Mining
| Mining | |
|---|---|
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| Type | Mechanic |
Mining is the skill of breaking rocks, and almost everything a farm builds is made of what comes out of them. Copper, iron, gold and iridium pay for every tool upgrade and every machine, gems fill the museum and the Crystalarium, and geodes hide the artefacts that finish a collection. The work happens mostly in the Mines north of town, a hundred and twenty floors deep, with the Skull Cavern out in the desert waiting behind the key found at the bottom. The skill itself climbs from bombs and staircases up to the Crystalarium, and the professions it offers decide whether a save gets rich off ore, off coal or off gems. Luck has more say here than anywhere else in the game, which makes the morning forecast part of the planning.
Overview
The Mines are shut for the first four days of a save, because a landslide blames Joja Corporation for the mess. A letter on the fifth of the first Spring announces that the rubble has been cleared, and the entrance is open from then on. The shaft runs a hundred and twenty floors down, each one generated fresh, and the way down is a ladder that appears when a rock is broken or a monster is killed. The elevator in the lobby remembers every floor ending in nought or five that has been reached, which turns a long climb into a single click on later trips.
The ore changes with depth. Copper fills the first forty floors or so, iron takes over in the forties through the seventies, and gold appears from the eighties down. Gems follow their own schedule: Amethyst and Topaz turn up anywhere, Aquamarine and Jade from the forties, Emerald and Ruby from the eighties, and Diamonds from the fiftieth floor onwards with the odds creeping up with every floor after that. Reaching the bottom of the Mines once removes those gem restrictions, so a finished shaft gives every gem at any depth. Mystic Stones only appear from the hundredth floor and are worth hunting, since each one carries iridium, gold and a one in four chance of a Prismatic Shard.
Every floor ending in nought holds a small side room with a chest that can be opened once. Those chests are where the better tools and weapons come from on the way down, and the thirtieth floor is the one exception with nothing in it. Floor one hundred gives a Stardrop, which permanently raises the energy bar, and floor one hundred and twenty gives the Skull Key, the main prize of the descent. A few floors have water in them and can be fished, and two kinds of special floor break the pattern: an infested floor fills with monsters and refuses to show a ladder until every one of them is dead, and a mushroom floor glows blue and green and is thick with Red and Purple Mushrooms.
The Skull Cavern is where mining becomes a serious expedition. The Skull Key opens it, and the bus to the desert has to be running first. It goes down without end, the floors shuffle on every visit, every trip starts from the top, and the monsters hit far harder. Iridium gets commoner the deeper the run goes, holes in the floor drop three to fifteen levels at the cost of some health, and treasure rooms start appearing past the tenth floor at a rate that depends on the day's fortune. Time also passes more slowly down there, which is the single biggest reason deep runs are possible at all.
Other rock lives elsewhere. The Quarry, opened by finishing the Crafts Room bundles or paying Joja for the bridge, refills with nodes every few days and can produce anything including iridium. The Quarry Mine behind it runs one long corridor to a Grim Reaper statue holding the Golden Scythe. The Volcano Dungeon on Ginger Island is only ten floors but has doors instead of ladders, a dwarf shop halfway down and the Forge at the bottom. The Dig Site on the island, bought from the parrots with Golden Walnuts, is the only place for Clay Nodes and the bone-filled rocks that hold fossils. Two farm layouts, the Hill-top and Four Corners maps, grow their own nodes, and what they produce improves as Mining rises, reaching iridium only at the top of the skill.
Experience is paid by the node rather than by the swing. A plain rock inside the Mines gives nothing at all unless it drops coal or ore, in which case it pays a small amount. Nodes pay properly: copper a little, iron and gold more, iridium far more, and a Diamond Node or a Mystic Stone more than anything else in a single hit. Geode nodes scale the same way, from plain Geodes up to the Omni Geode. Bombs count fully, so a bomb-heavy run levels the skill as fast as a pickaxe one, but rocks smashed by a monster pay nothing. Panning pays a point per piece of ore, and reading Mining Monthly or the Book Of Stars hands over a large lump at once.
The unlock ladder is short and useful. The Cherry Bomb arrives first, then the Staircase, which is the item that makes diving possible by skipping a floor outright. The third level brings Miner's Treat, the fourth the Glowstone Ring and the recipe that transmutes iron bars from ore. Bombs and Mega Bombs follow, along with the gold transmutation, and the ninth level gives the Crystalarium, which copies any gem placed in it for free and forever.
The professions split the skill into two economies. Miner adds an extra ore to every vein, which adds up across a whole run and keeps the furnace supplied. Geologist instead gives gem nodes a coin-flip chance of producing two gems rather than one. The second choice follows from the first: a Miner becomes either a Blacksmith, selling metal bars for half again as much, or a Prospector, finding twice as much coal. A Geologist becomes either an Excavator, finding twice as many geodes, or a Gemologist, selling gems and minerals for almost a third more. Blacksmith is the money choice for a farm that smelts everything, while Gemologist suits one that runs a shed of Crystalariums.
Cooking makes a real difference underground. Miner's Treat is the dish built for the job, asking only for two Cave Carrots, Sugar and Milk, and it widens the pickup radius while it boosts the skill. Cranberry Sauce gives a solid boost from almost nothing, Eggplant Parmesan pairs a smaller one with a large defence bonus, and Maple Bar spreads a point across three skills at once. Magic Rock Candy is the best food in the game for a cavern run, lifting mining, luck, speed, attack and defence together. The Chef at the Desert Festival sells Mountain Chili, Cave Kebab, Hot Log and Crystal Cake, all built on Cave Loaf, and those stack on top of an ordinary meal.
Notes
Luck touches almost every roll underground. The chance that a broken rock hides a ladder, the chance a crate appears, the chance a gem node or a Mystic Stone spawns, the chance a geode falls out of a plain rock and the chance of a treasure room in the Skull Cavern all move with the day's fortune. The amount of gold and the number of items lost on being knocked out shrink on a lucky day too, so the deepest pushes belong on the mornings the Fortune Teller approves of.
A hoe is worth carrying down. Tilling the dirt patches on a cave floor turns up Cave Carrots, Clay, geodes and the occasional artefact, and it costs almost nothing in energy once the skill has a few levels on it.
Mining Mastery changes the arithmetic at the top end. Gem-bearing rocks then always give double, the Heavy Furnace smelts twenty-five ore at a time, and the Statue Of The Dwarf King offers a choice of two mining powers each morning.
The Mines can be pushed into a Dangerous state through the Shrine of Challenge, which strengthens every monster and adds Radioactive Nodes to the floors. Those nodes never appear on a floor that is a multiple of five, so the elevator landings stay clear of them.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
