mine without having to leave the Boat, and then moving the boat up or down the cliff face and keep on mining, storing the ore on your deck. When you are done you would sail to a forge to smelt. There are a number of advantages and disadvantages to this method. The advantage is you can mine large amounts and it is very difficult to steal. (but not impossible! see below)

However mining these large amounts take time. The main disadvantage lies in the places where you can boat mine, The most popular place is the seaward side of the North Minoc Mines. This is a large stretch of mountain side where the patches are quite large. A lot of people mine here and also leave many boats blocking the higher ores (this is against the rules of UO and GM's often go and sink the boats) making it hard to sail around them because your up against the server line.

The few other places where it is possible to boat mine are the Cove cliffs, but there's not much ore there, or in T2A (aka "the Lost Lands"). T2A has a lot of sea cliffs, but a lack of seaside forges, so bring a fire beetle.

In the old days before Samurai Empire introduced the Fire Beetle, one often had to gate to a stable, grab pack animals, and run back through the gate before it fell (as one can gate FROM a boat, but not TO one), in order to unload the boat. Now, the High Seas ships not only have 20-40 times the capacity of the Classic ships, their holds allow you to combine items into commodity deeds for easy transport back to shore (but you got to buy the deeds at a bank).

Dangers of boat mining are pirates (PvPers in Felucca, and the rare times you bump into NPC pirates and they decide to attack you), ore thieves, decay and a few water based monsters. If in Trammel you do not have to worry about the PvPers. But ore thieves operate on both facets - make sure you set your security for boarding properly! Since you tend to carry a lot of ore on your boat the reward for successful thieves is very high, though if your High Seas ship is properly secured, they'll have to scuttle your ship to board and loot it (classic ships, though, can have ore on the deck looted from other ships!). Decay can also be a problem, While your ore is on the ground (and the boat deck counts as "on the ground") it is subject to normal item decay. And, don't forget to keep your ship refreshed or it can decay as well.

Boat Mining is one of the two means for Mining NITER DEPOSITS, a source of Saltpeter for making the powder charges for High Seas ship cannon. See Section 9 for more detains.


Section 6.4: Strip Mining (Past and Present)

Originally, was the most dangerous and fastest way of Mining. To get top speeds you needed to leave a lot of ore on the ground, often out of your sight. For instance, when using this method, one could have over 1000 large ore on the ground in various piles, and often in different mines. Ore thieves are the main danger, especially casual ones that just happen to see your ore and no one around. They will take your ore and you have a hard time beating them to the forge or getting it back. Even if it is only a small pile in general, an ore thief will spend more time trying to get that pile of 100 ore than it would take him to mine it (5min).

Move to the present... Now, there is the fire beetle, and the only time one needs to strip mine the old fashioned way, it is leaving the iron behind, to hopefully come back for after they have all their colored ore.

For the method itself, it can be used for both cave and mountain side mining, but cave strip mining will yield far better results. The idea behind strip mining is to mine as much as fast as possible regardless of the dangers. So to this end here is what a strip miner will do: A Strip miner will have a few favorite caves and at certain times of the day will strip mine them, i.e. mine them dry in as fast and optimized a way as possible. He will have a route through the cave to get to every ore spawn point in the cave(s) with as few time consuming movements as possible. If in medium sized caves he will recall to other caves as part of route. He will also know how many shovels are needed to mine all that and have that number or more ready.

In the old days, the strip miner would place the ore on the ground at his or her feet feet when a patch is mined, then move on to the next patch. The modern strip miner will simply smelt the colored ore on a fire beetle, and leave the iron behind, to possibly return for after getting the colored ore home. One can also use the "hidden pouch" trick described in "Run Mining" below.

When a strip miner has finished a spawn (reminder: spawn is about every 20 minutes, and in that time you can "strip" several caves), he will make/get more shovels and start again at the beginning of his route. After a few times you learn which caves to mine in which order, so that waiting for respawn is reduced to a minimum or not even required. After a certain time of mining, or when your nerves give out for having so much ore lying around, a strip miner would gather up the ore (drag it together in all the caves visited) and smelt it.


The advantages of strip mining is that you don't waste any time. Persons managed to get 5000 ingots per hour on a high speed connection, at an off time and with no ore stolen; and that was before fire beetles. The major disadvantage is of course the risk of ore thieves (which the fire beetle minimizes for colored ore). In Felucca, though, also be prepared to fight for your ore if you spot another character, as they will likely try to kill you and take your ingots.

The rules of mining (in a later section) are a bit blurry for strip miners. As a rule all their ore is covered by the mining code (they mined it so it is their own), but in many ways they are abandoning it. So, when dealing with an apparent strip miner, if you come to the cave of a strip miner: leave it alone for the time being. If you're the strip miner, and someone is already in your cave, come back later.


Section 6.5: Dragging/Leap-frogging:

This is often used alongside the other methods, it's not a mining method as such but a way of moving large amounts of ore in emergencies. Once you have a pile of ore too heavy to carry in your backpack, you can place it on the floor. If you then stand in front of it, and pick it up again, you can't move more than maybe one step at the most. This one step will drain all your stamina. Have a look at your weight on your character statistics while holding a large pile of ore: it will be horribly high, as even 100 large ore weigh 1200 stones already. But what you can do is place the pile down in front of you, while not actually moving yourself. With a reach of 2 tiles all around you (in all 8 directions) you can effectively move it up to 4 tiles at a time. You can do this with any amount of ore and for any distance. All it takes is some practice: pick the ore up, drop it off 2 tiles away, now move 4 tiles forward, pick the ore up again, ... etc. Experienced Leap-Froggers can reach near to normal walking speed with this method. The only thing that will stop you is a server line.

There is a certain danger, though. While your ore is on the ground it can also be stolen by someone walking by. Since this is for him just a picking-up operation, he will not even be flagged as a criminal for the theft. On the Felucca facet, however, you can choose to defend your ore, by attacking the thief. But beware the consequence, as this will flag YOU as the attacker (you will go grey) and it is YOU that gets the murder count if the ore thief dies. On other facets, there's nothing you can do.

There is one basic precaution : while a pile of ore is picked up (held in hand) it cannot be seen by other players. So whenever someone approaches pick up your pile of ore and hold it until all is clear. This will of course only work for one pile of ore, but leapfrogging more than one pile is a pain anyway, and a waste of time as well.

Note: While you are holding a large pile of ore you can NOT move more than a few steps, due to being overweight. This is a huge disadvantage in Felucca or Siege Perilous Shard, where you thus become a sitting duck for any PK that strolls by. Your only chance of survival as a leapfrog miner in Felucca would be to have high hiding skill. When hidden you can still pick up your ore pile and thus both you and the ore pile become invisible. Now hold your breath and pray that the PK does not find you.


Section 6.6: Run Mining / Pouch Mining

Often used in conjunction with Leap-frogging, this of course is one the slowest, and typically done as an expedient (for a quick few ore for a BOD, etc.) when you don't have a fire beetle. The pouch variant described below can however speed it up considerably. The name of the game in this method is never ever put the ore down. You mine - run - smelt, mine - run - smelt, always running to a forge and smelting when you can not carry anymore. With all the running you don't mine that much, though. The efficiency of this method depends on the distance between where you mine and where the nearest forge is. Do not forget that many player owned houses (outside Fel) have publicly accessible forges. Normal run mining with a forge close by and with not too much competition can produce 1000 to 1500 ingots per hour.

Typically, this method is used by persons who can mine areas adjacent to their house, or adjacent to a smithy (for example, many a young smith started out in the Age of Shadows era, Run-Mining the interior edges of Umbra's moat, bringing the ore to the Umbra smithy).

To maximize the ingot production, you're best doing this naked wearing no clothes and putting any un-needed items in the bank, so weigh as little as possible. The only things you should have on you are a shovel, tinkers kit, whatever ingots you have smelted already, as well as your runebook. Tinkering is a great help with this method, because to stay as light as possible you should not burden yourself with more than 1 shovel.

This method is used on both facets, but on Felucca it can be a dangerous method because anyone who sees you doing it will know you are carrying ingots. But if you manage to run or recall away you don't lose anything. You are a clear target for thieves and PKs who can't mine.

A sub method (modification) which is sometimes used with this method when done away from bank access is the "hidden pouch". You hide a pouch somewhere where it can't be seen except with circle of transparency. If you use the real "a pouch", which is the smallest bag available, you can even find plants that will cover it no one else will notice it. Whenever you smelt your ingots place them in the pouch, when finished grab the ingots and recall out. If you can't tinker shovels (or you don't want to waste mining time tinkering shovels), you can also keep a supply of shovels in the hidden pouch. This very effectively protects your ingots against thieves and PKs (if you die you don't lose the ingots), but stands the risk of the pouch being found either by mistake or by someone watching you hide it. In Felucca you should even keep some ingots on yourself, so that a PK or a thief doesn't go looking for the pouch when they kill/steal from you and get no ingots.

