The basics
Rock fields sit just off the road throughout the world — clusters of mineable rocks you can tap to work. Each swing takes a few seconds and either strikes ore (added to your pack) or chips uselessly; both earn Mining XP, success much more than failure. You need a pickaxe — owned, not necessarily equipped: a pickaxe in your pack or in your pickaxe tool slot both count, and the game always uses the best one you have.
Tap a rock and choose Mine Once or Auto Mine This — or set the Mine travel mode, pick an ore, and your wanderer will walk to the nearest deposit of it and work it until stopped, including finding the next rock when one is exhausted. Mined ore stacks 100 to a pack slot; when the pack is truly full, further ore auto-sells for coins rather than being lost.
Every ore in the game
Higher ores need a higher Mining level and a good-enough pickaxe, sit further east, strike less often per swing, and pay far more XP when they do. Strike chance is your odds per swing at the rock's required level; a better pickaxe adds its bonus, and every Mining level you have above the rock's requirement adds another +0.3% (capped at 95%) — so rocks you've outgrown get steadily more generous.
| Ore | Mining level | Pickaxe needed | Strike chance | XP per ore |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copper | 1 | Bronze | 88% | 8 |
| Tin | 1 | Bronze | 88% | 8 |
| Iron | 10 | Bronze | 72% | 14 |
| Coal | 20 | Iron | 66% | 18 |
| Silver | 25 | Iron | 62% | 22 |
| Gold | 35 | Iron | 55% | 30 |
| Aethersteel | 50 | Steel | 50% | 45 |
| Deepsteel | 70 | Aethersteel | 44% | 70 |
| Starforged | 90 | Deepsteel | 38% | 105 |
| Frost | 100 | Starforged | 34% | 145 |
| Void | 135 | Frost | 30% | 210 |
| Celestial | 160 | Void | 26% | 300 |
Pickaxes
Your first pickaxe (Bronze) is sold at the Wanderer's Rest store. Every better one is smithed, not bought — three bars of the matching metal at any anvil — so Mining and Smithing ladder each other upward. Every mining action takes the same fixed work tick regardless of pickaxe; what a better pickaxe buys you is a bigger tool bonus, which raises both your strike chance and your Double-Swing chance (below):
| Pickaxe | Tool bonus | How you get it |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | — | Store at Wanderer's Rest |
| Iron | +4% | Smith 3 Iron Bars (Smithing 15) |
| Steel | +8% | Smith 3 Steel Bars (Smithing 30) |
| Aethersteel | +12% | Smith 3 Aethersteel Bars (Smithing 50) |
| Deepsteel | +16% | Smith 3 Deepsteel Bars (Smithing 70) |
| Starforged | +20% | Smith 3 Starforged Bars (Smithing 90) |
| Frost | +24% | Smith 3 Frost Bars (Smithing 100) |
| Void | +28% | Smith 3 Void Bars (Smithing 135) |
| Celestial | +34% | Smith 3 Celestial Bars (Smithing 160) |
Pickaxes live in their own tool slot on the character panel — your best held pickaxe equips itself at login, freeing the pack space, and works from there exactly as it did from the pack. Equipped tools are also safe from Sell All.
Double Swing
Every mining action now rolls a Double Swing first: on a proc you take two swings in the one tick instead of one, and each swing then rolls its own success independently — so a lucky double can still whiff on either half. Your Double-Swing chance is (Mining level ÷ the rock's required level) × 30%, minus 25%, plus your pickaxe's tool bonus, capped between 10% and 95%. It fires at most once per tick — never three or more swings — so mining a rock you've outgrown, with a good pickaxe in hand, quietly turns more and more ticks into two ore instead of one.
Where to mine
The first copper and tin sit in the fields just west of Wanderer's Rest — deliberately behind you, so you learn that the road runs both ways — and the same Beginner Quarry hides a couple of tougher iron faces, so your first iron needs no journey at all. The first coal seams (and richer iron) are on the Iron Ridge above Stonewatch, which with its town blacksmith — and a quota board that pays daily ore bounties — makes Greyfell Hills the natural early mining base. From there, richer rock tracks the road east: each region page in the World Atlas lists exactly which ores it carries, up to the celestial rock beyond Highmere Pass — and the road itself runs on far past that.
Mining offline
Set Mine as your offline mode and pick the ore, and your wanderer keeps swinging while you're away — same rules, same XP, same pack-then-auto-sell handling. Your offline ore choice is stored separately from your online one, so setting copper for the night never overwrites the iron job you were running at the keyboard.
Common mistakes
- Mining ore you can't use yet. The forge, not the rock, is usually the bottleneck — check what the smithing recipes need before stockpiling exotic ore.
- Ignoring coal. From steel upward, most bars want coal — often several per bar. Bank it early; you will never regret owning coal.
- Forgetting the pickaxe ladder. If misses feel frequent and double swings rare, you're probably a pickaxe tier behind — three bars at an anvil fixes both.
- Selling ore a locked stack was protecting. Lock your strategic ore stack and Sell All can never touch it (it still crafts fine).
FAQ
Do I need to equip my pickaxe to mine?
No — pack or tool slot both work, and the best one you own is always used. Equipping just frees pack space.
Do rocks run out?
A worked rock needs a short moment before it can be struck again; auto-mine simply moves to the next rock and rotates back. You can't permanently exhaust a field.
What raises my strike chance?
Two things: a better pickaxe (up to +34%) and your Mining level — each level above the rock's requirement adds +0.3%. The listed base chance is per swing at the rock's required level; the total is capped at 95%, so there's always a sliver of chance a swing chips nothing.
What is Double Swing?
Before each mining action the game rolls a chance to swing twice in one tick. The odds are (your Mining level ÷ the rock's required level) × 30%, minus 25%, plus your pickaxe's tool bonus, capped 10–95%. It procs at most once (so never more than two swings), and each of the two swings rolls success on its own — a proc can still miss one or both. The better your pickaxe and the more you've outlevelled the rock, the more often it fires.
Is offline mining slower?
It runs at a measured pace (roughly every other tick) — solid overnight progress, slightly under attentive live play. Double Swing applies offline too.