Mining





Mining is a skill that allows players to obtain ores and gems from rocks. With ores, a player can then either smelt bars and make equipment using the Smithing skill or sell them for profit. Mining is also one of the most popular skills in RuneScape as many players try to earn a profit from the skill. On the map, mining areas are identified with a regular pickaxe icon and the mining shop with a gold pickaxe  icon. The current minimum to be ranked on the highscores in Mining is 59 Mining and 249,645 experience.

How to mine
To mine, a player will first need a pickaxe. Pickaxes are sold by Nurmof in the Dwarven Mines, though new players are given a bronze pickaxe when they complete Tutorial Island. When a player has obtained a pickaxe, they next need to find a mine. Once a mine has been found, the player can then select a rock in the mine and click on it, making them mine the rocks with their pickaxe. As a player is mining a rock, they will eventually obtain an ore (or gemstone). This ore can either be used in the Smithing skill or it can be sold. Selling ores can give players a good profit.

Mining is a skill largely based on a player's luck, which is totally random in RuneScape. Luck affects Mining in this way: the player will mine the rock, but when they hit the rock, it might take eight to twenty hits to obtain an ore. Another player may mine the same rock and get an ore in just one hit. Using a pickaxe of a higher metal will allow players to obtain ores faster, though luck still does play a key role.

Pickaxes
Pickaxes, or 'picks', are needed to mine rocks. They can be equipped as a weapon, giving players some more space in their inventory. However, pickaxes cannot be made using the Smithing skill. Pickaxes can be bought from either Nurmof in the Dwarven Mines or Tati in Keldagrim, or from other players. Nurmof's shop in the Dwarven Mines is labelled on the mini-map as a gold pickaxe.

A player's Mining level determines the type of pickaxe they can mine with. The higher a level needed to use a pickaxe, the better it is than the ones below it. For example, a rune pickaxe will mine rocks faster than an adamant pickaxe. If the player's attack level is high enough, they can wield the pickaxe as a weapon to free an inventory slot.

The prices in the table below are those from Nurmof's shop, when there is only one of that kind of pickaxe in stock. The shop in Keldagrim is slightly more expensive. If a player breaks the pickaxe's head from a rock with smoke coming out of it, then they will have to bring their pickaxe to Nurmof and ask him to fix it, for a price (which is roughly 1/30th of the cost of buying the pickaxe).

Minable items
Ores are obtained from the different types of rocks. These rocks can be found in mines. On the mini-map, mines are labelled with a grey pickaxe. The colour of a rock corresponds to the ore's colour, so a black rock will yield coal ore, a blue rock will yield mithril ore, etc. Players can identify what kind of ore a rock is via Prospecting.

When players click on a rock, they will hit it with their pickaxe and try to get the ore out. The higher level rocks, such as mithril and adamant, take longer for players to mine an ore out of them, making the player require patience.

After the ore has been mined, the rock will turn grey for a while. Eventually another ore will respawn and the rock will regain its colour. Players can only mine a rock when ore is available. Ore respawn times differ with the difficulty of the rock and the amount of people on the server. For example, rune rocks can take over 20 minutes to respawn while iron rocks take about 3 seconds.



Free-to-play mines
All players have access to these mines.

Misthalin mines

 * Al-Kharid Mine
 * Barbarian Village Mine
 * East Varrock Mine
 * West Varrock Mine
 * Edgeville Dungeon Mine
 * Lumbridge Swamp South-East and South-West mine

Asgarnia mines

 * Asgarnian Ice Caves mine
 * Crafting Guild Mine
 * Dwarven Mine
 * Mining Guild
 * Rimmington Mine

Island mines

 * Crandor Mine
 * Karamja Volcano Mine

Wilderness mines

 * Hobgoblin Mine
 * Steel Mine
 * Wilderness Rune Mine
 * Wilderness Skeleton Mine

Members mines
Only members can access these mines.

Asgarnia mines

 * Hero's Guild Mine

Others

 * Keldagrim mines
 * Arzinian Mine (within / near Keldagrim)
 * Fremennik mines
 * Coal Trucks
 * Gold & Silver in Tzhaar
 * Grand Tree mines
 *  Dorgeshun mines

Random events
Random events are events that happen at random times. They were introduced to stop macroers, or people who use programs to play RuneScape automatically for them. Some random events include non-player characters asking players to do a task for them and rewarding them if they are successful or monsters that appear and attack the player. In Mining, there are quite a few random events.

Rock golem
While mining, a Rock Golem may appear and begin attacking the player.

The combat level of the golem depends on the player's combat level, but it will always be stronger. The Rock Golem's combat level varies from level 14 to 170. Players may either attempt to kill it, or run away. The Rock Golem also has a ranged attack. If a player kills the golem, it can drop ores, stouts, pickaxes, uncut gems or nothing.

Rock Golems are especially vulnerable to pick axes.

Exploding rock
When a player mines a rock, smoke or gas bubbles may emerge from it. If a player continues mining this rock as this is happening, the rock will explode, dealing minor damage to the player and destroying the head of their pickaxe. To repair it, for a price, players have to bring it to Nurmof, the dwarf who sells pickaxes in the Dwarven Mine or Bob in Lumbridge.