One additional modification to this method was to have a bonded fire beetle, and rename it "A Giant Beetle". You then would leave its ghost about a screen or so from your hidden pouch. As the two look identical as ghosts in 2D, no one would know you could smelt on it. This gave you a means of smelting your ingots quickly, minimizing your movements to a forge that might give you away in Felucca. However, the changes to the fire beetle for Publish 56 (no longer able to smelt on the ghost) make this no longer viable.


6.7. Combat Mining

Combat Mining is sort of the Extreme Sport of the Mining community. It is centered around a simple set of premises:
  • Gargoyle Pickaxes (when used alone or in conjunction with Prospector Tools) give a tremendous amount of freedom and ore possibilities that cannot be matched by other mining methods
  • The Elementals that spawn from the use of the Gargoyle Pickaxes are fairly easy to kill with warriors
  • With suitable armor and the high health associated with the typical high strength of miners, a Miner/Warrior should be able to easily kill any such elemental that dares attack them, without even pausing their mining stroke. A tamer/miner is good for 5 of the 7 common ore ele types, but is at a disadvantage against Shadow Iron and Valorite eles, who are immune to most of their pets (there's a few pet abilities that work, much to the chagrin of people who tried to train their pets on shadow iren eles - ask about them on the Tamer forum)
  • Of course, if one doesn't have to stop mining, that means that the 25 ore in each ore elemental is a bonus over and above any normal mining gains for your chosen method from above.

See the sections on Ore Elementals, and on the Prospector Tool & Gargoyle Pickaxe, for more information of these parts of the combat miner's methods.

What it really boils down to, is that these are some tough miners - able to kill the ore elementals (some of them mine in Ilshenar, just for the challenge of trying to dig up and kill paragon ore elementals, like the dreaded Paragon Valorite), hold their own against ANY wandering monster in Trammel, Felucca and Malas (and all but the toughest ones in Ilshenar, Tokuno, and in the dungeons of all the facets), and even put some serious pain and greyscreen time into the life of any PK that tries to jump them while Fel mining.

During the Candle of Love event, when the Compassion Desert area was overrun by ore elementals, these warriors rode out on their fire beetles, carving a path through the spawn with their elemental slayers, and bringing back tens of thousands of ingots from their kills. Imagine the shame that PKs have to endure, once they are publicly declared to have been killed by a Legendary Smith (you don't have to mention your legendary weapon skill).

The method for this type of miner is simple. Swing once with a normal shovel. Then, use a prospector tool if needed. If you get dull copper, and need dull copper, stay with the normal shovel. Otherwise, start mining with a gargoyle pick, digging up the ores from Shadow Iron to Valorite in much larger quantities than normal miners, before factoring in the haul from the eles. If an ele pops up, cast enemy of one or evasion, and keep digging as you kill it on autodefend (slapping on a bandage or drinking a pot if needed). In one famous event on Lake Austin, my combat miner Lang had FIVE Shadow Iron elementals spawn in a period of 9 Garg pick swings. By the time the third one got its first swing, the first was falling; by the time the fifth came up, the second was dead. A few seconds later, I was surrounded by 5 shadow ele corpses, and was 125 shadow ore better than I was a minute before - I never healed, and never dropped below 50 health.

The only thing that slows these miners down outside Ilshenar are Blackrock eles (they have to run from em, just like everyone else), and those stopped spawning as of Valentine's Day 2008 (though there are still some event leftovers on most shards in the T2A desert). Those that mine in Ilshenar for the challenge (not to mention the lack of competition for the ore) also have to deal with both normally occurring paragons (it's a Paragon Greater Dragon - RUN AWAY!), and the dangers of the Copper & Valorite Paragons, that have their ability to reflect 50% of the damage back to their attacker (requiring attacks be done at a distance, or by jousting techniques).
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
What is the difference between mining in Felucca, Trammel, Ilshenar, Malas and the Tokuno Islands? What about the new lands from Stygian Abyss and Time of Legends?

The major differences are in Felucca and Ilshenar, but the other facets have their quirks as well. Note that the listed dangers of Malas, Ilshenar & Tokuno still apply for Siege Perilous, in addition to those areas being PvP-enabled there!


Mining in Trammel

Trammel is generally considered safest, as you can not get PK'd or stolen from while you are in Trammel. The Trammel Lost Lands are fairly safe in the south, but the northern Desert and City of the Dead in the West have highly dangerous spawn.


Mining in Felucca

Felucca has added the bonus of doubled resources. What this means is that for mining, every swing will yield you double the ore over mining in Trammel (before the addition of the +1 bonus ore chance for a human). The drawback is that you can be stolen from or PK'd in Felucca! The Felucca Lost Lands are the home of most of the champion spawns, and will most likely be crawling with PKs most times of the day. You can't recall out, so you if you mine there, it is best to stay in Delucia (but be prepared to face turf wars there with other miners).


Mining in Ilshenar

Ilshenar has a few wide open runs of mining that are relatively safe (the best examples are from Sacrifice east to the passage to the Blood dungeon, the mountains surrounding the Humility swamp, The areas north of Mireg/Lakeshire, the passage from the Juka to the Serpentine dragon, and the mountains between the spider dungeon entrance and compassion, though the approaches to the last two from either end are dangerous). Ilshenar is under the Trammel ruleset so you can not be PK'd or stolen from. The main difference with Ilshenar is that you can not Recall or Gate into it (but can recall out), and that occasionally there will be a Paragon creature that spawns either naturally, or if you are using a Gargoyle Pickaxe, a Paragon Elemental as described in Section 8.


Mining in Malas

Malas is under the Trammel ruleset also and is thus safe from PK's and getting stolen from. There is no other difference really. If anything, there is even less spawn than Trammel & Felucca. The frozen mountain passes and crumbling mountain areas are well known for their mines, the moat rims around Umbra can be mined, and the deserts are fairly tame, except for the rare sand vortex. Areas to avoid are the approaches to Doom (an occasional Nightmare) and getting too close to the buried pyramid.


Mining in the Tokuno Islands

Mining in the Tokuno Islands is not really recommended. The reason why is that the dangers are WAY too great for most of the region, and there are not many spots to get a good mining run in. With the Elite Ninja, (Who Hide and Stealth), Hiryu and other monsters all over the place that really hit HARD, you will more likely die then be able to get any significant mining done, with the exception of on the island of Makoto-Jima, where the city of Zento sits. That island has relatively mundane spawn on it (undead up to skele knights & mages, small orc bands), and that being concentrated in the northern desert area.

Mining in the Gargoyle Land of Ter Mur, and its attached dungeons

There are multiple areas in the Royal City of Ter Mer that are completely safe for mining. There are several other areas where the spawn is relatively low key, as well. But, there are also lots of areas with hostile monsters, some of whom can get bigger if ignored (the evolutions of the void creatures). Scout areas carefully before mining. Also, there are spots within the Underworld and Stygian Abyss that might be mined, but are typically surrounded by (or even IN) high-spawn areas, so mining them is a dangerous endeavor. Also note that, unlike other facets, there are bonus materials for mining in Ter Mur. For example, Ore Elementals are more likely to have the Mondain's Legacy large gems in them, and you can get Crystalline Blackrock at any skill level, not just grandmaster, as random loot while mining.

Mining in Eodon

For the most part, Eodon is treated as Ter Mur for most purposes, except under Ilshenar rules (no marking, no gating). Most of the rock faces and hillsides are the wrong types of terrain for mining - though there's plenty of sand for that aspect of mining. The more likely an area is to have stone, the more likely the area is to have dangerous spawn.


Section 7.2: Where can I find a UOAM Ore Map for my shard?
Section 7.3: Where can I find a colored ore spot rune library for my shard?


With the changes to ore, rune libraries of ore locations are no longer viable, and ore maps for UOAM even less so. All one really needs now are rune books of locations that produce large ore quantities, and hope that you can get the types you need normally, or via use of prospector tools and/or gargoyle pickaxes, once there. One can't selectively pick your ore types by simply recalling, anymore, so quality and quantity (and the tweaks to the colors available allowed by the tools) have to fill the void.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 8.1: Monsters / Wandering Spawn

While out and about the various mountain ranges mining, some areas are pretty devoid of any life whatsoever. But there are some things to consider...

All Locations not bordering a city will typically have some spawn that can endanger a miner fresh from New Haven. These are typically things like Ogres, Trolls and the like. More likely, they will be more of a danger to your pack horse, than to you (and the packy types just seem to LOVE to chase hostile spawn that will kill them).

The following is an attempt to give you a list of potential danger spots that are mined. The "*" indicates ones that can be the most deadly.

Trammel & Felucca areas with monster issues

Most Trammel/Felucca mainland locations: Ogres, Trolls, Ettins, Harpies, Headless Ones, Reapers*, Gargoyles, Air Elementals, Water Elementals* (if near a coast), Corpsers, Giant Spiders.

