M
_Morgoth_
Guest
<font color=red>Chapter 1 : Creating a Character</font color=red>
Introduction
So you want to be a Miner ? Perhaps to support your smith or as a pure money maker ? Either way you can't go wrong reading this guide. As a miner you will see a lot of the world, with popular mining locations being both in T2A (Delucia) and all over the old lands on both facets. You will be Travelling a lot especially when you are looking for Valorite. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about the mining skill and methods of mining, maybe even a bit more. If you decide to take this up as a profession, I must warn you: it is considered by many to be one of the more boring professions. It's fine when you start, but once you become an advanced GM Miner, it can become rather dull. On the up side you will make a lot of money and be in demand. Everyone needs Ingots in some form, from the Adventurers for their weapons and armors to the carpenters and tinkers for their tools and house add-ons.
Making Your Character
So Ok, You had this introduction and still want to make a Miner. Good for you. So a Hi Ho Hi Ho its off to work we go ... First of all let us have a look at your Stats. Here is what I recommend:
44 str
10 dex
11 int.
As a Miner you will need as much str as possible when first starting out to carry that heavy ore. Every point in str counts and will allow you to carry another 3.5 stones. While 11 int means you will be able to recall straight away, a very important ability for traveling the wide lands of Britania and beyond. Str will raise quicky from Mining, while Int and Dex you can raise through your other skills.
Starting Skills
There are a number of starting Skills to choose from. This might sound paradox, but I wouldn't really choose Mining as it takes less than an hour to Raise it to a level of 50. If you're going to Smith start with 50 Smithing as your first skill. As for your other skills I advise 49 Tinkering and 1 magery. I will tell you why later. If this is to be a pure Miner (ie. no smithing) then the advice I give you is to start with 50 Tinkering 49 Magery and 1 Mining. Let me explain to you why. I advise against 50 Mining because it is a very fast skill to raise and so a waste as an initial skill. Tinkering is a much harder skill to raise and isn't much use to you below 45.
Tinkering can be used to make shovels and pickaxes which you will need to mine with. This ability to tinker your own shovels allows you to mine constantly without having to go back into a town and buy new shovels. If you chose not to have Tinkering you will have to buy shovels all the time and also store them. (your bank box has unlimited weight, but a limited number of items it can hold) Just making those shovels will raise tinkering into the high 80's sortof as a side benefit. You will fail a lot at first but it will raise well.
Magery you should start with anyway. Put in at least 1 point so you start with a spell book. This Skill will also enable you to recall around (teleport to anywhere) and will generally be very useful later on, while not so much needed at the beginning. Smithing (often called blacksmithy instead) explains itself. This guide doesn't cover the Smithing skill in any detail so if you are planing on being a miner/smith then you should also have a look at the Stratics Smithing Essays.
Starting Town
Once you have setup your character you need to chose a town where your miner will be born. There are 3 towns worth starting at: Britian, Trinsic/Vesper, Minoc. You will automatically start on the Trammel facet which is crowded for miners on most Shards, but a lot safer than Felucca where other players can kill you. Later you will decide on your preferred facet. Don't worry if this mention of "facets" confuses you at this point. You will be safe where you start (Trammel) and you can stay there until you have learned more about the divided nature of the lands of Britania (there is a separate Stratics Essay on the subject of facets)
Britain: Best Place to sell your ingots on the street, most players there, large mountain area to the west, and a good large cave to the north. Both places have handy mountainside forges on most shards that were created by Gamemasters for the special benefit of beginner Miners. Personally I dislike Britian due to it being on one of the busiest Sub Servers of UO and very crowded. However it is a lot easier to find help, buy goods and sell those ingots there. The Britain west bank is the market place of UO.
Trinsic: Not really starting places as such but more of a stepping stone to Delucia, which is in the lands called T2A (ie. "The Second Age", and additional landmass that was added with the Ultima Online Renaissance upgrade). There are a number of small caves west of Trinsic along a large mountain range, though, that can be be mined and are usually quiet. You will have a very hard time selling ingots in Trinsic.
