As of Pub 56, I believe that Mining is just about perfect for UO...

[Dermott of LS]

...

With stone now weighing 1 stone instead of 10 and stacking, and with the small change to garg picks (and availability of garg picks and prospector's tools to help with ore manipulation), I think I can say that mining in UO is just about perfect.

I can't think of anything I would change. The drop rates for everything feels good and it's enjoyable for me to be building up a supply of a "new" (in the sense that it is now stockable and will have new uses) resource that drops a little slower than normal (so that getting a thousand or more feels more like an accomplishment than a minimum acceptance rate per run).

And to top it off, while I know it's been slow coming since I haven't macroed the crap out of Smithing to do it, instead just let gains happen as I filled BODs, my main miner/smith finally reached Legendary status.

Now I have to make room for embueing since right now he has:

100 Arms Lore
100 Mining
120 Smithing
100 Tinkering
75.7 Magery
80.6 Swords
90.1 Tactics

The question will be can I do it and still be able to fight ore elems or will I want to leave that to a different miner character.

Time will tell, but I look forward to embueing in the meantime.

Anyway, as it is, for resource gathering, mining is just fine.

Well done Devs.

 

[Maplestone]

I agree, mining does feel rather rewarding with the variety of resources that can be dug up these days.

If you have a suggestion as to how to set up prospectors tools to work with KR macros, I would be grateful - I'm still throwing them out because I can't figure out how to make them work efficiently (which I suppose is evidence of how quickly I've become spoiled by the target-by-resource tool).

 

[Harlequin]

I have always found mining and lumberjacking to be oddly fulfilling...It's a thing about extracting raw resources and being self sufficient.

I have also switched back to mining both ore and stone now that the granite stacks.

Now if they would only consider increasing the success rate of smelting valorite ore...

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Well, my system doesn't use TargetByResource, it uses three hotbar slots, one for a "primer" shovel and the other two for macros:

Slot 1: Shovel directly in slot, set to desired hotkey, Target: Cursor
Slot 2: Built macro: Prosp Tool, Target: Cursor | Target Cursor Last (again, hotbar slot itself is set to the desired hotkey)
Slot 3: Built macro to use 7 different shovels each 1 time during the loop, all Target: Cursor and set up alternating with Shovel | Target Cursor Last | Shovel | Target Cursor Last, etc. Set to loop up to 10 times.

I then have a pretty LARGE hotbar setup as seen here:

The top four bars each have every ore type and size set to a hotkey and "Target: Current" so that I can keep my fire beetle "targeted" and smelt with a key stroke per ore type.

"Tracker" sections are below for ingots, gems and now stone, with the various speels and macros in the hotbar slots as well.

The three mining slots are the bottom Q W E labelled slots (actually Ctrl-Alt Q, Ctrl-Alt W, and Ctrl-Alt E mapped to my Nostromo pad keys 01, 02, and 03 respectively with the shovel in 01, Prosp Tool macro in 02, and Digging Macro in 03).

I generally use 2 Prosp tools and 8 Sturdy Shovels with 200 charges per shovel. This combination with the setup above seems to run the tools out at roughly the same timeframe.

As the shovels break, I simply delete the shovel and target cursor last slots in the digging macro and later on, add in the "primer" shovel when I get close to running out of shovels.

 

[Gheed]

Nope it still sucks...

 

[Fink]

The only thing I would change is make mining sand a little less painful. I don't know why that's so slow, guess there's a good reason?

 

[trammelite]

quote:
Now I have to make room for embueing since right now he has:

100 Arms Lore
100 Mining
120 Smithing
100 Tinkering
75.7 Magery
80.6 Swords
90.1 Tactics

The question will be can I do it and still be able to fight ore elems or will I want to leave that to a different miner character.

quote end.

initially too coming from swordmanship, my miner has dropped tactics and weaponskill, but has 110 magery and uses a -21 mage weapon elemental slayer and ring/brace for compensating the skill loss in magery.
even valo ellies and most paragons are no issue. i am still waiting to stumble into a valo para elli, but magery will allow to summon something which could help taking down the elli.
the damage output with this setup is not extensive, but you will love this when fighting valo or copper (para) ellies because of their reflect capabilities. better 2-3 more blows than killing yourself by getting hit by the critter while you hit it hard yourself in the same moment. i've been there and i guess you might have been there tooOoOOOoOO ...

 

[FishinFool]

I'd drop the tinkering. It's not as useful on a miner as it once was. Stone it off.

 

[T_Amon_from_work]

I keep about 80 Tinker on my miner .. in case I run out of sturdy stuff, I can crank out some standard shovels to finish whatever circuit I'm on.

 

[Littleblue]

I used to love mining. I didn't have a mule really, just a miner/tailor with some magery. I really enjoyed her though, and found mining to be relaxing for some reason. However, that was in 2001. I haven't done any mining since returning so I've not got an opinion on the new system.

For the template though, I would definately keep the Magery. I just find it to be extrememly useful for almost every character, especially for getting around the lands.
Plus, it's one of the easier skills to find +skill jewelry for, allowing some room for template adjustments. Toss in a nice spellbook, and you're set for defending against monsters waiting for a tasty miner snack!

 

[5% Luck]

120 smith
105 mining
120 imbue
120 mystic
100 armlore
100 tinker
40 necro

700! with 20 to spare for say... SS?

go wraith for 100% recall!

Or human 50% chance for wraith and 60 SS for damage on low spells!