Jungle Locations (mainland & islands): Giant Serpents*, Alligators, Corpsers

Dagger (Ice) Island: Orc bands*, Ice Trolls

Fire (Avatar) Island: Combination of mainland normal & jungle spawn, occasional Daemon, Drake or Dragon wandering far from the Fire Temple where it spawned. PLUS had the most Treasure Map spots of any island, prior to the map locations becoming random and on all facets, and still seems to be a hot spot for random map generation. Be prepared in case some unethical Treasure Hunter "Dumped" his spawn, instead of killing it. Such spawn can include Ancient Wyrms, Frost Dragons, Cold Drakes, Balrons, Titans, Poison Elementals, Blood Elementals, Lich Lords, Dread Spiders, Elder Gazers and Ogre Lords (to give a selection of the toughest level 4-7 map spawn, starting at the top and working down). due to the nature of the way creatures try to follow targets that recall away, most of this spawn, if present, will be on the Northwest shore of the island, or along the northern mountain section on the west side.The back side of that range and the southern mountain areas are typically safe. In Trammel, the "new" area of the island added with Stygian Abyss is fairly safe (desert/beach, with the occasional random spawn from the island proper leaking over - nothing larger than a regular ogre). However, There's only 4 outcroppings (3 arranged in a triangle, and the big volcanic vent/crater to the SSW) that can be mined - none of the dark lava areas can be mined, only the "normal" colored rock faces.

Wind Passage: A winding set of tunnels south of the Chaos Shrine, there are black solen infiltrators* (red, in Felucca) here. The Solen tend to congregate in the SW area. Wind itself can only be entered by mages, and has even more deadly spawn (liches, dragons, daemons, etc.)

Compassion Desert: Sand Vortex*, Giant Scorpions, Orc Bands in the north (usually not close to the mountains). In the south by the mountains, less of these (but can still be ran into), but there are some Earth Elementals, and a rare Dull Copper Elemental that spawn here (the DC ele gives 2 large ore as loot, and is not included in the Earth Elemental slayer for some reason).

Bog of Desolation (which has a mountain facing as a border between it and Compassion Desert): Bog Things*, Boglings, Acid Elementals*, Plague Beasts*, Plague Beast Lords*, Giant Serpents, Lizardmen

Mountains South & SE of Yew: The eastern valley has vast orc encampment in it, leading to the Orc Mines dungeon. On the west side, the mountain face passes dangerously close to a spawn of multiple liches. The mountains to the direct south of Yew along the coast (the ones with the entrance to Shame dungeon, Sanctuary, and the Blighted Grove) have excellent mining, but have an orc fort and brigands on the side away from the ocean (the Yew road side), elementals, gargoyles, reapers and other mainland spawn on the seaward side. The Orc Mines have an Orc Brute spawn on the lowest level (25 shadow iron ore, per brute), and you can mine while waiting for the Brute to respawn.


Trammel & Felucca "Lost Lands"

All of the regions listed in this subsection are extremely dangerous.

Avoid the City of the Dead region on both facets.
Avoid getting anywhere close to the Terethan Keep and Ophidian Lair (there is lethal spawn that range out for several screen widths/lengths - not to mention the leftover Blackrock elemental spawn near the Lair)
Avoid all areas that are Champ Spawns in Felucca.
Avoid the lava area in the south part of the desert across from Papua (fire eles*, Efreet*, imps, and more)
One can TRY to mine the desert areas, but there is a heavy spawn there (best bet is on a combat/magic capable miner, using a fire beetle only). Spawn includes (all dangerous) Mummies, Cyclopean Warriors, Titans, Wyverns, Orc Camps (with ettins), Giant Scorpions, Imps, Harpies, Gazers, Stone Gargoyles. On the bright side, the Stone Gargoyles often have Gargoyle Pickaxes as loot.


Ilshenar

Once you leave the are between the Sacrifice gate and the Spirituality Champ Spawn area (including the mushroom cave that leads to the Twisted Weald as the safest place in the entire facet - except on SP of course), consider everywhere else potentially or completely hostile. If you have positive Karma, one can often get a potential danger to follow you into the woods in this area, to get killed by the pixies - or to Mireg/Lakeshire, to be killed by the Meer. Needless to say, these areas are deadly to the Necromancy-based miner. The area along the east edge of Ilshenar, from the Chaos shrine south to the maze of passages surrounding the Rock Dungeon, are relatively safe, except for the occasional Efreet that wanders in from the ruins of Montor. That area also has a spawn in a box canyon of up to 3 stone gargoyles, for those looking for Gargoyle Pickaxes and additional iron ore & gems - the downside is the occasional paragon spawn, and sometimes the respawn is on the wrong side of the canyon wall, into the desert.


Malas

Most safety concerns covered in the previous section. Note that the upper section of Malas has the dangerous Crystal Elementals, but these can typically be outran if encountered, or easily defeated if you're a combat miner with an elemental superslayer. Also note that the island in the Divide of the Abyss (where the entrance to the Labyrinth is) typically has good mining on its central mountain, but the south end has too many small snakes and giant scorpions to bring a packy (beetles, maybe, but no horses or llamas), and the NW side has insanely lethal leftover Event spawn on many shards (Lake Austin, for example, has rotting corpses, reapers, and the occasional ancient lich or skeletal dragon). The area between Umbra and Doom can also have the new drake types (based on the Platinum and Crimson dragons) as well.


Tokuno Islands

On a scale of 1 to 10 in lethality, Trammel & Malas are roughly 3s (with areas ranging 1 to 5), Felucca a 4 (ranging 1 to 7), and Ilshenar a 7 (with areas ranging down to 3). By comparison, The island of Makoto-Jima is a high 4, Homare-Jima is an 8 (the areas with housing regions are about a 5, the rest 8 or higher), and Isamu-Jima is a hard 10 in most areas. Even people who LIKE mining in Ilshenar, and love fighting paragons, avoid Tokuno like the plague. As for what spawns there, look at the list of creatures introduced in Samurai Empire - The Yomotsu and most the elemental types are the things that will try to kill you on Homare-Jima, the reptilian, draconic, demonic and undead will try to kill you on Isamu-Jima, and the Ronin and Ninja will try to kill you on BOTH.

Ter Mur, the Underworld, and the Abyss

There are numerous areas within the Royal City, that can be mined, as well in the residential (player housing) region to the south and east. The ability to mine around the Holy City depends on the in-game clock - you really don't want to be there during every other hour, when the putrid undead gargoyle spawn is running.
Most other overland ares have issues with the Void spawn - if you've got mountains to mine, most likely they are also acting as barriers that concentrate the void creatures, allowing them to gain in strength, and unless someone is actively clearing them, you're bound to run into things like Anlorvaglem - scout the area with a tamer or Sampire, before risking your miner. Other areas have things like raptors, toxic slith, trapdoor spiders, flaming gargoyles and the kepetch, which can be similarly lethal.
Theoretically, some areas of the Underworld and the Stygian Abyss are minable, but that would be somewhat ballsy to attempt, since much of those areas experience constant hostile spawn. There are a few isolated areas, often on the river and considered safe areas for fishers, in the Underworld, but those are relatively small, and you have to go in on foot or mounted to get there.

Eodon

As noted before, there are limited places to mine in Eodon - but those areas appear to be relatively high output (15-30 digs for an elf). And, much like with Fishing, all of Eodon is considered "dungeon" for digging up niter deposits.

The first of these is the Britannian Encampment area, reached most easily using a Eodon moonstone (a drop from Zipactriotl, but many houses have these set for public use). The area is the western-most area of Eodon. From that camp north, the cliffsides are safe mining (maybe, at most, a vampire bat), and there is an area you have to teleport into in order to mine.
Going counter-clockwise around the edges of the board, the next mining area is the very dangerous Myrmidex area, with myrmidex, spiders and scorpions. You may be able to reach mine-able stone areas in the Barrab village itself.
Where the stone runs out south of that desert, you have to progress around to the Jukari village to reach more usable stone. The area (mostly safe) starts around the lake by the village, and the cliff to the south and SW of the village. As you leave the village to the east, you transition to the useless volcanic rock. Strangely, some of the rocks surrounding lava pools can be mined, when the cliffs cannot - but the local spawn makes that very dangerous.
From there, continuing around the map, you don't run into a mining area until you go inside the cave of the Great Ape. It's just like any other mining cave, as long as you don't go so deep to run into the spawn - and remember you can't hurt the mini-boss unless you have the Great Ape quest from the village to the south.
And, that's pretty much it for mining in Eodon, unless you're mining sand.




Section 8.2: Ore Elementals

When using the Gargoyles Pick Axe as described in Section 9, there is a chance that you will pull up an ore elemental of the color you are extracting, hence the need for a miner with any combat skill to be wielding an Earth Elemental Slayer. All types that spawn from gargoyle pickaxe use are susceptible to the standard Earth elemental slayer, or the Elemental super-slayer. These dangerous monsters range from fairly easy (shadow iron & verite elementals) to very very hard (valorite elementals).

