RuneScape/Skills/Mining

Mining is a skill that allows players to obtain ores from rocks and then smith the ores into bars or sell the ores. Selling the ores can give players a great profit, which is one of the reasons why mining is one of the most popular skills in the game.

How To Mine
To mine, a player will first need a pickaxe. These are sold by Nurmof in the dwarven mines, but every new player has one. Next, the player has to find a mining area. When these two tasks are complete, the player can then find a rock in the mine and click on it, making their character mine the rocks.

Unfortunately, mining can be very boring, as it is very repetitive, though selling the ores obtained from the rocks can give players a good profit. Also, mining is a skill largely based on a player's luck, which is totally random in RuneScape. Luck affects mining like this: the player will mine the rock, but when they hit the rock, it might take eight to twenty hits to get an ore. Another player may mine the same rock and get an ore in just one hit. There is no way to increase the chances of mining a rock in one hit.

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 smithed. Pickaxes can either be bought from Nurmof in the Dwarven Mines or from other players. Nurmof's shop is labelled on the mini-map as a gold pickaxe.

Pickaxe Table
Below is a table with information about pickaxes. The higher a level needed to use a pickaxe, the better it is than the ones below it. For example, a rune pick will mine rocks faster than an adamanite pick.

It is important to note that there is no 'black pickaxe' or 'dragon pickaxe'.

This table lists the prices for the pickaxes when only one pickaxe is in the store. Prices may differ slightly with other amounts of stock.

Ores And Rocks
Ores are obtained from the different types of rocks. These rocks can be found in mines. On the mini-map, mines are labelled as a gray pickaxe. The color of a rock and it's name correspond to the ore found in it, so mining a copper rock will yield a copper ore, while mining a coal rock will yield a coal ore.

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, so patience is needed when mining these rocks. Players receive experience when they get ore from rocks.

After the ore has been mined, the rock will turn gray 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, runite respawns the slowest and clay the fastest. The respawn time is increased slightly on world servers with more players on them.

Ore Table
=Making Money= Mining can be a very good skill to get money in for players who have patience. It might take a long time to get ores, but players can sell them for good prices. Players should sell their ores to other players, not to General Stores or the dwarf who owns the ore store in the Dwarven Mines. Iron and coal are the best ores to sell as many people want them to make steel bars. Listed below are street prices for ores.

Please note that these are rough prices and are not exact. Prices may change over time.


 * Clay Ore: 1 to 5 gp


 * Copper/Tin Ore: 1 to 5(if your lucky) gp


 * Iron Ore: 5 to 20(rarely) gp


 * Silver Ore: 100 to 200 gp


 * Coal Ore: 100 to 300 gp


 * Gold Ore: 120 to 200 gp


 * Mithril Ore: 300 to 500 gp


 * Adamant Ore: 700 to 1,000 gp


 * Rune Ore: 10,000 to 12,000 gp

So if a player has 1,000 coal ores and sells them all at 200 each, they've just made 200k. However, it takes time to mine coal, so it will take a long time to get rich off it. Also, please note one thing: you might be better off buying iron in the Dwarven Mine store, as they often sell it for 1gp each.

Copper, Tin, and Iron Ores have practically no value because so many people can mine them, so it is advised to bank your ores(if near a bank), or give it away(much faster than dropping one at a time).

=Mines= There are many mines in RuneScape. However, they have their pros and cons. For example, some mines have many rocks but many enemies as well, while other mines have few rocks but no enemies.

To mine, all players have to do is click on a rock. Rocks are located across RuneScape and are shown on the mini-map with a pickaxe icon. When players have found a rock, they can then prospect it to see what ore that rock contains or just mine it right away. However, different mining levels are needed to mine different rocks. Also, rocks are colour coded, meaning each rock has a different rock colour, depending on what the ore is inside the rock.

Free to Play Mines
Here are some mines available for free players.




 * Rimmington Mine: Located northeast of Rimmington, this is a mine mostly used to by low level miners. The mine contains 5 copper rocks, 6 iron rocks, 2 gold rocks, 2 tin rocks, and 2 clay rocks. There are no monsters around and the mine is a good spot if players want to level up mining. However, a bank is very far away, so if a player wants to deposit their rocks, it's best they use another mine closer to a bank.






 * Dwarven Mine: Located north of Falador and underneath Ice Mountain, the Dwarven Mine is an underground mine. The mine contains 3 clay rocks, 10 tin rocks, 11 copper rocks, 9 iron rocks, 11 coal rocks, 2 gold rocks, 2 mithril rocks, and 3 adamant rocks. It is a very good mine to deposit rocks at a bank, as there's some stairs near the southeastern part of the mine that lead outside near Falador's west bank. However, this mine is always crowded, so players mining here will probably be there for awhile. In the north part of the mine there are many level 10 dwarves, in the south-eastern part lots of level 14 scorpions, and level 32 king scorpions are walking around the southeastern part of the mine, which is where all the iron, coal, mith, and addy rocks are, so players with low combat levels are best to stay away from that part of the mine. There is also a General Store in the western part of the mine, as well as a store where you can buy pickaxes. Also, if players go down the ladder near Ice Mountain to enter the mine rather than the stairs east of Falador's west bank, to the east there is a store that sells hammers, bronze pickaxes, and realistically trades ores and bars (copper ore, tin ore, iron ore, coal ore, copper bars, iron bars, and gold bars), that is any items (ore and bars only) you sell there will not disappear even if noone buys them, and no items apear either. The downside of this is that the shop is only restocked when players sell their ores to the store. This mine is one of the best places for (free) players to level up their mining skill, as if iron is mined near the shop then it can be quickly sold rather than dropped for a bonus to the sought increase in experience.




