Mining - Tatics, food efficiency and cloths

[hery76]

if i build a sign will the troll break it ? and what if it as barrel blocking the path?

The only way to block a troll's path is with a dead player's body, not decomposed yet so indesrtuctible. Construction signs, barrels, a fox would break those.

Beer gives something ? O.o

Beer increases your Sausage satiation effectiveness up to 125% if you drink enough. But resetting satiations and getting bonuses is a whole another matter and it's been discussed on this forum, you'll probably be able to find the info easy enough.

I've read it already , i thought it also helped like mining faster or something

About design and silver/gold search, what's your approach? Same as Kaios said?

[Kaios]

Regarding mounted mining: I would avdise not to. If you dig up a troll you'll have a few seconds to react and run away while the troll flexes before aggroing you. If you have a horse, it may aggro right away at your horse and knock you off the horse's back (that may have been changed with one of latest patches, didn't have the troll to test yet). Then you'll have virtually no chance of survival. Also, if you get sloppy and cause a cave-in, your horse will be KO'ed for a good 12 hours.

My only troll experience has been without a horse and I ended up surviving but this was due to sheer luck. From what I remember you have more than a few seconds, I would say at least 10-15 before it actually starts chasing you, I don't know if a horse changes this amount of time for some reason or why it would do so but I would assume it does not. If it does aggro right away I hope that's a bug and I hope it was fixed already.

I do think more often than not mining with a horse will ensure your survival compared to without one though. The only reason I survived while I was running on foot from one was because the tunnel I happened to run through had a support placed just right that the troll ended up getting stuck on the support, causing a cave-in on itself when it destroyed it and blocking itself in to the tunnel at which point it threw rocks at my player and dropped aggro. If I had a horse I'm sure I could have easily outrun it where as if it didn't get trapped I would have been dead.

It's true you can get sloppy while mining though and if you're using a horse you need to be extra careful so as to prevent that.

Inventory space is
not a problem if you use chests,
not a problem if you are in a group (having people carry stuff out),
not a problem if you have an appropriate smelter next to your favourite ore node (since you dont have to carry out factual stones).

Can't speak for everyone but personally my roads extend a great distance underground beyond any point where I have chests, smelters, etc. and for me inventory space does become an important asset. Normally I'll go out with a pick, some food, some bars, bucket of water, two water skins and two tsacks and a wheelbarrow and I'll switch to tsacks to take more ore/stone back when I finish what I'm mining. This is also what I take even while I'm just exploring for nodes on the chance I do find something useful. If I find anything good eventually I'll build roads to these locations and mine them out and transport rather than build anything next to them.

[Hasta]

Depending on what I'm doing there are various ways I go about exploring the tunnels for ore. If I'm searching for quality nodes I will place a support to check a spot along the cave wall for its quality and determine the direction it raises towards and go check some distance away in another section of the cavern or tunnels. Continue process until you find something q100+ or higher and then proceed to tunnel towards its peak.

When you're looking for a particular ore type and aren't too concerned about the quality what I like to do is find a large cavern or long tunnel and place supports along the walls. Then mine along the wall all the way around the cavern or tunnel to reveal all of the ore, this tends to net you a large quantity of different ore types with varying qualities.

About design and silver/gold search, what's your approach? Same as Kaios said?

Yes, this is a very sensible and efficient approach. Get to lvl5 and poke walls, basically. Explore the nearest to your minehole cave system, get a good picture of quality fluctuations in it. If the quality is ~50 and doesn't go higher, move to next cave system (it rarely takes more than a grid-long tunnel). Worst case scenario is when your 5th lvl caves are not "airtight", i.e. someone's been there already and either found nothing useful, dug up all the shinies or is in the process of doing so.

[Kaios]

Gold ore also tends to get "squirted" in between other nodes as weird diagonal lines so even prospecting for it can be difficult and relies mostly on luck.

[hery76]

Oki, STR cloths and gilds (not bear capes), mine at level 5 following Kaios approach, have water/metal and some food at inventory and get lucky

[Embers]

I'm mining on a horse (can't afford to loose this toon to trolls)

Might be a bad idea, horseys fear trolls and will just drop you if troll engages in combat (which is instant after it appears)

[Hasta]

I'm mining on a horse (can't afford to loose this toon to trolls)

Might be a bad idea, horseys fear trolls and will just drop you if troll engages in combat (which is instant after it appears)

That was an issue before two key fixes:
- horses no longer drop you when aggroed, only when they receive damage;
- trolls no longer aggro at once, they take their sweet time to flex and whatnot.

That's why I said my input on mounted mining could be a bit out of date. I'm not saying this won't be the true case - i haven't tested it yet; I'm saying there were two mechanics changes that could very well alter this drastically.

[tyrtix]

one question: do bear cape bonus in str become less good than the tooth gilding bonus, going up in levels? i've a low ql one and it gives me more than double the str points that i can get from the gilding.

[vatas]

one question: do bear cape bonus in str become less good than the tooth gilding bonus, going up in levels? i've a low ql one and it gives me more than double the str points that i can get from the gilding.

I'm not sure what you're exactly asking, but the bear cape just softcaps the gilded tooth if the tooth is higher in quality.