Definitive F2P mining guide

[Anashya]

Ok. I've reached 85 mining and like to think that i've seen all that there is to see in terms of f2p miners, and that i know the tricks of the trade. Time i think to share what I've learnt.

 

 

 

Lesson 1: You will be beaten, whilst you are training. It is inevitable. You will be beaten by people who have a higher mining lvl, same or even a lower mining lvl. Get used to it.

 

 

 

Lesson 2: Always have the best pick that you can, goes without saying. Looking at lesson 1 any advantage helps.

 

 

 

Lesson 3: Have money in your bank to fix or even rebuy your pick. accidents happen.

 

 

 

Ok so thats the 3 lessons you must grasp, now comes a little guide for lower lvl mining.

 

 

 

Lvl 1 - 20

 

 

 

Place: South East of Varrok, best place for copper and tin.

 

Pick: Start with iron and have a steel one in your bank.

 

Guide: Mine equal ammounts of copper and tin (128 of each). I recommend banking all the ore as you can smith it later to raise your smithing lvl. You shouldn't have much competition there are plenty of rocks and generally you can generally get to lvl 20 in a night of mining without too much bother.

 

 

 

Thats all there is to getting to lvl 20 now it gets much harder you are 5 lvls above the threshold of iron mining. This means that there are people out there who you can compete against. but the first objective is to get to lvl 21 and a mith pic. You can either start mining now or mine copper and tin for another lvl. I leave this to you but before you make up your mind read the iron guide.

 

 

 

Iron guide.

 

 

 

As soon as you reach lvl 21 get a mith pic

 

 

 

Here it gets tough. For the first time you will have in South East varrok competition with better miners on every world. Don't dream of mining more than two here for a while. 1) you can't physically do it, your lvl isn't high enough and 2) your going to be seen as greedy and unpopular so people will even if its not intentional join up to try and get rid of you. (I always try and do it and if i do you can bet that plenty of others do as well)

 

 

 

Between mining lvls 20 and 30 there are a few options:

 

 

 

1) watch the rocks at SE Varrok there is always 1 rock that is left alone by the people with rune picks, mine this one. well... duh! If you arent getting any or there are 2 people with rune picks hop worlds there are ... i don't know 70+ free worlds (gimme a hand here) at least 1 of these will be quiet enough fo you to mine on, you merely have to find it.

 

 

 

2) Change your minng spot:

 

 

 

a) there is a spot south west of fally and just north of Rimmingtom which is much quieter however it does have the new iron rocks which look almost identical to new mined rocks. However there is no bank only a general store in rimmington. Fally is a fair distance so you may not want to go there as it takes too long to bank your ores. Great however if you wish to just drop or run to the general store.

 

 

 

B) South West Varrok. Yup the little used spot due west of the south East Varrok mining spot has 3 iron spots. Also this is always quiester that the SE Varrok spot. And Closer to the bank than any of the other spots

 

 

 

c) Under edgeville, there is yet another mining spot that isn't used. Beware of the skeletons and zombies leading to it and also around the rocks.

 

 

 

d) Scorpion/ Chasm mine in the dessert. Personally i don't like this mine till much later but its up to you. There are plenty of iron rocks and on quiet periods you can powermine quite comfortably here.

 

 

 

e) North of Edge... Wildy need i say any more only has 2 iron rocks anyhow not worth it.

 

 

 

f) Hobgoblins... Wildy. Yeah i dont like going into the wildy for iron there is enough in safe locations. Up to you though if you fancy haveing 21 iron rocks to hack away at be my guest.

 

 

 

g) Dwarven mine. Good, old fashioned, and rather homely. Competetive though and for the most part safe be careful of the sorpions at the bottom but otherwise feel free to mine here. You can also sell your iron ores to the dwarf at the ore shop.

 

 

 

Lvl 30 upwards

 

 

 

Once you reach lvl 30 you should be 2 hitting iron rocks. Until lvl 40 at the earliest avoid coal like the plague it is too slow to mine effectivly, for either cash or Xp. Just keep mining iron its the fastest Xp all the way to 99 now. Since you have all the info for leveling I may as well explain powermining. Then I will move onto the other ores: coal, mith, addy, and rune.

 

 

 

Powermining

 

 

 

Its simple. Just drop the iron ores that you mine, what could be easier? Well plenty of things. The basic of it is that This technique should be employed in order to get to the high mining lvls. It doesn't however set you up for smithing but does give you plenty of Xp. the best spot is in the Scorpion mine where there are a group of 3 iron rocks. You get the most Xp by dropping the 3 that you mine before the first appears again.

 

 

 

Once you are good enough 60+ mining at least go to the busiest world and power mine there the rocks respawn faster the busier the world.

 

 

 

Good luck this is the quickest way to 85.