Even eval +60 for mystic spelldamage!(not sure if these will hurt the eles)

 

[Sarphus]

I like how you're using KR Dermott. Of course, I shouldn't expect any less out of you lol

I agree that mining is pretty fun (though I rarely do it). I think there's always room for the devs to add things, though.

I think it would be neat if the devs made it so there were rare gems that can only be mined in specific places where the risk is particularly high. I would make it so the monsters in that area teleport back to the area if they are pulled away to prevent people from just leading the monsters off and mining to their heart's content.

I think imbuing is going to add a lot to the mining profession indirectly.

 

[Gheed]

I agree that mining is pretty fun (though I rarely do it).

If it's pretty fun than why do you rarely do it? I think the same dev who prostituted the system out to community collections probably had the same opinion. It qualifies your wish to turn mining into PvM. Hell why not.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I'd drop the tinkering. It's not as useful on a miner as it once was. Stone it off.

Nope, not really an option since this is also my main character for filling BODs (thus a constant need for tools), plus if jewelry (I don't remember off the top of my head) is also involved in Embueing, I want to keep it there.

What MIGHT happen is that I drop the combat skills and ditch killing ore elems with this character in favor of the character being a pure crafter (and might put Carpentry back on or move over Tailoring... dunno yet... have to see what all I can fit into the template without compromising too much.

 

[Shelleybean]

I would improve the smelting success rates. It sucks when I finally find a valorite vein but lose all the ore during smelting.

As far as your template, if you dropped swords and tactics but raised magery - a mage weapon might be useful to kill the ore elementals.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

I have the gloves, but did not include skill points based on items. The listing is for real skill level.

I have the gloves for mining, plus a couple of pieces of jewelry with Magery and Animal Lore (to keep track of my fire beetle).

Edit: And to use a Mage Weapon, I'm going to have to burn a few runics for a Spell Channeling Mage Weapon Earth Elem Slayer.

 

[Tycolby]

Make it possible to dig up DC ellies with gargoyle picks and fix they loot to include the 25 ore.

 

[Maplestone]

I then have a pretty LARGE hotbar setup as seen here:

*jaw drops*

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

22in Widescreen has its benefits

 

[Theo_GL]

One thing that needs changed is either:

Drop rate for Gems
Number of Gems to make jewelry

Right now, you can 100 of a Gem and crank out 8-10 jewels and likely 1-2 have the 'special' mod like EP 50 or MR2 or whatever. And out of those 1-2 - they are usually junk.

Now I ask you - how long does it take you to mine 100 of any one Gem? FOREVER.

You should be able to mine enough gems in 2-3 hrs to make a 'decent' jewel and in 8-10 hrs enough to make 1 really good jewel.

Right now, it would take you hundreds of hours to do so. Its only scripters and those that buy gems from scripters that can generate any reasonable number of decent jewels.

So either make the gem rate x5 or make the number of gems required to make magic jewelry 2 instead of 10.

 

[FishinFool]

I used to think that as well, making my own tools that is...

With the ease of just stoning it off to a mule and making a few dozen of whatever you need at any given time, it's just points ... misappropriated... much like alchemy.

It's a shame really, since tinkering could be much better.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

Embueing will combine with Tinkering I believe as well as with Smithing... we'll see how well the two combine though before deciding.

And while I COULD stone-swap skills, it's not a style of play I tend to enjoy, plus I would always be worried that a mistake would cause the loss of a batch of skill points.

I think I like the idea more of dropping Swords raising Magery a bit, maybe get a good ring/bracelet combo with Magery and Animal Lore (maybe some stats as well), and use a Mage Weapon Elem Slayer.

That could work... we'll see.

 

[Dermott of LS]

...

The slow drop rates for gems don't really bother me, especially with Embueing coming up... although I COULD see them adding the gems to Ore Elems (only those spawned by a Garg pick) as possible loot.

DC elem does need to be standardized with other ore elems, and should come up with a garg pick.

 

[Basara]

I like the new changes, even if events have kept me from going out and mining (too much fun fighting the event spawns, and all of my crafters OTHER than the one below were confined to quarters from my Yew houses constantly being surrounded by Shadow Fiends from the graveyard), and echo the calls for furtherchanges to the DC elementals vis a vis the gargoyle pickaxes.

Of course, 6 years of play has let me be creative with my template. Its current version is (with equipment)

120 Blacksmith (all natural)
120 Mace Fighting (all natural)
102 Tactics (90 natural)
100 Mining (all Natural, 105 with gloves when smelting high end ore)
100 Anatomy (85 natural)
100 Parry (70 natural)
84 Healing (all natural)
80 Chivalry (51 natural)

124/100/54 (123 HP) (with only a +15 stat used)

69/70/69/65/70 medable suit (human - I prefer the weight allowance and JOAT, and experimenting with elves showed no appreciable difference in output - but a marked increase in vulnerability against elementals from being overloaded)

Still have my robe slot open, and don't have a crimson for this character (and some of the other champ replicas have me drooling).

My only regret is I no longer have ANY crafted equipment on (3 ML minors, 2 TOT minors, 1 TOT Major, Trades Glasses, 8th anniversary shield, Melissa cloak, Nocturne earrings, and Snakeskin boots - weapon is Elemental Blackthorne's Kryss), with the gorget and jewelry being loot.

 

[Fink]

Edit: And to use a Mage Weapon, I'm going to have to burn a few runics for a Spell Channeling Mage Weapon Earth Elem Slayer.

Good plan, I have one of these and it works just fine for elementals. If the runic doesn't work out for you, perhaps imbuing will.

 

[Sindris]

They still need to fix it so that Ore ellies don't fall through the bottom of boats after they appear. I lose more boats that way....