 * Mining Guild: Located in the South of the Dwarven Mines, contains many coal and a few mithril rocks. It requires mining level 60 to enter. There are no monsters and it is very close to a bank making it the best place to mine coal in the game, the obvious con however is that achieving level 60 can be time consuming.


 * Lumbridge Swamp Mine: Located south of Lumbridge in the swamp behind the castle, this mine contains 2 adamant rocks, 5 mithril rocks, and 7 coal rocks. There are no monsters roaming about, however, there is a con. A bank is very far away, so if a player wants to deposit their rocks, it's best they use anther mine closest to a bank.




 * Al Kharid Mine: Located north of Al Kharid and south-east of Varrock, it contains 2 addy, 2 mith, 2 gold, 3 coal, 5 silver, 9 iron, 3 copper, and 1 tin. This is a nice intermediate mine, but only higher-level players should go deep within it, since it is populated with desert scorpions. It's not too close to the Al Kharid bank, but this mine has the advantage of being near the Al Kharid furnace.




 * Crafting Guild Mine: Located southwest of Falador, it contains 6 clay rocks, 6 silver rocks, and 7 gold rocks. This is the best place to mine silver for all players and also the best place to mine gold for free players. However, to enter the guild, a brown apron and a crafting level of 40 are required. Also, because of all the gold and silver rocks, the guild can become crowded at peak times when more than 150,000 players are playing. Also even at 'off-peak' times it can be difficult to mine owing to a few (very) high level miners dominating this small mine.


 * Karmaja Volcano Mine: Located inside the volcano on Karmaja, this mine contains 4 gold rocks. However, a bank is very far away and there are level 25 skeletons walking around as well as level 31 deadly red spiders. For members, there is a bank relatively close in the TzHaar mines. If players have a low combat level, it's best if they stay away from this mine.




 * There are also some mines southeast and southwest of Varrock. The one in the southwest has 2 silver rocks as well as some tin, clay, and iron. The mine in the southeast has 3 iron rocks as well as a lot of tin and copper rocks, which attract most low level players to start mining here.



Pay to Play Mines
Here are some mines available for members.


 * Arzinian mines: the dream of every gold hunter. The Between a Rock... quest is needed to access them, players find out during the quest how to enter the mines. All players have to do after finishing is talk to the dwarf again while wearing the gold helmet to get to the mines. They are filled with both gold veins and rocks. There are 146 rocks in total. Players can mine 27 gold and then remove the helmet to leave. As they walk back to the ferry, they may notice that the dwarven boatman has shifted places. He will now take gold ores to the bank in return for a small part of the ores. While wearing the ring of charos (U) from the Garden of Tranquillity quest, this amount is halved and players also won't have to pay for the ferry. These mines are usually empty but if there are lots of people it shouldn't be a problem, there's too much gold to cause any arguments.


 * Yanille mines: these are sometimes called the Khazard mines as they are found next to Port Khazard. They are a favourite for iron mining as they are usually empty and close to the Yanille bank, they also have two mithril rocks right next to the iron spot.


 * Dorgeshuun mines: accessible after The Lost Tribe quest these mines provide both iron and silver. They are great for powermining iron because one of the cave goblins will buy iron or silver from players, letting them powermine and still gain some money.


 * Coal Trucks: found just north of where the Dwarf Cannon quest is started, this is a great location for coal mining if a player cannot enter the mining guild. A combat level of above 50 is advised because the giant bats hanging around the coal rocks will attack any player below this level. The best way to effectively use the trucks is through a log balance shortcut that allows easy access to the Seer's Village bank. The log is west of McGrubber's woods and requires level 20 agility. After a short chat with the local dwarf, players can mine coal from 18 available rocks (3 or 4 people can use it without getting in each other's way). The trucks that run alongside the rocks can be filled with up to 120 coal, after which the player must go to Seer's to pick it up and bank it. The coal cannot be stolen by anyone, the trucks are like personal coal banks. The pick-up spot is northwest of Seer's bank, just past the house with the anvil and the willow trees.

=Training= It's up to you if you want to either deposit the ores after mining a whole inventory or drop the ores when you've mined them. Dropping the ores will be much faster than depositing the ores.


 * Level 1 to 14: Mine copper and tin rocks.


 * Level 15 to 40: Mine iron rocks.


 * Level 41 to 59: Mine coal and iron together(rune pick axe highly recommended).


 * Level 60 to 84: Mine coal rocks in the Mining Guild.


 * Level 85 to 99: Mine rune rocks in the Wilderness.

Mining is a very slow skill to raise, so raising it will probably be very boring. You can either continually mine or take breaks, do another skill, and then come back to mining.