Mining and smelting

[SANICHEGEHOGE]

What should my abilities be at to have decent Q metal and stuff once I get ore and start smelting?

[Thedrah]

tool 'soft-caps' the ore/stone mined (average if* the ore/stone is higher quality)
masonry skill 'hard-caps' the ore/stone mined (absolute highest quality you can/will mine)
tool quality + strength determines how fast/easy it is to mine (pickaxe is considerably better than an axe but axe is usually easier to raise the quality)

now mining/smithing skills increase yield % from each stone during mining such as tunneling and steel making (like 2bars with no skills from 25ore batch to 5bars with all skills from 25ore batch) and it is determined the moment it is mined, not who puts it in the smelter

coal is only found on level 2 now. get a tar kiln going, i have 2. takes about 1-2days to burn and you can use 40boards for 60 charcoal, boards are easier to get higher quality, and also 80blocks for 160 charcoal

a trick is to use 11coal on a smelter of crappy/low quality and let it completely go out then use 1 good/high quality coal and relight the smelter for better quality bar and using less good coal

try to learn how to mine without supports if you have the patience, the dust that falls means that a square that is touching that will cause a cave in. cave ins are bad. pick up the dust to see how many cave in squares there are, .01kg per cave-in tile touching that spot. if a square drops no dust, it means that the touching 9 squares have no cave in spots. i'll mine a line through ore then mine one column at a time to see the cave in spots and place stone/wood supports accordingly

[DreadDawson]

honestly I'd try to have 25 masonry as a base before you get too involved in mining. That's a good starting point. If you can live in a kingdom that is kind to new players (I realize there are few of these) You'd probably be able to find somebody willing to part with (for you) an amazing mining pick.

If you can't do that for w/e reason you'll need to build your own tools. Picks will always mine faster, but are generally harder to reach higher levels than a stone ax which only takes a good tree and good stone. For you always be upgrading your stone ax. If you use a better quality ax to cut a log into sticks it takes the average of the log q (likely 10, unless you are farming them) and the stone. Then use that ax to cut more sticks up, and so on until the q of the rocks you have no longer increases the q of the axes you make. Then go get better rocks. It is a long process, especially if you are alone. If you live near the NK send me a pm, I might be able to help you.

[SANICHEGEHOGE]

honestly I'd try to have 25 masonry as a base before you get too involved in mining. That's a good starting point. If you can live in a kingdom that is kind to new players (I realize there are few of these) You'd probably be able to find somebody willing to part with (for you) an amazing mining pick.

If you can't do that for w/e reason you'll need to build your own tools. Picks will always mine faster, but are generally harder to reach higher levels than a stone ax which only takes a good tree and good stone. For you always be upgrading your stone ax. If you use a better quality ax to cut a log into sticks it takes the average of the log q (likely 10, unless you are farming them) and the stone. Then use that ax to cut more sticks up, and so on until the q of the rocks you have no longer increases the q of the axes you make. Then go get better rocks. It is a long process, especially if you are alone. If you live near the NK send me a pm, I might be able to help you.

How much does the quality of the ax affect the Q of the ore or speed of mining? Would it be fine if I just spam str or does the Q of the ax soft/hard cap the Q of the ore?

[Granger]

Mining tool softcaps the quality of the ore, masonry hardcaps it, pickaxe is faster than stone/metal axe.

[SANICHEGEHOGE]

tool 'soft-caps' the ore/stone mined (average if* the ore/stone is higher quality)
masonry skill 'hard-caps' the ore/stone mined (absolute highest quality you can/will mine)
tool quality + strength determines how fast/easy it is to mine (pickaxe is considerably better than an axe but axe is usually easier to raise the quality)

now mining/smithing skills increase yield % from each stone during mining such as tunneling and steel making (like 2bars with no skills from 25ore batch to 5bars with all skills from 25ore batch) and it is determined the moment it is mined, not who puts it in the smelter

coal is only found on level 2 now. get a tar kiln going, i have 2. takes about 1-2days to burn and you can use 40boards for 60 charcoal, boards are easier to get higher quality, and also 80blocks for 160 charcoal

a trick is to use 11coal on a smelter of crappy/low quality and let it completely go out then use 1 good/high quality coal and relight the smelter for better quality bar and using less good coal

try to learn how to mine without supports if you have the patience, the dust that falls means that a square that is touching that will cause a cave in. cave ins are bad. pick up the dust to see how many cave in squares there are, .01kg per cave-in tile touching that spot. if a square drops no dust, it means that the touching 9 squares have no cave in spots. i'll mine a line through ore then mine one column at a time to see the cave in spots and place stone/wood supports accordingly

What does the quality of the smelter affect?

[Riou1231]

a trick is to use 11coal on a smelter of crappy/low quality and let it completely go out then use 1 good/high quality coal and relight the smelter for better quality bar and using less good coal

I thought you could only light a smelter once it was at the line indicator?

So the quality of the bar is only determined by the quality of the coal it has at the time it finishes? Example: If I use 11 q10 coal and then use 1 piece of q100 coal, only the quality of the q100 coal will be counted?

[Granger]

a trick is to use 11coal on a smelter of crappy/low quality and let it completely go out then use 1 good/high quality coal and relight the smelter for better quality bar and using less good coal

I thought you could only light a smelter once it was at the line indicator?

So the quality of the bar is only determined by the quality of the coal it has at the time it finishes? Example: If I use 11 q10 coal and then use 1 piece of q100 coal, only the quality of the q100 coal will be counted?

The bug is that only the quality of the fuel in the current burn cycle counts. So you can't add the 12 coals in one go (then the quality of the fuel would average) but have to wait for it to go out and the relight. No clue why this bug is still in existance, it should have been fixed a long time ago...

[SANICHEGEHOGE]

tool 'soft-caps' the ore/stone mined (average if* the ore/stone is higher quality)
masonry skill 'hard-caps' the ore/stone mined (absolute highest quality you can/will mine)
tool quality + strength determines how fast/easy it is to mine (pickaxe is considerably better than an axe but axe is usually easier to raise the quality)

now mining/smithing skills increase yield % from each stone during mining such as tunneling and steel making (like 2bars with no skills from 25ore batch to 5bars with all skills from 25ore batch) and it is determined the moment it is mined, not who puts it in the smelter

coal is only found on level 2 now. get a tar kiln going, i have 2. takes about 1-2days to burn and you can use 40boards for 60 charcoal, boards are easier to get higher quality, and also 80blocks for 160 charcoal

a trick is to use 11coal on a smelter of crappy/low quality and let it completely go out then use 1 good/high quality coal and relight the smelter for better quality bar and using less good coal

try to learn how to mine without supports if you have the patience, the dust that falls means that a square that is touching that will cause a cave in. cave ins are bad. pick up the dust to see how many cave in squares there are, .01kg per cave-in tile touching that spot. if a square drops no dust, it means that the touching 9 squares have no cave in spots. i'll mine a line through ore then mine one column at a time to see the cave in spots and place stone/wood supports accordingly

Thanks for the info! My mining is going alright and I've got 9 bars of q20 tin already.

[Tammer]

What does the quality of the smelter affect?

The smelter contributes 1/4 of its quality to the bars, same as the coal. The ore contributes 1/2 of its quality.

You could continue building smelters as you get access to better bricks.