Mining

In the Kingdom, mining is a mini-game which allows adventurers with appropriate equipment to, well, mine for certain raw materials.

Rules of mining

Each mining mini-game follows the following rules:

• Each section of a cavern wall consists of a 6x6 grid of squares, open at the bottom.
• Only squares adjacent to an open section of mine can be excavated
• Excavating a single chunk of wall costs one or more adventures, depending on the mine in question. There are, however, ways of removing this cost:
  • having minin' dynamite in your inventory causes the next square to be mined adventure-free. The item is then consumed. Note that this takes precedence over Unaccompanied Miner.
  • knowing the passive skill Unaccompanied Miner removes adventure cost from the first five squares mined every day.
• The player can at any time choose to abandon the currently-mined wall and start working on a new one from scratch. This action is irreversible and does not cost any adventures.
• Certain chunks of a wall, identifiable by a distinct twinkle, are marked as "promising".
  • Excavating such chunks is guaranteed to yield some results (see below).
  • On the other hand, mining ordinary chunks of a wall normally does nothing except granting access to further squares.
  • By default, only "promising" squares accessible for immediate mining will ever twinkle.
  • With the Dwarvish War Uniform or Object Detection, all the "promising" squares will twinkle.
• The following can happen when a promising chunk of a wall is excavated:
  • causing a cave-in, taking a significant amount of HP and granting four (instead of the usual three) turns of Beaten Up if it is brought down to zero;
  • finding a piece of mine-specific minor loot;
  • finding a piece of mine-specific major loot.
• Each wall contains four pieces of each kind of major loot available at this particular mine.
• Squares containing a specific kind of major loot are always contiguous.
• Major loot never appears in the bottom two rows of a wall and only infrequently in the third one.
• You cannot mine while falling-down drunk (not even with unused charges of Unaccompanied Miner).

Existing mines

• Knob Shaft
  • unlocked by gaining access to Cobb's Knob Laboratory
  • requires Mining Gear or the Earthen Fist effect to mine
  • adventure cost: 1
  • cave-in HP loss: 20-40 % of current value
  • minor loot: meat stack, stone of eXtreme power
  • major loot: bubblewrap ore, cardboard ore, styrofoam ore

• Itznotyerzitz Mine
  • unlocked by starting the Mt. McLargeHuge Quest
  • requires Mining Gear, Dwarvish War Uniform, or the Earthen Fist effect to mine
  • adventure cost: 1
  • cave-in HP loss: 75-150 % of the player's Muscle, rounded up
  • minor loot: 3 meat stacks, stone of eXtreme power
  • major loot: asbestos ore, chrome ore, linoleum ore, lump of diamond
  • miscellaneous:
    • one of the chunks of major loot per wall per ascension may be replaced by a loadstone
    • mining an ordinary chunk of a wall can, rarely, yield a loss of 5 HP and a random Pork Elf gem

• Anemone Mine
  • unlocked by either being asked to find Grandpa by Little Brother as a Muscle class or purchasing the map to Anemone Mine otherwise
  • requires a Mer-kin digpick and a supply of air to mine
  • adventure cost: 2 (1 with Fishy active)
  • cave-in HP loss: ???
  • minor loot: 3 dense meat stacks
  • major loot: teflon ore, velcro ore, vinyl ore
  • miscellaneous: if you asked Grandpa about the mine you can also find one marine aquamarine per wall

• Crimbonium Mine
  • will be active after rollover on December 7, 2014 during Crimbo.
  • requires High-Radiation Mining Gear
  • adventure cost: 1 (0 with Oily Legs active)
  • cave-in HP loss: 75-150 % of the player's Muscle, rounded up
  • minor loot: peppermint tailing
  • major loot: nugget of Crimbonium
  • miscellaneous: To make all the "promising" squares will twinkle, you need the Crimbonar effect.

Retired mines

• The Gummi Mine
  • was open during Crimbo in 2011
  • required Mining Gear, Dwarvish War Uniform, or the Earthen Fist effect to mine
  • adventure cost: 1
  • cave-in HP loss: 75-150 % of the player's Muscle, rounded up
  • minor loot: bananagate, kumquartz, pearidot, strawberyl, tourmalime; ammonite fossil, belemnite fossil, trilobite fossil
  • major loot: green gummi ingot, red gummi ingot, yellow gummi ingot

External Links

As mining for ore at the Itznotyerzitz Mine is an integral part of a (hardcore) run, the mine in question has been quite exhaustively spaded. Available resources include:

• http://kolspading.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19 -- discussion on spading this mine, including images of many known layouts
• http://ectabo.com/kol/mining/ -- a Web tool (requires JavaScript) which uses a large database of known layouts in order to minimise the number of adventures spent mining for desired ore. Unfortunately, it doesn't know all existing layouts.