Ore elementals spawn right next to the miner and usually attack him first, though on rare occasions a nearby pack animal or mount will be targeted first. Upon death they carry 25 ore of their color as loot, which is especially rewarding with the valorite elementals. Some miners specifically dig with just gargoyle pickaxes, in order to get the elementals.

The following list of Elementals are those that are spawned by using the Gargoyles Pick Axe:

Shadow Iron: Immune to magic spells and most pet damage, but a relatively easy melee or archery kill.
Copper: 50% Reflect melee damage, 100% Reflect spell damage back to caster - can be tricky to fight without dying, unless using ranged weapons, summons or pets.
Bronze: Ranged Gas Attack that can be a pain for those trying to back off and heal. Also does mostly (70%) fire damage, compared to most other's physical-only attacks.
Gold: Has a very High physical resist (75)
Agapite: Stronger than most ore elementals, but less hit points. Special weapons moves (especially AI) are your friend.
Verite: Damage is 50% Physical, 50% energy. Has the rare ability to DESTROY equipment worn by those they fight, regardless of resists. Luckily, this special ability rarely triggers (has happened to me 4 times in my first 5 years, but two of them were in one night in March 2008), and this ability cannot destroy insured or blessed items (at least, that's the intent - it might be bugged to allow such items to be affected, rarely - I could have swore the item broken in 2003 was insured). There were some comments from devs that cursed items (or, at least, the cursed versions of Doom artifacts from a ML-era event) were immune as well.
Valorite: The mother of all elementals. Has the special abilities of the Dull Copper, Shadow Iron, Copper, Bronze and Verite elementals (yes, including equipment destruction), the best resists of all elementals(75/60/60/60/50) and the strength of the Agapite elemental, all rolled into one lethal package. Its damage is 25% physical, 25% fire, 25% cold, 25% energy. Hunt these only if you have an archer handy, or a melee type good at "jousting" (running through the target, then away to heal, if necessary). With the reflect combined with a hard hit and possible gas attack, I recommend that you do NOT use damage-increasing special moves (AI, concussion blow, double strike, etc.) on one, as you could well kill yourself. It's funny when you kill a monster with reflect physical damage from its last attack - it's not so funny when you're on the receiving end of such a death.


Dull Copper Elementals exist, but only spawn in Compassion desert, The Yomotsu Mines, and the Sorceror's Dungeon, as monsters, not from Gargoyle Pickaxe use. They carry only 2 large Dull Copper Ore, and were not originally vulnerable to the Earth Elemental slayer (requiring the Elemental "super" slayer), though this may have changed. They also have a chance to dispel summons on successful combat hits.
Gargoyle Pickaxes, when used to mine Dull Copper ore, will not currently cause DC elementals to spawn (though we keep bugging Devs to make that happen). There is an earth elemental variant (slightly tougher than the originals) that spawn where the originals DC elementals once did in Shame Dungeon, that give 4 medium ore of a random color (from normal up to Valorite).

Blackrock Elementals: An event-related elemental that spawn when mining with any tool (not just the GPA) if you had blackrock in your pack, these spawned up until 14 February, 2008, after being introduced in 2006. This creature was an insanely amped up Valorite elemental (about as powerful in relation to a paragon Valorite elemental as Dreadhorn is compared to a paragon Unicorn), black in color, with a constant area effect attack and near-impervious to damage. The only known way to kill one that was ever done successfully more than once, was to have two present, have a legendary Bard discord the first one, then provoke the SECOND blackrock elemental onto the first to kill it. Ironically, while one often got one while trying to mine for blackrock, they didn't HAVE any on them. Some EMs use these (after being reskinned) as an event monster.


Section 8.3: Paragon Ore Elementals

When mining in Ilshenar with a Gargoyles Pick Axe, there is the possibility that the Elemental that spawns will be a Paragon! These are especially nasty creatures as all their stats and abilities are greatly enhanced. Dull Copper Elemental paragons can be found in the Sorcerors Dungeon, if you want to run past several lich lords, elder gazers and blood elementals to get to the Blacksmith Room and its multiple DC elementals.

For a detailed list of Paragon abilities, please go here: Paragons


Section 8.4: Other Players (PK's) in Felucca (or, shardwide on SP & Mugen)

The only place that Player Killers, (PK's) are ever a problem on the regular shards, are in Felucca. As described in Section 7, mining in Felucca gives the reward of Double the Ore haul from a single spot over Trammel. The Risk is that you are open to attack from other players! Typically, the defenses are to hide, run away (including Recall/Sacred Journey), or fight off your attacker. Your strategy will typically be based on your template skill choices.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 9.1: What is a Grid Map Overlay for UOAM? Why can't I use one?

For Official Shards, resources are divided up into 8x8 Resource Grids. A Grid map overlay for UO Auto Map (UOAM) basically shows you the exact Resource Grid Layout.

The so called grid map overlay has been outlawed by EA as a exploit. When adding it to your UOAM, the UOAM tool loses its UO-Pro status (because you make changes to internal program files). Using tools without UO-Pro status in turn *will* lead to UO account suspension or UO account banning when their use is discovered. As far as EA is concerned (and this is something they have in their ToS!) any program that exposes hidden elements of the background (such as the resource grid) while the client is running is an exploit. Since Stratics does not allow the posting of bugs or exploits we do not allow the posting of any information relating more directly to the grid map overlay.


Section 9.2: What information is available for the Prospectors Tool?

Prospector's Tools (Smith BOD reward)

These items can be used as a macing weapon (similar to a sledgehammer, but cannot be used as a smithing tool), but their real use is "prospecting" an ore site. Before you can prospect a site, you must use a digging tool (shovel, pickaxe, Gargoyle Pickaxe) once on the target area. Such use does not have to be successful, just break the ground (which means, you can do a "false dig" while mounted, be told you cannot mine while mounted, then use the tool to get the enhancement, to maximize your digging tool usage at the elevated state).

A successful use of the prospector tool means that all colored ore you gain from a site will be one level higher. However, you can only use the tool to elevate a site to an ore type that you can already mine. For example, at 85 mining, you could elevate a bronze site to gold, but not a gold site to agapite. Elevating an Iron site to dull copper becomes possible at 65 Mining (the skill needed to mine DC ore), but only a percentage of the ore will be DC; all other elevations simply replace the usual colored ore with the higher type.

You can only use the prospector's tool once per site, until the ore respawns, at which time you can use it again on that site. They have 50 charges when new, and that could easily add up to 1000 enhanced ore if used in Felucca, or even the best locations in Trammel, Malas, Tokuno & Ilshenar.


"Error" Messages you can get while mining, using a Prospector's Tool:

Trying to elevate an ore vein to a metal (other than Valorite) that you cannot yet mine: "You sift through the ore, but do not feel confident with the prospects here."
Trying to elevate a Valorite vein (whether you can mine that level of ore or not): "You cannot improve valorite ore through prospecting." Note that this message supercedes the previous one, so you'll always know when you're trying to elevate a natural valorite spot, even if only 65 skill.

Neither of these will use a charge off the tool.


Section 9.3: What information is available for the Gargoyle's Pickaxe?

Gargoyle's Pickaxes (Smith BOD reward, and also found as loot on most Gargoyle types, on about 5-10% of gargoyles killed)

Gargoyle's pickaxes are magical tools as well. They allow you to mine ore colors one class better than you normally could at a mining site - this includes mining an ore type one could not normally mine yet with your actual mining skill. If used in conjunction with a prospector's tool, this can allow up to a two-step improvement in ore type (but still at that maximum of one type better than you could with a normal tool). They can be wielded as a weapon, but the smart miner will use them from inside their backpack, and wield an earth elemental slayer in their hand.

Examples: With 83 mining skill -
Can get Gold ore from a bronze spot, by using the Gargoyle's Pickaxe
Can get Gold ore from a copper spot, by first elevating the spot with a Prospector's tool, then using the Gargoyle's Pickaxe.

Note that the skill level above could not elevate bronze to gold with the Prospector's tool, then to Agapite with the Gargoyle's Pickaxe, as the Prospector's Tool only works if you can smelt the new type with your current skill. You can get dull copper ore from digging an Iron-ore-only site with a Gargoyle's Pickaxe, but currently that does not cause an elemental to spawn, like for the other metal types (see below). As you may not be able to smelt the ore you mine, one must be careful as where to use it (unless you intentionally are stockpiling ore for later use).

Another nice feature of gargoyle's pickaxes is that they start out with 101 to 125 uses, unlike normal tools (that start out with 50) or exceptionally crafted tools (which have 100 at GM tinkering). Only the "Sturdy Tool" rewards have more uses on production shards, at 150 or 200 when new. And, like all other mining tools, if you fail to dig up a piece of ore, no "uses" are lost.

