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Mine
Mines are constructed on ore veins to extract Iron, Copper, and Tin, as well as various Gems. Ore veins are discovered using the Dowsing skill with a Dowsing Rod. Working the mine will produce ore upon success, and occasionally yield a gem of a set type.
As not all methods of ore extraction are completely resolved, there is more information and theories on the discussion page.
Cost
Repair Cost
| Repair Level | Boards | Bricks | Water in jugs | Leather | Slate | Rope |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 20 | 30 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| 2 | 20 | 30 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| 3 | 20 | 30 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | 20 | 30 | 4 | 5 | 3 | 4 |
| 5 | 20 | 30 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 5 |
| 6 | 20 | 30 | 7 | 12 | 3 | 6 |
| 7 | 20 | 30 | 9 | 16 | 3 | 7 |
| 8 | 20 | 30 | 11 | 21 | 3 | 8 |
| 9 | 20 | 30 | 13 | 27 | 3 | 9 |
Operation
To work a mine, you must learn the skill Ore Extraction from the School of Architecture. To further increase your yield per mining attempt, you may learn the second level of ore extraction (7 tin ore, 7 copper ore, 7 iron ore). Each mine type has a different method of operation in order to properly identify which crystal to pick in order to get the ore out. If you correctly identify the crystal, you'll get some base amount of ore (e.g. iron gives you 3 ore, copper gives 3, tin gives 1, etc).
Aluminum
The best way I can describe it is that you want the most emissive crystal, the most... luminescent.
Copper
Copper ore is extracted by clicking on the crystal with the highest color saturation (i.e. the "least gray"). Success yields 3 at extraction levels 1 and 2.
Iron
To extract iron ore, click on the mismatched color crystal. Success yields 3 at Ore Extraction levels 1 and 2.
Lead
Figure out which crystal has gone the longest without being the odd crystal out, and click that one. When you find that crystal, keep clicking it until it is the odd crystal out. As long as you keep clicking the crystal that hasn't been the odd-one out for the longest time, you will build a chain up to 7 ore per pull at Ore Extraction 2
Lithium
Lithium appears visually as the "six crystals of one color, one of another color" system most commonly seen in iron mines. However, the simplest way to mine it ignores the visual appearance entirely. Simply mine each crystal once until one of them gives you 1 ore instead of 0. As soon as that happens, keep mining that crystal, and it will count up 1 ore each time until it gives 7 per iteration (due to the increasing sequence length of the memory game). At some point, the pattern breaks, it drops to 0, and at that point you cycle through the other six crystals until you find the one that gives 1 ore again. Rinse, repeat. For more advanced mining, you can usually predict what crystal is the new ore crystal, by which crystal was "lit" right before the pattern broke. If that doesn't work, try the first crystal that was lit after the pattern broke. That works about 95% of the time, but it requires dramatically more attention and only saves about 1-2 mining attempts per cycle.
Magnesium
Click the blue crystal, or one with greatest blue component.
Silver
Similar to copper: rate the crystals in order of saturation and pick the second from most saturated crystal. Using the memory-game to increase yield works in the same way as tin to provide up to a 7-silver yield (depending on length of sequence being repeated). The result of mining is "silver", and not "silver ore". I.e. it's ready to use and does not need smelting.
Strontium
Each mine has a different circuit, click on crystals in that order. one crystal can be present in the circuit multiple times. I have seen circuit with 7 to 10 crystals. Yield come from 1 to 7, then stays at 7. Color doesn't seem to matter in any fashion.
Tin
The correct crystal is usually most colors of green, red and yellow and grey even the washed colors (careful though they shades look similar). Also described as "Most brownish". Also described as lowest blue in the RGB palette or Highest green in the RGB palette. All of these interpretations give the right result. The exact answer isn't quite known. See discussion for more discussion (and history of the memory effect on mines).
Titanium
At OE2 You must click the crystal that has remained the same for 3 or 4 turns. For each consecutive successful pull the titanium output increases by one because of the increased-yield effect of the increasing sequence length. I hope that makes sense. ~ Cory0210
Tungsten
Click on the odd one out, there are 3 pairs and a crystal that doesn't have an equal pair.
Zinc
Active crystal appears to be the lightest/whitest
Increasing your yield: the mining memory game
If you continually click on the correct crystal, you'll always get the base amount. If however you remember what's gone before and start clicking on the crystal that came up *previously*, then you'll get extra ore yield for as long as you can keep up the correct sequence. For example, if you perform a run consistently working the from a history of 3 crystal ago, then each pull will give you 4 extra ore. As soon as you hit an error in your sequence (because you guessed the wrong crystal) then the run stops and you need to restart your memory. It's easiest with iron where the correct crystal is most obvious, but the technique has been tested (Nicodemus) with copper, iron and tin.
As an example: label each crystal with a number. If it's the first crystal that's correct then write down "1" in your sequence. If it's the second crystal, write down "2", etc. When you've got the desired history length (e.g. 3 numbers written down), then keep writing down the correct crystal, but don't click on it. Instead, click on the crystal 3 back in your history. So, if a mine is giving a sequence of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, then select the first 3 crystals as normal (and you'll get 1 ore each time if this is tin) by clicking 1, then clicking 2, then clicking 3. On the next pull you start using your history instead of the current correct crystal and select 1 and then 2. Both of those pulls will say "no ore" because you haven't yet hit the correct sequence, but from then on (when you select 3, 4, 5, 6, etc) you'll get 4 ore every time so long as you keep the sequence correct (i.e. as long as you click on the correct crystal 3 pulls ago). The bonus pull seems to vary. With tin (i.e. a base pull of 1 ore), then you get a bonus ore per run-length of your sequence. That means that a sequence of 2 will give 3 ore. A sequence of 3 will give 4 ore, etc. For copper and iron I've only ever got a bonus of 1 no matter the length of the sequence. Whereas for tin and silver you can get up to a pull of 7. The 7 sequence appears to be the limit.
Note that if you're just mining normally and a sequence comes up "naturally" (e.g. the same crystal is correct 3 pulls in a row), then on the third pull you'll get the sequence bonus.
Saturation, Colour
Some mines require you to determine which crystal has the most saturation, or the second-most saturation (e.g. silver). Some ask you to pick "the most blue". Sometimes it's not easy to tell which one this is (especially if you have colour blindness!). The most important thing to do is to turn off the "time-of-day" lighting, since it really makes things harder to differentiate. If you've done that and you still can't tell, then try using some magnifying software that shows you colours. For example, on the Mac, you can run "Pixie" (a developer toolkit application) that magnifies a portion of the screen and provides information about where the cursor is pointing. If you enable the Pixie preferences "Float window" and "Show colour values", then you can easily wave the mouse over the crystals to quickly see which crystal is correct. Note that "most blue" would be the highest "B" value in the R/G/B section, whereas "most saturated" would be the highest "S" value in the H/S/B section of the information.
