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 on the most popular skills in the game.

How To Mine
To mine, a player will first need a pickaxe. Next, the player has to find a mine. 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.

Unfortunetly, mining can be very boring, as it is very repetitve, 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 one to eight 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 a player's luck, so players will just have to live with bad luck or good luck.

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 pick axes. The higher a level needed to use a pickaxe, the better it is than the ones below it. For example, a rune pick is better than an adamant pick. Also, the costs were taken from Nurmof's store when only one pick was in stock. If more than one pick is in Nurmof's store, then the price may be slightly different. For example, if two rune picks are in stock, then the price for one may be around 31,000 gp.

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

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 steel or iron pickaxe.

There are many different types of rocks, and from these rocks players obtain different kinds of ores. For example, there are copper rocks and coal rocks. Mining the copper rock will give a player copper ore, while mining the coal rock will give the player coal ore.

When players click on the rocks, they will hit them with their pickaxe. 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 recieve experience when they get ore from rocks.

Ore Table
=Making Money=

Mining can be a very good skill to get money in if you have patience. It might take a long time to get ores, but you can sell them for good prices. Sell your 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: 5 to 10 gp


 * Iron Ore: 50 to 100 gp


 * Silver Ore: 200 to 400 gp


 * Coal Ore: 120 to 200 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 you have 1,000 coal and sell them all at 200 each, you've just made 200k. However, it takes time to mine coal, so it will be slow.

=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 you have to do is click on a rock. Rocks are located across RuneScape and are shown on your mini-map with a pick axe icon. When you've found a rock, you can then prospect it to see what ore that rock contains or just mine it right away. However, you need different mining levels 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 anther mine closest 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 at this mine will probably be here for awhile. All over the mine are level 10 dwarves and level 14 scorpions and level 32 king scorpions 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 you go down the ladder near Ice Mountain to enter the mine rather than the stairs east of Falador's west bank, to the east is a store that sells hammers, bronze pickaxes, copper ore, tin ore, iron ore, coal ore, copper bars, iron bars, and gold bars. However, the shop is only restocked when players sell their ores to the store.


 * 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.


 * 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 and gold for free players. However, to enter the guild, a brown apron and a crafting level of 40 are required to get in. Also, because of all the gold an silver rocks, the guild can become crowded at peak times when more than 150,000 players are playing.


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

There are also some mines south of Varrock, above the cow field. (add-on).

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 you 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. Mine 27 gold and then remove the helmet to leave. As you walk back to the ferry, you may notice that the dwarven boatman has shifted places. He will now take your gold (not you) to the bank in return for a small part of the gold that you ask him to move for you. While wearing the ring of charos (U) from the Garden of Tranquillity quest, this amount is halved and you also won't have to pay for the ferry either while waering it. These mines are usually empty but if there are other 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 a 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 you, letting you 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 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 15: Mine copper and tin rocks.


 * Level 15 to 60: Mine iron rocks.


 * Level 15 to 99: Mine iron rocks.


 * Level 60 to 85: 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 contiually mine or take breaks, do another skill, and then come back to mining.