Lost pickaxe head
While mining, the player's pickaxe head might fly off. The head will land somewhere nearby, usually 3 to 10 squares away. When this happens, the player has to find the pickaxe head quickly before someone else sees it and grabs it - who might attempt to extort money from them. When the player has found the pickaxe head, they can use it with their handle to put the pickaxe back together.

Tips
Here are some tips to help a player mine.

Power mining
Also known as drop mining, this is where a player fills their inventory with ores, drops them all, and repeats. While this method of mining allows players to raise their Mining level quickly, dropping a whole inventory of ores can take some time. Also, by using this method, a player would be missing out on Smithing experience or money from selling the ore. Some mining spots for:
 * Free-to-play iron - The Hobgoblin Mine (located in levels 29-31 wilderness) and the Al-Kharid (Scorpion) Mine.Although the Dwarven Mine is not as good, there is much less chance of a low-level player dying.
 * Members - The Granite Quarry in the Al-Kharid desert. This requires the player to carry Waterskins or an Enchanted water tiara to avoid the effects of the desert heat, but Granite provides better experience than iron. You can also cast the Lunar Spell "Humidify" to keep your water skins filled. The mine south of Piscatoris Fishing Colony is another good place to power mine iron.

Busy world vs. empty world
The rate of ore respawn for each rock is proportional to the number of players logged in that world. This means that the same rock will respawn quicker in a busy world like World 1 or World 2 than it would in a quieter world such as World 127. This is especially important to consider when power mining (see above).

For general mining, it is slightly more advisable that players go to a quieter trading world such as World 127. Although it has a slower rate of rock respawn, there are much less players in the world and therefore less competition for the rocks. As for selling the ores, the new method of trading in the Grand Exchange allows the player to make offers with players in all servers. The only disadvantage, as mentioned before, is the ore respawn rate plus the disadvantage of the traditional method of trading as there would be very few people wishing to purchase your ore.

Wield the pickaxe
Players are strongly recommended to wield their pickaxe. This way, they have more inventory space to allow them to carry ores. To wield picks players must have the appropriate Attack level, as the pickaxe is considered a weapon.

Wear light items
Players are strongly recommended to wear few items or nothing at all other than their pickaxe. Members are advised to wear the boots of lightness, obtained in the Temple of Ikov quest, so that their weight is lower. Also, wearing the Spotted Cape or Spottier Cape from the Hunter Skill can be very useful, as well as Penance gloves from the Barbarian Assault mini-game. Wearing fewer items allows a player to run longer. If they are wearing armour, then their weight would be quite large, making them lose a large amount of energy in a short amount of time.

Wear Varrock armour
Among other benefits, the Varrock armour (obtained from completing the different levels of difficulty of the Varrock Diary) offers a small chance of obtaining two ores at the same time from one rock. The player will get experience for both ores. As the Varrock armour is upgraded upon completing the tasks of the diary, this unique effect will be available for rocks up to adamantite.

Wilderness mine tips
In the Wilderness, players can and will be attacked by dangerous Revenants, all of whom can hit very high in any attack style, and can freeze and/or prevent you from teleporting. They can even steal players out of combat with another monster. Before you begin mining, check which attack you are weakest to in terms of equipment bonus (Magic or Ranged. Melee doesn't matter since you'll be running and will not be next to the revenant), as revenants primarily attack with whatever you are weakest to. If a Revenant does attack you, the best thing to do is turn on the protection prayer of which attack you are weakest to if you can, run away (preferably south, in hopes that they won't be able to attack you in a lower level of the wilderness), and switch worlds as soon as you're out of range.

Switch worlds
For higher level ores such as adamantite or runite, it is sometimes faster to switch between servers rather than wait for the rocks to respawn. This is not recommended for any lower level ores.

Training
Here are some suggested training methods for a player to raise their Mining level.


 * Level 1 to 15: Mine copper and tin rocks. An alternative which also levels Runecrafting or provides income is rune essence. Rune essence is easier to mine because only one click is required and a full inventory is mined in one go. Rune essence can be mined, after completing the Rune Mysteries quest, by talking to Sedridor in the basement of the wizard's tower, or Aubury in Varrock. Clay can also be mined to level Crafting.
 * Level 15 to 60: Mine iron rocks. Iron can be obtained quickly, making it a valuable rock to use when leveling up. Iron is the best ore to gain experience all the way to level 99. If coins are needed coal can be mined, but it's better to wait until access to the guild has been granted. From level 41 onwards the player can equip a rune pickaxe and mine iron in one hit. The absolute fastest way to level from 41 Mining onward in free play is to go to the Al-Kharid Mine. Towards the north part of the mine there are 3 iron rocks grouped together. The mine also contains aggressive level 14 scorpions that attack players with combat levels of 28 or lower, so it would be useful to first train your combat skills high enough to ward them off. Mine the three rocks and quickly drop the ore while waiting for them to respawn. This should take 6-10 seconds and will give 105 experience. Using this method (assuming it's done in 10 seconds) here is how long going from level 41 to level 60 should take, by level:
 * 42---7 min
 * 43---7 min 30 sec
 * 44---8 min 30 sec
 * 45---9 min
 * 46---10 min
 * 47---11 min
 * 48---12 min 30 sec
 * 49---14 min
 * 50---15 min
 * 51---16 min
 * 52---18 min
 * 53---20 min
 * 54---22 min
 * 55---25 min
 * 56---27 min
 * 57---30 min
 * 58---33 min
 * 59---37 min
 * 60---41 min