But as with all things that sound too good to be true, there is also a danger! There is a chance that you will pull up an ore elemental of the color you are extracting, hence the need for a miner with any combat skill to be wielding an Earth Elemental Slayer. All types that spawn from gargoyle's pickaxe use are susceptible to the standard Earth elemental slayer, or the Elemental super-slayer. These dangerous monsters range from fairly easy (shadow iron & agapite elementals) to very very hard (copper & valorite elementals). The Dull Copper Elementals were coded differently from the other ore elementals originally, and were for years not included in the Earth Elemental slayer property. As such, DC eles do not spawn from the use of this tool.

Ore elementals spawn right next to the miner and usually attack him first, though on rare occasions a nearby pack animal or mount will be targeted first. Upon death they carry 25 ore of their color as loot, which is especially rewarding with the valorite elementals. Some miners specifically dig with just gargoyle's pickaxes, in order to get the elementals.

Note that if you can't mine the normal ore of a spot (say, using a gargoyle's pickaxe on an agapite ore spot, while only able to mine bronze), all your ore mined will be iron, but you STILL can end up spawning an elemental of the type that the ore vein would spawn (in this example, a verite elemental). This ability seems to kick in only once the miner gains the ability to dig dull copper normally, as repeated tests with a sub-65 miner resulted in no elementals, while numerous ones spawned for a 65 mining skill miner, mining WAY out of league, and getting only iron and the ore from the elementals to show for it.

Another interesting feature is that you can use a gargoyle's pickaxe on a Valorite spot, and get valorite elementals (since there is no higher ore type to elevate to). This method, if one can mine valorite, greatly increases your valorite haul.

A guide to the Ore elementals that spawn from the Gargoyle's Pickaxe can be found in Section 8.2 above (sections 8.2, 8.3, 9.2 & 9.3 trace their origins to an original post by me in 2004, long before I was a moderator):

Common strategies for the "Smith Reward" tools (Prospectors Tool & Gargoyle's Pickaxe):

1. Playing it safe: Using normal tools with the Prospector's tool only. The only danger are miner-killers in Felucca, and normal monster spawn everywhere.

2. The Fearless Elemental Hunter: Mines mostly in the "safe" facets, and is typically a warrior (or paladin) with mining. Uses gargoyle's pickaxes almost exclusively (the only exception is when they HAVE to get Dull Copper ore for some reason), tweaking it with the prospector's tool as needed for the ore types desired. Typically is armed with a good Earth elemental slayer someone priced really cheap (or made by their own smith), a high-resist suit, and an ample supply of bandages (if they have healing) or mana (for healing spells and special weapons moves).

3. The PARAGON Elemental Hunter: A variant of the above, it is growing in popularity, thanks to the exploits of the Extreme Miners Hunting Club (XMHC) guild of Lake Austin. These are miners who fit the description of 2. above, but do their mining IN ILSHENAR, purposefully trying to bring up paragon elementals, and the very, very rare ore elemental paragon chests they have the potential to carry. With these types of hunts, it might be advisable to bring along a melee or archer warrior friend (As spells and pets don't work too well, if at all, on some of the elementals even when normal - let alone as paragons).

4. The Townie: Similar to #2 above, but with less combat skill. The Townie will typically mine in a guard zone (Umbra, Delucia), and try to kill elementals. But, if the elemental is too tough for them, then they can scream for the guards. They'll lose the ore, but keep their life.

5. The Bane of Macroers. Typically mines Felucca. Uses their Gargoyle's Pickaxes when they are near an area frequented by persons using unattended macro mining scripts. When a Macroer arrives, they attempt to spawn an elemental, then immediately leave to let the elemental have its way with the bot. Perfectly legal in Felluca, but illegal elsewhere (not that it's stopped persons sick of macroers from doing it anyway).


Section 9.4: What items exist to supplement one's Mining Skill, other than the tools above?

The most useful are the three types of "Gloves of Mining", which come as Blacksmith BOD rewards. They come in Leather (+1 skill), Studded Leather (+3 skill) and Ringmail (+5 skill). All of these come in the colors of the 9 ingot types, despite being made of their normal material, and retain that color when enhanced, regardless of the color of the material used to enhance them. The leather gloves do not interfere with meditation, but the other two types prevent meditation when worn.

These gloves ignore the skill cap for mining (100 skill), increasing the ingot return and (if below 99 skill) allow you to mine ores normally out of your range when worn.

For smelting ore, each +1 of the Gloves is a 2% increase to the chance of success.
For smelting metal items, each +1 of skill gives an additional 0.66% to the ingot return. As the return for Grandmaster Mining is 66%, it requires either the +3 or +5 gloves to reach 66.67%, and get back the most ingots from items made with multiples of 3 ingots. Similarly, the way the numbers factor, one gets one more ingot with the +5 gloves when smelting 25-ingot items (plate tunics, chaos shields, order shields), than with +3 or lower gloves (69.3% vs.67.97%, with 68% needed).

This is best seen in the use of the +5 gloves, where most items return 69.3% (or whatever whole ingot amount is closest yet less than this precentage). At Grandmaster real skill, There is a 1 ingot difference between +3 & +5 gloves when dealing with items requiring 25 or 28 ingots, and a +1 ingot difference between +1 (or no gloves) & +3 (or +5) gloves, when smelting items made with an ingot amount that is a multiple of 3, as even 101 mining falls short of the 66.67% target for 2/3 ingot return.

Note that the Gloves of Mining CAN be imbued, so long as they were not enhanced with colored materials prior to 2010. As non-crafted items, they have a property intensity cap of 450%, and the Mining +10 counts as 66.67% times the Skill property weight of 1.4, for a total of 93.33%, leaving 356.67% intensity to be added. You can then enhance after the imbued items are added.
Note: after the loot revamp a few years ago, the +10 Mining might not count AT ALL against the imbuing weight.
Examples of Gloves of Mining that are imbued:
a. 4 Resist categories at +13% each (or any combination up to 52%) (then enhanced)
b. 3 Resist categories at +12% each (or any combination up to 36%), plus 100 Luck (then enhanced with gold to 140), for Saltpeter miners.
c. 3 Resist categories totaling 32%, plus Mage Armor (then enhanced)
d. Mage Armor, Luck, and 1-2 other properties at low value (116.66 weighted intensity, so 17 resists, or any one 1.0 or 1.1 weight property at max value, like Mana Increase) (then enhanced)

The effects of the +5 Gloves can best be seen in the essay on the bag elsewhere on the Craftsman forum.

Note that for the specialized mining tasks of mining stone and mining sand (described later), one can wear gloves to reach the level required to learn those skills.

Another useful tool for the below-Grandmaster miner is the one a new smith can get in New Haven.

Jacob's Pickaxe is a tool one gets as a result of training mining up to 50 with the New Haven miners quest. It has 20 uses (that regenerate - rate of 1 every five minutes, and does not break at 0, unlike normal mining tools), and gives +10 mining when held. However, this skill bonus functions like normal bonuses, and cannot put you over 100 skill, by itself. If you need to combine it with the bonus from Gloves of Mining, you must equip the Jacob's Pickaxe FIRST, then put on the gloves (doing it gloves-first will not go over 100 skill). However, it is a fine accessory, for sub-GM miners, when it comes time to smelt their ore. And, the fact that it is blessed, means the miner is never without a weapon, if they can use it. It is also popular with Treasure Hunters, as to squeeze out an additional 10 skill points for their template without sacrificing other skills or armor protection (as using mining gloves require taking off the character's normal gloves, which have much better and important bonuses.)


Section 9.5: What information is available for Regular, Exceptional and Sturdy Shovels / Pick Axes?

Sturdy Shovels and Sturdy Pick Axes are BOD rewards from the Blacksmithy Bulk Order Deed (BOD) System.

The advantage to carrying these around are that they have an enhanced number of uses to them over regular or exceptional tools of the same type.

Regular Character-created shovels / pickaxes come with 50 uses.
Exceptional Character-created shovels / pickaxes come with 100 uses.
Sturdy shovels / pickaxes come from turning in low-end Blacksmith BODs, and randomly have either 150 or 200 uses.

All Shovels weigh 5 Stones each.
All Pickaxes (including the Gargoyle's Pickaxes) weigh 11 Stones each.
These tools have several times the numbers above, on Siege Perilous.


Section 9.6: What information is available for Mining Stone? What information is available for Mining Sand?

To mine either of these resources, one must travel to the Gargoyle lands - the Royal City in Ter Mur - and purchase the books needed to learn these skills. One must be a Grandmaster Miner (real skill), or be 100 skill in Mining with help from equipment, to read these books. Before Exodus laid waste to the Gargoyle city of Ver Lor Reg in Ilshenar, the books were available there.

To learn how to mine for stone a GM Miner must read the book "Mining for Quality Stone"
To learn how to mine for glass a GM Miner must read the book "Find Glass-Quality Sand"

These books cost about 10,000 gold each, as do the books that allow a Grandmaster Carpenter to learn Stoneworking (aka Masonry), and a Grandmaster Alchemist to learn Glassblowing (found in the same shop that sells the books on mining their raw material).