To get from Trinsic to Delucia head out of the town through the west gate. Using your map head towards the south one of two small mountains to the southwest of Trinsic. On the south side of the lower one, there is an entrance into the Trinsic passage. There are some aggressive and deadly monsters in there but please don't worry about dying. In the unlikely event that you do, you will not lose anything at all due to your starting equipment being blessed. Blessed items stay with you in death and will be in your backpack after you get resurrected. There is a healer for (eventual) resurrection on the other side. Once in the Cave Run to the lower path going east, and you will come out in the dungeon section. Run Down and head east through the cave wall into Delucia. If you died the healer hut is in the north west corner of the town. All your newbie stuff will be in your backpack.
Another good and in this case safe way to get to Delucia is to simply ask for a gate to Delucia at the bank. There are always players there and after some asking around one of them will surely help you. Just ask friendly and be patient. In the end it will get you thre quicker than the walk (but without seeing much of the land, so its a lot less exciting)
(read more on the wonderful town of Delucia below)
Minoc: The classical home town of all miners. As such it still holds a lot of attraction for new miners, and many do indeed decide to start here. This attraction, however, is also its major disadvantage. Minoc suffers from chronic overcrowding with new miners. It means that the easy to reach east Minoc mines are typically full of miners and rather devoid of iron. There are, however, two sets of mines here, the east mines (only a short walk over the bridge leading east) and the north mines. The north mines are considerably more plentiful and have a lot of public player houses with forges in them. When starting in Minoc it is a good idea to buy a packhorse and a few starting shovels and head out for the northern mountain range. Just go north and north from the Minoc stable.
You might even want to start here and migrate to Delucia shortly afterwards. Not because it is the best starting point, but because it is Minoc, city of Miners. Minoc bank always has a number of players near it and if you walk around and ask kindly for a gate to Delucia, you should in all likelyhood get one real soon.
Delucia: This place has everything you need. It is the dream town of a beginner miner. A nice safe place with a lot of mountain range inside the guard zone, with a stables and magic shops and plenty of players. If you are a total new player I advise this place to start. In addition to the walking all the way from Trinsic or Vesper to Delucia, you might also try to wait at the bank in these towns and ask other players kindly if they would help you getting there by casting a gate.
All those towns have stables should you want to pack horse mine (discussed later), and shops for buying basic supplies, like shovels or pickaxes.
Additional Skills and Equipment
Now you have your character made and in the town of your choice, you will need to decide on your additional skills, You have a skill cap (maximum) of 700 total real skill points, with each skill taking up a maximum of 100 points. Don't worry about raising skills you don't want later, you can lose skill points later if you chose to do so. If you haven't already started with the following do them:
Items:
Go to the Tinkers and buy some shovels. Both Minoc and Vesper have tinker shops. If you do this before your walk to Delucia store them in your bank box. Delucia itself has a smith that will sell you pickaxes. Shovels are better for mining when you can get them. It will take about 10-15 shovels or pickaxes to reach the mining skill required to smelt iron into ingots fairly well (50). Shovels are lighter and cheaper than pickaxes and pickaxes are no better than Shovels.
Skills:
Magery - If you did not start with 50 or so magery you should go to the mage shop and ask the vendor to teach you some magery. This will cost about 300gp or so. To do this go to the vendor and say "vendor teach me magery.
<<<insert pic of vendor saying how much it will cost>>>
Then drag the required amount of money onto the vendor.
Hiding - A useful Skill allowing you to hide from monsters and other things. A nice skill to have as a Miner. Don't worry about raising this, it will raise fast while you mine if you use one of the mining macro's described later.
Fighting Skills - If your planning on making a fighter then starting in Britain is your best bet. Buy yourself a weapon and head out to the training dummies (have a look at the Stratics warrior essays for detailed information on how to become a good fighter).
