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

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

• Crimbonium Mine
  • available during Crimbo 2014, starting from December 7
  • 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: none
  • major loot: nugget of Crimbonium
  • miscellaneous:
    • there are 6 rather than 4 pieces of major loot available per wall
    • mining an ordinary chunk of a wall always yields a lump of peppermint tailings
    • the effect Crimbonar provides an additional way of making all promising squares twinkle in this mine

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.