In Ter Mur's Royal City, the Stone Mining and Masonry books are found in the middle shop of the three-part building to the east of the public soulforge, sold by the Stone Crafter NPC.

The skill Glassblowing can be found Here.
The Masonry skill (called Stonecrafting on Stratics, but Masonry on talismans) can be found Here.

Note that to mine stone, your mining tools have to be set to mine ore and stone (menu brought up by clicking on the tool). If you only wish to mine ore, make sure the tool is set to mine only ore. Once your tool is set that way, every mining tool you use will use that setting, until you change it again.

Mining sand just requires targeting a patch of sand with a mining tool, such as in a desert, on a beach, or even the "sandbox" half-filled with skulls between the bank & inn in Umbra.

Both Sand and Stone became stackable resources in Publish 56 (October 2008), and the weight of stone mined after this point is "1 stone" per stone.

Stones mined prior to this publish are not stackable, and weigh 10 stones each (and older sand may still be unstackable as well, though it has always weighed 1 stone). This originally made mining for them very unattractive, hurting the trades of Glassblowing & Masonry. Crafting with stone & glass are much more important skills as of the Stygian Abyss expansion of September 2009. Masonry is a specialization of Carpentry from Grandmaster Carpenters, and Glassblowing is an expansion of Alchemy, much as the mining of stone and sand are expansions of Mining.


Section 9.7: What information is available for Mining Gems?

First off, there are two different types of gems to be mined, but both require 100 Mining skill.

The Mondain's Legacy gems require no special training, and can pop up at any time during mining. They weigh 1 stone each, and stack.

# Blue Diamond (called "a flawless diamond" by the message you get when you dig one up)
# Fire Ruby
# Perfect Emerald
# Dark Sapphire
# Turquoise
# Ecru Citrine

Two more gems are produced by skills other than Mining (but can be gotten as loot from Volcano elementals in Eodon as well).
# The "White Pearl" is gathered from Fishing.
# The "Brilliant Amber" is gathered from Lumberjacking.

Lastly, two other gem types, both varieties of blackrock, were added through events after the release of ML, that fall partially in this category.
# A normal "small piece of blackrock" (used in crafting food for Bane dragons, as well as in a number of events prior to the introduction of the bane dragons) falls under the same rules as the large gems that can drop from mining, but don't stack. It was only added to the list as a mining drop.
# Crystalline Blackrock is also a "mining Gem" as above, BUT....
a. While it falls under the normal "Mining Gem" rules on most facets, it can be mined up at ANY MINING SKILL LEVEL in Ter Mur. (in my experience, at least below 60, if not all the way down to 0).
b. It can be random loot on ore elementals (starting where one can start digging them up at 65 skill, with gargoyle pickaxes) in Ter Mur.
c. It can be found on Ore elementals elsewhere, but especially the Golden Elementals in Blackthorn Dungeon.

All these gems (other than the small piece of blackrock) can be gotten in Ter Mur quest reward bags, from several different Gargoyle NPCs (including the non-mining types). They also can be gotten as random loot in Ore Elementals in Ter Mur, though below a certain level (may or may not be Grandmaster) only Crystalline Blackrock appears in the elementals (as noted above).

ML GEM NOTES:
*You MUST be a GM Miner to get the mining Gems (other than Crystalline Blackrock). (Note: You can be at 95.0 or greater and put on mining gloves to raise your skill to 100 or above and you can still get gems. The check for Gems involves your total skill, not your base skill.)
* You can get gems with your tool set to "Ore", or "Ore and Stone", or "Ore and Gems". It doesn't matter which one, though some people cling to their superstitions.
* You can get Gems from Cave Floors, Mountain Sides, and EVERY place one can mine for ore.
*Ore type does not affect the Gem Type. You can get a Blue Diamond from a Iron spot, or any other kind of Gem from an Iron spot, just as you can get any kind of gem from a Valorite spot also.
*Gem spots are not fixed! If you find a Blue Diamond from a specific Ore Spot, and come back later, you may pull a Fire Ruby next time. Gems are random in this regard. There is, however, some anecdotal evidence that some 8x8 resource squares may have a slightly higher chance of a gem, much like how some consistently produce 70%+ colored ore, when others produce a much lower amount consistently (and the percentages stay the same even when the ore type changes). This is a question that needs to be answered by the Devs.
*Luck does not help or hinder Gem finding!
*Gems are about equally common. However, the streakiness of the random number generator makes it likely that you will get considerably more of one or two gem types in a single long mining session, than the rest.

The other type of Gems one can mine are the NORMAL GEMS found on monsters, and sold by NPCs. However, to mine these, you must be using a Stygian Abyss enabled account, and read the book "Mining For Quality Gems", which is for sale by Gargoyle Blacksmith NPCs in the northern part of the three-part building to the east of the Ter Mur Royal City public soulforge.

As with the sand and stone books, one must be Grandmaster Miner to read them (and be able to mine the items, after the book is read). You also have to set your tool to mine Ore and Gems, as well. Each gem mined takes the place of an ore, but if mining with a Gargoyle's Pickaxe, you can still get an elemental spawn, even if the ore is replaced by a gem (and the elemental will have the usual 25 ore, and 2 gems - 4 gems if a valorite elemental - on it).


9.8 Other Rewards from BODs or quests that are of interest to Miners

With the changes to the BOD system, many more items were added to the BOD system, and some of these are items of use to Miners.

The Following Items can be gotten from BLACKSMITH AND TINKER BOD REWARDS

Rock Hammer: A 500-charge tool that has an increased chance of producing granite when mining for stone.

Smelter's Talismans: These come in Golden, Agapite, Verite and Valorite versions. When worn, the miner has a 100% chance of smelting that color of ore, only. They have a lifespan of 24 hours, or until all their charges are exhausted. The charge count is BY INGOT PRODUCED, not by ore count. One of the nice things about these talismans is that you can get together with another minor or two, mine in different areas (but stay in contact), and pass the talismans around as each of you needs it for a specific metal. One night, I was able to team with 2 other miners, and use most of a set of all 4 types, using all of the gold one in the end smelting gold in Blackthorn's dungeon.

Miner's Map: These also come in Golden, Agapite, Verite and Valorite. They provide a map to a location on the shard the map is CLAIMED ON, that leads to an artificially created spot for mining that colored ore. They have about 300-500 charges each, and every swing produces large colored ore.
However, the charge count is BY ORE PRODUCED, not number of digs, so there is ABSOLUTELY NO REASON to claim these in Felucca (or Tokuno or Ter Mur, for that matter); Keep it simple, and only claim these rewards in Trammel or Malas where the spot will be relatively safe. Nor does Tool Choice has NO EFFECT on the color of ore. Using a gold map, produces gold - even if you use both a prospector's tool and Gargoyle pickaxe to dig it.


The Following items can be gotten from Alchemist BOD REWARDS

Cauldrons of Transformation: These exist in both versions for wood, and for metal ingots.
The metal types are Bronze, Golden, Agapite and Verite. For every 3 ingots of that type you use the cauldron on, you get 1 ingot of the next-higher type. For example, you get 1 gold ingot for every 3 bronze ingots you "put into" the Bronze Cauldron.
While these can last 24 hours in deed form, ONCE PLACED they only last FOUR HOURS. So, you need to have the ingots ready to use before claiming them.


Quest Rewards

There is a quest "chain" (more a sequence to where you have to earn credit with specific NPCs) in the Royal City, that can result in being given quests that result in transmutation potion rewards.

These one-shot potions can do the following, based on type:
a. Turn 500 iron ingots into 500 of another color at random, from Dull Copper up to Bronze.
b. Turn 500 dull copper ingots into 500 gold ingots
c. Turn 500 shadow Iron ingots into 500 agapite ingots
d. Turn 500 Bronze ingots into 500 Valorite ingots. (note that at one point this quest was broken, but was supposedly fixed - but I've never managed to get this quest yet).


The Void Pool "game" in Covetous Dungeon allows a player to accumulate points that can be redeemed at the NPC named "Vela", located in Cove. Vela's rewards include all the above Cauldrons, Maps, and Smelting Talismans, as that was the original source for these items before the BOD system was revised. Vela also has a "portable Forge" that has the same 24/4 hour timer as the cauldrons, but is pretty much worthless, if one has a fire beetle.