Types of Miners
For some general templates, miners fall into one or more of the following categories:
Pure Miner:
This character has mining, with some magery and maybe tinkering. Other skills Include a mix match of things that seem like a good idea at the time. The most common mule character (character used to make money to support other characters) The other skills consist of what you need on a mule. Hiding is common. while less used skills that can be useful find their way onto this character. Often a pure miner or mining mule will develop into a craft miner later on.
Smith Miner / Craft Miner:
This character has mining and smithing and often tinkering with some magery. It serves as a self supplying character for crafting all items that require ingots to be made. A good developement is to add other craft skills like carpentry and/or tailoring later on to have a character that can craft a wide range of items. Doesn't make much money to start with except for the few ingots he/she sells. Can make more money than normal Miners once GM smithing is gotten. It takes upwards of 30,000 ingots to GM smithing at current sell rates that is about 300,000 to 500,000 gold. So it is quite an investment. For each craft skill you add, however, you will gain more items that you can sell.
Stealth Miner:
This character has mining, hiding and stealth, along with the other skills wanted. This in my opinion is the best type of mining character. As well as being able to move around and mine while hidden, this type of character can mine in heavy monster spawn areas where even the fighter miners will not go (due to having to spend more time fighting than mining). It allows for safe mining in Felucca, as you are able to get the better of people. Not to mention that it is a very fun character to play even without mining, as you can stealth almost anywhere without being uncovered. The only downside: stealth is a very hard skill to raise. This is probably the hardest character to make. You can't chose stealth as a starting skill because you need at least 80 hiding before you can even start training and begin to use it. This is the type of character I use to mine.
Fighter Miner.
This character on top of mining has a series of fighting skills that allow him to defend himself if mining in felucca and also mine in medium monster spawn areas (your still mining than fighting) Because of the needed mining skills, the most perfect fighter is not possible. Usually, if you want a fighter and a miner, it is best to make two characters. Use the miner to make money until the fighter can support him/herself.
--
Morgoth, aka. Melkor the Magic Miner of Drachenfels
Guildmaster of IOU (Iron and Oreminer United)
Moderator of UO-Miners Forum and UO Third Dawn Forum
Introduction
So you want to be a Miner ? Perhaps to support your smith or as a pure money maker ? Either way you can't go wrong reading this guide. As a miner you will see a lot of the world, with popular mining locations being both in T2A (Delucia) and all over the old lands on both facets. You will be Travelling a lot especially when you are looking for Valorite. This guide will tell you everything you need to know about the mining skill and methods of mining, maybe even a bit more. If you decide to take this up as a profession, I must warn you: it is considered by many to be one of the more boring professions. It's fine when you start, but once you become an advanced GM Miner, it can become rather dull. On the up side you will make a lot of money and be in demand. Everyone needs Ingots in some form, from the Adventurers for their weapons and armors to the carpenters and tinkers for their tools and house add-ons.
Making Your Character
So Ok, You had this introduction and still want to make a Miner. Good for you. So a Hi Ho Hi Ho its off to work we go ... First of all let us have a look at your Stats. Here is what I recommend:
44 str
10 dex
11 int.
As a Miner you will need as much str as possible when first starting out to carry that heavy ore. Every point in str counts and will allow you to carry another 3.5 stones. While 11 int means you will be able to recall straight away, a very important ability for traveling the wide lands of Britania and beyond. Str will raise quicky from Mining, while Int and Dex you can raise through your other skills.
Starting Skills
There are a number of starting Skills to choose from. This might sound paradox, but I wouldn't really choose Mining as it takes less than an hour to Raise it to a level of 50. If you're going to Smith start with 50 Smithing as your first skill. As for your other skills I advise 49 Tinkering and 1 magery. I will tell you why later. If this is to be a pure Miner (ie. no smithing) then the advice I give you is to start with 50 Tinkering 49 Magery and 1 Mining. Let me explain to you why. I advise against 50 Mining because it is a very fast skill to raise and so a waste as an initial skill. Tinkering is a much harder skill to raise and isn't much use to you below 45.
