Mining Questions

[qoonpooka]

1) Is ore quality softcapped by your mining tool? Stone seems not to be (nor cat gold) but I'm seeing this curious thing:

- q43 Cat Gold dropping from a vein giving me q41-q37 ore. (Masonry 53 so no problem there.)
I'm mining with a q36 stone axe.

If the rock/ore is q43 and it's being softcapped by my q36 axe it should be spitting out Q39. I'm seeing +2/-2 around that, however. With rounding being the way it is, I'm suspecting that's what happening is the ore is +5/-5 (like trees crops and livestock) from the rock quality and /that/ is being softcapped by my tool? Is this known behavior? If so, it suggests that I should NOT make a Q35 pickaxe since this will increase my softcapping penalty, even though it would make the mining itself easier.

But this raises two more questions:

2) Does Deep Artifice (which I have) improve the behavior of the +5/-5? Is that what 'better ores' means? I've mostly found that the bar yield in my batches since getting DA has gone down, but that could just be clustering. Certainly it doesn't seem pronouncedly higher, however.

3) Does the double-quality effect of the pickaxe also apply to softcapping questions? IOW: Does a Q22 Pickaxe softcap like a Q44 stone axe? That would make the q35 Pickaxe a no brainer as I'm WAY away from q70 stone axe.

[Headchef]

1) Is ore quality softcapped by your mining tool? Stone seems not to be (nor cat gold) but I'm seeing this curious thing:

- q43 Cat Gold dropping from a vein giving me q41-q37 ore. (Masonry 53 so no problem there.)
I'm mining with a q36 stone axe.

If the rock/ore is q43 and it's being softcapped by my q36 axe it should be spitting out Q39. I'm seeing +2/-2 around that, however. With rounding being the way it is, I'm suspecting that's what happening is the ore is +5/-5 (like trees crops and livestock) from the rock quality and /that/ is being softcapped by my tool? Is this known behavior? If so, it suggests that I should NOT make a Q35 pickaxe since this will increase my softcapping penalty, even though it would make the mining itself easier.

But this raises two more questions:

2) Does Deep Artifice (which I have) improve the behavior of the +5/-5? Is that what 'better ores' means? I've mostly found that the bar yield in my batches since getting DA has gone down, but that could just be clustering. Certainly it doesn't seem pronouncedly higher, however.

3) Does the double-quality effect of the pickaxe also apply to softcapping questions? IOW: Does a Q22 Pickaxe softcap like a Q44 stone axe? That would make the q35 Pickaxe a no brainer as I'm WAY away from q70 stone axe.

1. No it's not, not sure how to explain the difference in q between tiles & cat gold but no capping involved.

2. Better ore is a reference to the increased chance of the ore becoming a bar.

3. ^1

[Granger]

1) Your tool is softcapping, your masonry is hardcapping. So in case you get higher quality of stone/ore than your tool is: you could get better with a better tool. Each stone type (ore is a kind of stone) has an own quality field now.

2) The mining skills raise the chance of ore turning into metal in the smelter. The chance is set the moment you mine the ore.

3) Pick Axe softcaps by the quality it has, it just mines faster. So if you want quality stick to your axe.

[qoonpooka]

Yay opposite answers. >.>

Time for SCIENCE

[Granger]

Regarding your q70 stone axe:
As long as you're capped enough by your stone axe you can spiral it using the freshly mined stone: have a stack of blocks nearby - as soon as you get stone that enables you to better axe than the current: make one, use that to split a fresh block for a better branch, make an even better axe, mine better ore, repeat...

[Glorthan]

Yay opposite answers. >.>

Time for SCIENCE

Headchef was wrong on 1 & 3.

- better effect of pickaxe only affects mining strength. Any tool softcaps the ore based on only: it's quality, the ore's quality. You can verify this yourself easily on a lowq vein of rock by comparing your current tools with a q10 stone axe.

- DA affects mining and bloom hammering, however the ore must be mined with DA. If you have old piles of ore from before you had DA, it will have the old chance. You can verify this by using a fresh alt to do whatever you want with your existing ore piles, the yield won't be lower regardless of who loads/lights the smelters.

[qoonpooka]

- better effect of pickaxe only affects mining strength. Any tool softcaps the ore based on only: it's quality, the ore's quality. You can verify this yourself easily on a lowq vein of rock by comparing your current tools with a q10 stone axe.

Why the spread of quality from a single tile then? I get q41-37 from a single tile of vein?

[Granger]

Randomisation was added a while ago to make pinpointing quality node centers harder.

[Gigglepuddy]

1) Is ore quality softcapped by your mining tool? Stone seems not to be (nor cat gold) but I'm seeing this curious thing:

- q43 Cat Gold dropping from a vein giving me q41-q37 ore. (Masonry 53 so no problem there.)
I'm mining with a q36 stone axe.

If the rock/ore is q43 and it's being softcapped by my q36 axe it should be spitting out Q39. I'm seeing +2/-2 around that, however. With rounding being the way it is, I'm suspecting that's what happening is the ore is +5/-5 (like trees crops and livestock) from the rock quality and /that/ is being softcapped by my tool? Is this known behavior? If so, it suggests that I should NOT make a Q35 pickaxe since this will increase my softcapping penalty, even though it would make the mining itself easier.

But this raises two more questions:

2) Does Deep Artifice (which I have) improve the behavior of the +5/-5? Is that what 'better ores' means? I've mostly found that the bar yield in my batches since getting DA has gone down, but that could just be clustering. Certainly it doesn't seem pronouncedly higher, however.

3) Does the double-quality effect of the pickaxe also apply to softcapping questions? IOW: Does a Q22 Pickaxe softcap like a Q44 stone axe? That would make the q35 Pickaxe a no brainer as I'm WAY away from q70 stone axe.

1. No it's not, not sure how to explain the difference in q between tiles & cat gold but no capping involved.

2. Better ore is a reference to the increased chance of the ore becoming a bar.

3. ^1

1: i beg to differ. my q15 pickaxe drops me q10-20 rocks and ores. my q60 pickaxe drops me much higher (im currently on like a q50 node, the q15 pick does q10-20 ores)