Number of Uses, by item (regardless of source)

[xtable=698x@]
{tbody}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15}Item{/td}
{td=118x15}Color associated{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Amount/type Input*{/td}
{td=53x15} Ratio{/td}
{td=187x15} Amount/Type output{/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} Cauldron{/td}
{td=118x15} Bronze{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Bronze Ingots (22500){/td}
{td=53x15} 3/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Gold Ingots (7500){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} Gold{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Gold Ingots (15000) {/td}
{td=53x15} 3/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Agapite Ingots (5000){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} Agapite{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Agapite Ingots (9000){/td}
{td=53x15} 3/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Verite Ingots (3000){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} Verite{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Verite Ingots (6000){/td}
{td=53x15} 3/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Valorite Ingots (2000){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} {/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} {/td}
{td=53x15} {/td}
{td=187x15} {/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x30}
{td=119x30} Talisman{/td}
{td=118x30} Gold{/td}
{td=16x30} {/td}
{td=263x30} Gold Ore (up to 6000 ingot's worth (3000 large ore equivalent){/td}
{td=53x30} 1/1{/td}
{td=187x30} Gold ingots (up to 6000){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} Agapite{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Agapite Ore (up to 3000 ingots worth){/td}
{td=53x15} 1/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Agapite Ingots (up to 3000){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} Verite{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Verite Ore (up to 1500 ingots worth) {/td}
{td=53x15} 1/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Verite Ingots (up to 1500){/td}
{/tr}
{tr=@x15}
{td=119x15} {/td}
{td=118x15} Valorite{/td}
{td=16x15} {/td}
{td=263x15} Valorite Ore (up to 750 ingots worth){/td}
{td=53x15} 1/1{/td}
{td=187x15} Valorite Ingots (up to 750){/td}
{/tr}
{/tbody}
[/xtable]
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Section 9.9: What is a "Niter Deposit"? What is Saltpeter?

A "Niter Deposit" is the Mining form of Saltpeter, a substance used for making the propellant charges for the ship cannon of the High Seas Booster/Expansion. One can get a Niter Deposit while Boat Mining off cliffs, or mining in Dungeons (including some caves), but only if you are High Seas enabled. These locations reflect that the real life niter deposits were mostly bird or bat droppings (yes, you're mining huge piles of crap), at least until they found a chemically similar substance in the 1800s that occurred naturally in desert basins. Niter Deposits also occur in most areas of surface Ilshenar and Eodon, as they are effectively dungeon areas under certain aspects of the ruleset.

Unlike every other aspect of Mining, Luck DOES play a factor. The size of a Niter Deposit scales up with the luck of the miner that discovers it. Typically, it will appear on the first swing or two of the dig, as a Yellowish rock by the miner (on the boat, if boat mining, otherwise on the ground). the miner then targets the deposit, and mines it, as it slowly gets smaller every few digs on it. Typically, one swing results in 1 to 4 Saltpeter, and the largest deposits can approach a total of 300 to 400 total saltpeter from one deposit, but these usually require luck well over 1000 to get.

The sizes are "Small", "Large", "Huge", "Clumsy" (why, I don't know), "Massive" and "Gigantic". After a few hits, a "Gigantic" will downgrade to "Massive", and so on. Pictures of the deposits can be seen on Stratics' Mining page.

The Niter Deposit content is separate from the ore content, and you might be tempted to finish the ore from the spot before turning to the Niter. However, it DOES decay, so be quick about it (most people will do the Niter deposit, then go back to the ore, which might have respawned by the time you get back to it)



Section 9.10: Can I use a Bag of Sending to send Ore?


Yes, you can (as long as it is in your pack), BUT.....

The Bags of Sending were temporarily crippled in 2007 in a misguided attempt to reduce gold farming (making it weight based for the amount of charges used). It ended up hurting the resource gatherers (miners and lumberjacks) more than the gold (money) farmers, and in 2009 the change was reverted, and gold actually made LIGHTER, to allow people to bring more gold back from hunts (by devaluing gold, it gets rid of "gold for real money" sellers by making it too cheap to be worth doing).

The Bags now, once again, use 1 charge, meaning at most, one can send 45 ore large (540 stones) at once to the bank. That's not very efficient, and even reducing ore to small ore would only allow 250-270 small ore to be sent back (depending on pack contents. A bag can be used more efficiently, if the miner takes a fire beetle into the field with them. This allows the miner to send thousands of ingots per powder charge to the bank; 5000+ if all of one type.

Another use one might have with a Bag of Sending and ingots, would be to do an "emergency send" of your best ingots to the bank, while being chased by a PK in Felucca. However, under most circumstances, one can gate to a bank, or at least recall or run to one, outside of Ilshenar, Fel T2A and some specific dungeons.


Section 9.11: How does one kill a Valorite Elemental?

Mages:
The best way for a mage to kill a valorite elemental, is to not be a mage. That sounds a bit silly, but this is what is meant.

A. The mage needs to have a "mage weapon" bow or crossbow of some sort, that is an Earth Elemental Slayer, as well as the appropriate ammunition (preferably in a quiver, to reduce weight).

B. When the Valorite Elemental spawns, back off, cast invisibility to break its lock on you, then cast summons to distract it. While the summons cannot damage it, they will preoccupy the elemental while you get ready with the bow.

C. Equip the bow, and start shooting the valorite elemental. If needed, recast summons and invisibility to keep it off you.

D. Some skills, if they can fit into your template, will make this easier for a mage. The most effective is Chivalry, as the spell Enemy of One will add 50% to your base damage (which then gets doubled by the slayer). Slayer + EoO = 300% DI, or maximum for combat versus monsters. Anatomy (if you have healing on your template) or Tactics also add damage, that is applied outside the cap.

E. Note that there IS one mage spell that will hurt a Valorite Elemental; Earthquake. However, it will also hit anything else in the area (like wandering healers!), and its mana cost is so high you probably can't hit it enough times to kill it (it might well get health back quicker than you get your mana). Do, it is best to stick with the mage weapon strategy, maybe firing off an Earthquake if you have spare mana, but try to keep enough mana to cast heals if it hits you.

Warriors:

The best (but longer) way to kill them is with a GM archer and a good bow or crossbow. The better your skills and the better your bow the faster you will kill them. As an archer you benefit from not getting into melee range and so you suffer only half the damage that the Valorite Elemental can cause. You only get hit by the gas attacks and whenever you need time to heal you can get out of range quickly and easily.

The second best way would be a skilled fighter with either a low-damage fast weapon or a high-damage slow weapon. For this elemental (and the copper that it inherits its damage reflect from), it is better to NOT have a slayer weapon for the fight, but having ones with leeches (especially life leech) and/or Paralysis blow as a special are highly recommended. The only time one should use a slayer on the Valorite elemental is if it has high life leech on it, as the leech will counteract enough damage for someone with over 100 maximum health to potentially survive - It is still best to use the strategy below, though.

The general principle is to only get into melee range for one hit, and keep running past it (preferably mounted - another reason why it's nice to have a beetle in the field), until your weapon swing timer resets for the next round (or your bandage kicks in, if you are low on health). The term typically used for this is "jousting", and works on many dangerous-but-slow foes, not just Valorite eles (Balrons, Ancient Wyrms, event creatures, etc.)

Using this method, you take minimal damage yourself. You should run far enough to be out of special effect (like that it inherits from Bronze elementals) range as well, so you can heal efficiently. Using a heavy weapon makes sure that with each run through the Valorite Elemental you really hurt it good, and gives you enforced time to let you wait for a bandage to work. A much lighter weapon might make you too prone to try to stand and fight. Be aware that the combination of a melee hit from the Val Ele with a Bronze-Ele-style gas attack can do up to 80 damage, so be prepared to take that and do some serious healing after a jousting pass.

Though it is possible for a Warrior with GM parry, high DCI and an ele slayer kryss with 30%+ life leech (for example, Blackthorne's Kryss from the Museum Collection) to survive a stand-up fight, one shouldn't try it until you are VERY comfortable with the performance of your weapons, how well you heal yourself, and (most importantly) just how much damage you take in combination from its attacks and the reflected damage.

Finally, if you're a nut like me and the other XMHC types, and mine in Ilshenar with Garg picks, try to confine your mining of valorite with picks to the area between The Spirituality Oaks spawn, and Mireg/Lakeshire. If you get a paragon, or are having trouble with a normal Valorite elemental, retreat toward either the spawn altar or the town, whichever is closer. While Pets and Summons can't hurt the elemental, normal blue, hostile to negative karma, naturally-occurring creatures can and DO harm it with attacks, be they Meer, Pixies, or Unicorns. Help out the creatures as needed (But avoid being anywhere near if the Meer Eternal unleashes its special attack - it will kill you dead, even though you aren't the target). Plus, you get to loot the kills on both sides, without taking the karma hit.

Bards/Tamers/Other Casters:

Provo Bards can take one down that way - it's only immune to PET AND SUMMONS, not other creatures. But, you got to have something to provo onto it.
Necromancers, if they have any weapon ability at all, can use Curse Weapon for the life leech. I'm not sure if a Revenant can attack it and do damage, or created undead (and you'd be hard pressed to have the latter at the same time as you mine, at any measure of health).
Tamers like training their pets on Shadow elementals - this one might give better gains, but then, it might actually have the staying power and specials to actually win the fight. As, it turns out there are some pet specials that can do damage on shadows and valorites - but I don't know which, and that might be a bug that gets fixed at a later date.
I'm not sure if spellweavers or Mystics have anything in their inventory that would hurt them. I've not had enough experience to see which spells do what, and if the subjects of Dryad Allure or any of the SW & Mystic summons can do anything. Mystic DOES have an ability in its Mastery, that allows the Mystic to turn a weapon into a Mage Weapon, so any earth elemental slayer weapon suddenly becomes an option, especially combined with stone form.