Tinkering can be used to make shovels and pickaxes which you will need to mine with. This ability to tinker your own shovels allows you to mine constantly without having to go back into a town and buy new shovels. If you chose not to have Tinkering you will have to buy shovels all the time and also store them. (your bank box has unlimited weight, but a limited number of items it can hold) Just making those shovels will raise tinkering into the high 80's sortof as a side benefit. You will fail a lot at first but it will raise well.
Magery you should start with anyway. Put in at least 1 point so you start with a spell book. This Skill will also enable you to recall around (teleport to anywhere) and will generally be very useful later on, while not so much needed at the beginning. Smithing (often called blacksmithy instead) explains itself. This guide doesn't cover the Smithing skill in any detail so if you are planing on being a miner/smith then you should also have a look at the Stratics Smithing Essays.
Starting Town
Once you have setup your character you need to chose a town where your miner will be born. There are 3 towns worth starting at: Britian, Trinsic/Vesper, Minoc. You will automatically start on the Trammel facet which is crowded for miners on most Shards, but a lot safer than Felucca where other players can kill you. Later you will decide on your preferred facet. Don't worry if this mention of "facets" confuses you at this point. You will be safe where you start (Trammel) and you can stay there until you have learned more about the divided nature of the lands of Britania (there is a separate Stratics Essay on the subject of facets)
Britain: Best Place to sell your ingots on the street, most players there, large mountain area to the west, and a good large cave to the north. Both places have handy mountainside forges on most shards that were created by Gamemasters for the special benefit of beginner Miners. Personally I dislike Britian due to it being on one of the busiest Sub Servers of UO and very crowded. However it is a lot easier to find help, buy goods and sell those ingots there. The Britain west bank is the market place of UO.
Trinsic: Not really starting places as such but more of a stepping stone to Delucia, which is in the lands called T2A (ie. "The Second Age", and additional landmass that was added with the Ultima Online Renaissance upgrade). There are a number of small caves west of Trinsic along a large mountain range, though, that can be be mined and are usually quiet. You will have a very hard time selling ingots in Trinsic.
To get from Trinsic to Delucia head out of the town through the west gate. Using your map head towards the south one of two small mountains to the southwest of Trinsic. On the south side of the lower one, there is an entrance into the Trinsic passage. There are some aggressive and deadly monsters in there but please don't worry about dying. In the unlikely event that you do, you will not lose anything at all due to your starting equipment being blessed. Blessed items stay with you in death and will be in your backpack after you get resurrected. There is a healer for (eventual) resurrection on the other side. Once in the Cave Run to the lower path going east, and you will come out in the dungeon section. Run Down and head east through the cave wall into Delucia. If you died the healer hut is in the north west corner of the town. All your newbie stuff will be in your backpack.
Another good and in this case safe way to get to Delucia is to simply ask for a gate to Delucia at the bank. There are always players there and after some asking around one of them will surely help you. Just ask friendly and be patient. In the end it will get you thre quicker than the walk (but without seeing much of the land, so its a lot less exciting)
(read more on the wonderful town of Delucia below)
Minoc: The classical home town of all miners. As such it still holds a lot of attraction for new miners, and many do indeed decide to start here. This attraction, however, is also its major disadvantage. Minoc suffers from chronic overcrowding with new miners. It means that the easy to reach east Minoc mines are typically full of miners and rather devoid of iron. There are, however, two sets of mines here, the east mines (only a short walk over the bridge leading east) and the north mines. The north mines are considerably more plentiful and have a lot of public player houses with forges in them. When starting in Minoc it is a good idea to buy a packhorse and a few starting shovels and head out for the northern mountain range. Just go north and north from the Minoc stable.
You might even want to start here and migrate to Delucia shortly afterwards. Not because it is the best starting point, but because it is Minoc, city of Miners. Minoc bank always has a number of players near it and if you walk around and ask kindly for a gate to Delucia, you should in all likelyhood get one real soon.
