Started experimenting with power mining in the wilderness. Some surprising results. 44.2k xp /hour. First off, there's two clumps of iron. Top down, they look like this [hide]
west clump:
X...
.XXX
..X.
east clump:
X.X
X..
XX.
XXX
[/hide] There were 4 different mining patterns I tried, [hide]
_ - character walked
d - dropped ore
123... order of mining
. - blank space
x - unused ore
1: west clump - mining 4 in an L
1__d
.234
..x.
2: east clump - mining 4 in a line
d4.X
_3..
_2X.
_1XX
3: east clump - mining 4 in 2 squares
3d4
2_.
X1.
XXX
4: east clump - mining 5
4d5
3__
X2_
XX1
[/hide] I started with the 4th mining pattern, with 2 different trials. Trial 1 was on a world with an 81 ms ping, that had 850 players. I clocked 43,589 xp / hour, over >12 minutes. Trial 2 was on a world with a 37 ms ping, that had 350 players. I clocked 44,228 xp / hour, over >8 minutes. After that, I stayed on the low ping world. Trial 3 was with the 2nd mining pattern. I clocked 36,813 xp / hour, over >11 minutes. Trial 4 was on the 3rd mining pattern. I clocked 39,484 xp / hour, over >4 minutes. Trial 5 was on the 1st mining pattern. I clocked 38,945 xp / hour, over >4 minutes. After that I tried hopping to a world with a 38 ms ping with 800 players, but I was subsequently jumped and had to log to avoid being PK'd. Setup was full batwing (including wand), Inventory was 20 swordfish, 6k fire runes, 6k air runes, and rune pickaxe. Spent time killing hobgoblins until they were no longer aggressive. Bound an iron ore to my action bar, always tried to drop in the same spot.