Again - if you aren't going to be using an actual weapon on these, your best bet is to only mine with garg picks where you can get the locals to go aggro on the elementals and kill them for you (hopefully without killing you). After all, the fist confirmed kill of a Paragon Valorite Elemental was getting it to chase the miner into the Oaks Champ Spawn at Spirituality (and between tons of pixies, ki-rin, unicorns, etc. it eventually dropped - not sure if it actually managed to work the spawn up any)



Section 9.12: What is the "Miner's Code" / "Unwritten Rules of Mining"?

Well, by this time, they are hardly unwritten, anymore.

These are a guide to being a considerate miner, especially to your fellows in the trade.

1. Don't Steal other Miners Ore. Even if they leave it on the ground, if you find some ore on the ground, ask around even if you don't see anyone before taking it. There is a chance (if in Fel) that a miner is hiding or stealthing, thinking you are a PK, not a fellow miner. There and elsewhere, they could also be using the "Strip Mining" method, so take a run through the area to see if you find another miner. Wait a half-hour for the spots to respawn (mining yourself if they already have), and if they still haven't come back for the ore, it's likely they aren't coming back. Smelt it, (if you have a beetle), but keep it separate in case they do return, looking for it. One day you might be using the same method and you dont want to see YOUR ore stolen than, do you ?

2. Don't Mine the same resource square as another miner. Mining the same 8x8 area simultaneously is being impolite. Most often, it occurred with the recall-based script miners, but happens much less since the scripters can't get the same ore every time from a few spots.

3. Don't deprive Fellow miners of a spare shovel or tinkers Kit. This should extend to one or two, rather than a full supply, but that's your choice after the first one. Be friendly and generous, one day it might be you who needs something. This rule goes double if the person asking is a fellow guild or alliance member.

4. Don't EVER leave boats blocking access to ore, i.e. boat mining spots. This is not only rude behavior, it is also against UO rules and can lead to your boat being deleted by a game master.

5. If sharing a mining location with a Miner more skilled than yourself, be so kind and ask if there are any preferred spots that you could leave untouched. Not as big an issue with the ore changes, but if a person has been mining a region for a while, and knows the spots with higher ore, someone who can't mine it should let them hit those spots. There are few things worse to a GM Miner than a low level miner mining a Valorite spot (and therefore potentially turning it into iron), in return expect access to ore spots you can mine, that he will pass over.


Section 9.13: What is a script miner? Are they bad?

Script Miners are people that run some sort of script to do all their mining for them, and they usually do it unattended and mostly in Felucca. Unattended Script Miners are BAD and are usually considered Kill on Sight if found in Felucca. In all other facets, report them to the GMs through the help option.

The bottom line is that mining is under the same ToS for UO that everything else is. DON'T MACRO UNATTENDED!!!


Section 9.14: What are the differences between an Elf and a Human, for mining? What about Gargoyles?

Racial Abilities

With Mondains Legacy came the introduction of Elves as a Race to choose when creating a character, or you can complete a quest to become an elf (or go to human, if already an elf). They also added "Racial Abilities" Unique to Elves and Humans.

These are the abilities as they relate to Mining:

Elf Ability: "Knowledge of Nature"
Elves Have an increased chance for the special Gems, when mining. There was supposed to be an increased amount of colored ore (much like how the elves get more colored wood as a carpenter), but the effect appears to be so small that it is only noticed when looking at totals of thousands of ore mined (and even that might just be a fluke of the broken RNG system of UO).

Human Ability: "Strong Back"
Elves use the old STR formula for carrying capacity, that existed for characters prior to ML. Humans now use an enhanced formula, that gives them the ability to carry heavier loads than an Elf (or pre-ML human) with the same STR.
* In terms of crunchy bits in the code, either a "times 3" multiplier in the Elf/pre-ML code is "times 3.5" for Humans upgraded to ML (a 1/6 improvement) - or humans get a +60 stone capacity bonus (which works out to about the same thing). I've been told different things by different sources, but the net result is the only thing that matters.

Human Ability: "Workhorse"
Humans have a 10% chance with each swing of a mining tool to get +1 ore over what they would have normally (i.e. they can get 3 ore in one swing in Felucca, 2 in once swing everywhere else). In practice, this seems to occur substantially more frequently than 10%, but I'm not gonna look a gift packy in the mouth.

Summary: Typically, the human's extra carrying capacity and extra ore outweighs the elven traits, for a Miner. The mining bonuses for an Elf (ore and gems) seems to be insubstantial, and from tests, are within the statistical margin of error for there being no bonus at all.

This is especially true when one considers that for crafting, none of the recipes requires being an elf to craft (to wear the items, but not to wear them). The only type of Miner that might benefit from being an elf is one that is a Lumberjack as well, and that is from the bonuses to Lumberjacking, not mining, and their mining and lumberjacking will suffer from being overweight more often.

Gargoyles end up on the short end of the stick for mining, yet they (as the preferred race for the Imbuing skill) are the biggest users of the two types of gems miners can mine, and will be using a lot of ingots as well, during training. They get none of the resource-gathering bonuses, and have the carrying capacity of an elf. Furthermore, their flight allows them to go to places that their pack animals cannot follow.
 
Last edited:

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
9.15 Miscellaneous notes

One of the things that is constantly argued by those who have no idea how mining works in real life, is that "ore locations don't change in real life."

Perhaps they don't, exactly - but what qualifies as one man's copper ore (or even the TAILINGS left behind) is often someone else's gold or silver ore. It all depends on market value of the metals in question, at the time. Nearly every ore that exists for any metal, is ALSO a source for at least one other metal; it's just that one of the metals (sometimes two of them) are significantly more profitable to mine than the others.

From a subscription-only (free) newsgroup I read, where the discussion of metals for investing came up, and turned to actual reclaimation of metals from ore....

Poster 1:

"Silver mining is great because most silver is not mined--it's a byproduct of zinc, copper or lead mining. Silver is an industrial metal that gets consumed. Current projects include going through the TAILINGS of older mines to scavenge what they missed, quite cost effectively, and cutting into hills to retrieve new stuff. "

Poster 2:

"Friend of mine just bought six hundred metric tons of tailings from a Montana (copper) mine and in two weeks of processing they've recovered six hundred ounces of gold, two tons of silver, several kilos of rare earths (why those are measured in metrics I dunno) as well as lots of gem stones that in the area between rare/common. They've hardly even started into the stuff they bought from the two mines and they've already doubled their investment, paid off the processing fees for the rest of the tailings and the environmental tax to process the tailings back into reuseable earth (and if it passes EPA testing they get that tax back plus a multiplier as a deduction against their profits so it's well worth the trouble.) "

***

In these cases, these are getting multiple types of valuable metals from the LEFTOVERS of a copper mine. In fact, if the copper mine had been rich enough in gold or silver, they would have been called a mine for THOSE metals, and the COPPER would be what was left in the tailings (as was the case in the Old West (US) prior to the use of electricity causing copper to become valuable).

So, really, getting multiple metals from a single spot, over time, is not unrealistic at all - it was just implemented poorly, in terms of the change times (after all, even at 12 UO days per real day, the desirable ore of a spot changes too often to reflect what would cause you to concentrate one one metal type over another).
 

Duduz

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Re: New Mining FAQ (Revised, 9 October 2009)

Great guide... Thanks a lot...
 

Duduz

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Re: New Mining FAQ (Revised, 9 October 2009)

A question, does luck change anything on mining???

More mining more change to find a spot with ore ??? Or more ore in the same spot???

Regards,
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Re: New Mining FAQ (Revised, 9 October 2009)

For mining Ore, luck does not play a factor.

For mining SALTPETER, though (a gunpowder ingredient from High Seas), Luck is the PRIMARY factor in how big the niter deposits are.
 

Duduz

Adventurer
Stratics Veteran
Re: New Mining FAQ (Revised, 9 October 2009)

For mining Ore, luck does not play a factor.

For mining SALTPETER, though (a gunpowder ingredient from High Seas), Luck is the PRIMARY factor in how big the niter deposits are.
Thanks a lot Basara.

Best regards.
 

Lord Nabin

High Council Sage - Greater Sosaria
Professional
Supporter
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Glorious Lord
Re: New Mining FAQ (Revised, 9 October 2009)

Man this is extensive thank you!!!!
 

Basara

UO Forum Moderator
Moderator
Professional
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Okay, finally starting to update some of the FAQs.

Mining was one of the easier ones, and someone was needing mining help. Soo....
 
Top