 * Level 60 to 85: Mine coal rocks in the Mining Guild or gold rocks in the crafting guild if coins are needed, otherwise continue with iron. Getting up these levels will take much longer and players should be prepared to put in some time. Power mining iron as recommended for the previous levels will take about 84 hours of work. Putting in an hour a day it could be done in about 3 months. If the player can mine three iron and drop them in under 10 seconds it will take less time for them to level up.
 * Level 85 to 99: To continue levelling the player should now mine coal in the guild. If coins are wanted mine rune ore, which can be found in the wilderness of both free-to-play and members worlds. There are also 2 rocks in the Heroes Guild for members.

Member Training
Members have some additional training options.
 * Similar to non-members, training at iron ores still is very good experience per hour. There is an additional 3 iron rock formation east of Ardougne, and another south of Piscatoris Fishing Colony. The closest iron mine to a bank is north of Yanille.
 * Members also have the option to combine mining with very fast banking trips. The Ring of duelling and some of the dragonstone equipment allow players to teleport to a bank and quickly get back to the mining area. Slower teleport options involve using a house portal.
 * The Shilo gem rock mine is easily reached by activating the Karamja gloves 3. The gloves teleport ends at the gem mine. Mining the gems rocks on the group and the ones below allows continuous mining. With a duel ring based bank trip, this gives very fast mining experience.
 * The Crafting guild gold rock mine are within easy reach using a Skill necklace teleport. After mining the gold ores, use a Ring of duelling to Castle wars bank.
 * Another decent mining option is to drop mine granite rock. With the Enchanted water tiara players can stay at the mines for extended periods of time. This yields better experience than the iron ores.

Temporary boosts

 * Dwarven Stout - Drinking this will raise a player's Mining and Smithing levels by 1 for a short time. Dwarven stouts can be bought in Falador one at a time, or members can buy them in bulk in Burthorpe. They are also a common drop from dwarves, and can be bought in several places in members areas, as well as brewed using the Cooking skill. There are several re-spawns in the dwarf tavern along the shortcut under White Wolf Mountain (you need to complete Fishing Contest to go there).
 * Mature dwarven stout - Members only. Drinking this will raise a player's Mining and Smithing by level 2 for a short time. Players receive two mature dwarven stouts as a reward for completing the quest Forgettable Tale of a Drunken Dwarf, but they can also be brewed using the Cooking skill.
 * A brown spicy stew can raise mining temporarily by up to 6; however, it can also decrease it by up to 6.
 * Desert wyrms summoned with the Summoning skill will give the player's mining a boost of 1 level.

Special Mining Areas



 * Coal Trucks - The coal trucks are located west from Seers' Village and north from Ardougne. There are 18 coal rocks and handy carts for storing coal in. The carts can store 120 at a time and it is also recommended to take 28 coal when leaving as well. There is a quick way or a slow way to get to and from the coal trucks.
 * Quick Way: With 20 Agility go across the log that is on the east side of the coal trucks. The Camelot teleport spell can also be used for quick access to the Seers' bank
 * Slow Way: To walk all the way around the lake, past the fishing guild, to Seers' Village.
 * Once in Seers' Village go north-west from Seers' Village bank and there are more coal trucks in the shed. Remove all the coal and bank, repeating the process until all the ore has been taken.


 * Mining Guild - In the Mining Guild there are 37 coal and 5 mithril rocks. It is close to a bank (just climb the ladders to the west and head north). Level 60 Mining is required to enter. There is one especially efficient place to mine, in the north-east corner, where there are 6 coal in very close proximity. Mining mithril is not recommended in the guild unless there is no-one else at the rocks. An anvil is available outside of the guild in the North end of the mines. The anvil, in combination with the superheat spell, allows the player to smith the ores they mine.  The smithed items can be turned into coins with the high alchemy spell or sold at the nearby shop avoiding trips to the bank.


 * Crafting Guild - The Crafting Guild is the best place in free play to mine gold, silver, and clay. 40 crafting and a Brown apron are required to enter. Members can easily teleport there by use of a Skills necklace or the balloon transport system. Gold ore is very valuable and in high demand by members using the Goldsmith Gauntlets for quick smithing experience, so free players hoping to make money mining would benefit greatly by training their Crafting level to 40.


 * Arzinian Mine - After completing the Between a Rock... quest, members can access the largest gold mine in the game, with over 100 gold rocks. Players must talk to Dondakan while wearing a Gold helmet in order to access it. To leave the mine, simply remove the helmet or log off and log in again. The mine is very far from a bank; however, a short ways away, there is a dwarf who will deliver Gold ore to the bank for you in exchange for a 20% cut of the profits, rounded up. The fee is halved if the player is wearing a Ring of charos (a).