Delucia: This place has everything you need. It is the dream town of a beginner miner. A nice safe place with a lot of mountain range inside the guard zone, with a stables and magic shops and plenty of players. If you are a total new player I advise this place to start. In addition to the walking all the way from Trinsic or Vesper to Delucia, you might also try to wait at the bank in these towns and ask other players kindly if they would help you getting there by casting a gate.
All those towns have stables should you want to pack horse mine (discussed later), and shops for buying basic supplies, like shovels or pickaxes.
Additional Skills and Equipment
Now you have your character made and in the town of your choice, you will need to decide on your additional skills, You have a skill cap (maximum) of 700 total real skill points, with each skill taking up a maximum of 100 points. Don't worry about raising skills you don't want later, you can lose skill points later if you chose to do so. If you haven't already started with the following do them:
Items:
Go to the Tinkers and buy some shovels. Both Minoc and Vesper have tinker shops. If you do this before your walk to Delucia store them in your bank box. Delucia itself has a smith that will sell you pickaxes. Shovels are better for mining when you can get them. It will take about 10-15 shovels or pickaxes to reach the mining skill required to smelt iron into ingots fairly well (50). Shovels are lighter and cheaper than pickaxes and pickaxes are no better than Shovels.
Skills:
Magery - If you did not start with 50 or so magery you should go to the mage shop and ask the vendor to teach you some magery. This will cost about 300gp or so. To do this go to the vendor and say "vendor teach me magery.
<<<insert pic of vendor saying how much it will cost>>>
Then drag the required amount of money onto the vendor.
Hiding - A useful Skill allowing you to hide from monsters and other things. A nice skill to have as a Miner. Don't worry about raising this, it will raise fast while you mine if you use one of the mining macro's described later.
Fighting Skills - If your planning on making a fighter then starting in Britain is your best bet. Buy yourself a weapon and head out to the training dummies (have a look at the Stratics warrior essays for detailed information on how to become a good fighter).
Types of Miners
For some general templates, miners fall into one or more of the following categories:
Pure Miner:
This character has mining, with some magery and maybe tinkering. Other skills Include a mix match of things that seem like a good idea at the time. The most common mule character (character used to make money to support other characters) The other skills consist of what you need on a mule. Hiding is common. while less used skills that can be useful find their way onto this character. Often a pure miner or mining mule will develop into a craft miner later on.
Smith Miner / Craft Miner:
This character has mining and smithing and often tinkering with some magery. It serves as a self supplying character for crafting all items that require ingots to be made. A good developement is to add other craft skills like carpentry and/or tailoring later on to have a character that can craft a wide range of items. Doesn't make much money to start with except for the few ingots he/she sells. Can make more money than normal Miners once GM smithing is gotten. It takes upwards of 30,000 ingots to GM smithing at current sell rates that is about 300,000 to 500,000 gold. So it is quite an investment. For each craft skill you add, however, you will gain more items that you can sell.
Stealth Miner:
This character has mining, hiding and stealth, along with the other skills wanted. This in my opinion is the best type of mining character. As well as being able to move around and mine while hidden, this type of character can mine in heavy monster spawn areas where even the fighter miners will not go (due to having to spend more time fighting than mining). It allows for safe mining in Felucca, as you are able to get the better of people. Not to mention that it is a very fun character to play even without mining, as you can stealth almost anywhere without being uncovered. The only downside: stealth is a very hard skill to raise. This is probably the hardest character to make. You can't chose stealth as a starting skill because you need at least 80 hiding before you can even start training and begin to use it. This is the type of character I use to mine.
Fighter Miner.
This character on top of mining has a series of fighting skills that allow him to defend himself if mining in felucca and also mine in medium monster spawn areas (your still mining than fighting) Because of the needed mining skills, the most perfect fighter is not possible. Usually, if you want a fighter and a miner, it is best to make two characters. Use the miner to make money until the fighter can support him/herself.
--
Morgoth, aka. Melkor the Magic Miner of Drachenfels
Guildmaster of IOU (Iron and Oreminer United)
Moderator of UO-Miners Forum and UO Third Dawn Forum