 

 

 

Superheating

 

 

 

For those miners able to both mine and smith mith or addy. This technique saves a great deal of time, allowing you to camp out at a mining spot and by mining the required coal per mith or addy ore you can smelt the ores into a bar with superheat spell. This allows youto fill your inventory with smelt bars as opposed to the ores and allowing you to miss out the trips to the furnace. You do however need to take with you a fire staff, nats and have a magic lvl of 43 in order to cast superheat.

 

 

 

This technique increases the ammount of ores that you mine per a trip, and as a result increases profit and Xp gained.

 

 

 

Below is the ores that you can sell for a decent price.

 

 

 

Coal... don't mine till lvl 40 at the earliest.

 

 

 

This is vital for all high lvl smithing ... yeah seen that before? Well its true. As a result it can be sold for profit and it is the first ore that has a decent going price. most people will pay 150 upwards. However as a result of this there is perhaps more competiton for this lump of ore than any other... perhaps. Basically once you get a rune pick you stand a chance up till them my advice is don't bother.

 

 

 

READ ON IF YOU CAN USE A RUNE PICK - or if curious, but mining anything above coal i would use a rune pick.

 

 

 

the next 4 ores all pay well if you can mine them

 

 

 

Places to mine coal...

 

 

 

Mining Guild - Personally my favourite spot for coal mining since its no longer flooded with autoers. Plenty of it lieing around, but 60+ miners competiton will always be a little steep.

 

 

 

Hobgoblin mine - Now its finally worth the effort to go into wildy for ores, i don't recommend it but thats just my personality and view of wildy.

 

 

 

Scorpion mine - Only 3 ores so competiton there is generally high but if you can mine the mith around it is worth going there.

 

 

 

Barby village - Always mined, need i say anymore.

 

 

 

Underneath Edgeville - Much closer to a bank than Scorpion mine and much less competiton, skeletons are slightly tougher than the scorpions but thats the only down side.

 

 

 

Lummy Swamps - I actually have never used this spot, but for reference the closest bank is draynor due east and north a little. I cant say how busy it is. Use this if you want, i personally think the bank is too far away hence my never using it.

 

 

 

Crandor - Way, way away from any bank but if you can do the dragon slayer quest i'm guessing that you can tele so it isn't so bad. for coal i wouldn't use it but it is there if you want to go. Nice place if you ignore the lesser deamons, hobgoblins and moss giants.

 

 

 

Skeleton mine - Only has coal, plenty of skeletons and is in wildy, theres the low down. Try it and make your mind it is in the wildy so I'm generally biased against it.

 

 

 

MITH... lvl 55

 

 

 

well this is where the minng guild, hobgoblin and crandor come into there own for mineing spots. Crandor and Hobgoblin mines for quantity the Mining guild as it has the dwarven mines supplies of mith just out side and is in throwing distance of the bank. Crandor is the weakest of the 3 as it is literally in the middle of nowhere. Its a toss up between the other two.

 

 

 

Other spots to mine include:

 

 

 

Scorpion mine: 2 mith ores but there are coal ores next door. A way from a bank, but a little walk never hurt any one. Also Al-kahrid has a furnace in it so you could stop off on the way back to the bank and smelt your ores.

 

 

 

Under Edge: Only has 1 but does also have coal, not that far from a bank.

 

 

 

Lummy Swamps - 5 mith rocks, and 7 coal rocks and a furnace in lummy the distance of the bank is the only downside to this out of the way spot.

 

 

 

Addy - lvl 70... This comes down to where you prefere

 

 

 

Not that many places to mine addy: Crandor, Hobgoblin, Scorpion, Lummy swamps, Dwarven mines and Under Edge.

 

 

 

Hobgoblin mine has 8 addy rocks as well as ample supplies of coal, perhaps the best of all of them. Is in lvl 30 Wildy Directly north of Edge but a fair walk, however this is more than compensated by the amount of addy ores there.

 

 

 

Lummy Swamps only has 2 rocks so perhaps not the best spot to use however at this point its personal decission.

 

 

 

Dwarven mine easy access through the mining guild and planty of other ores to mine whilst there. Again its where you prefere.

 

 

 

2 under Edgeville, all other paying ores are there plus some others

 

 

 

Crandor way out back but does have some entertaining natives. Native can be slain whilst waiting for the rocks to respawn, still i believe it too far from a bank to be worth while. However is off the beaten track so generally quiet.

 

 

 

Scorpion has all ores but rune, 2 addy ores as with most of the others.

 

 

 

For addy apart from hobgoblin and crandor which i think represent the best and worst repectivly its all up to how busy each place is and where you enjoy mining.

 

 

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Rune... well only one spot where you can mine it in F2P, i recomend members and reading Leesters guide to rune mining http://forum.tip.it/viewtopic.php?t=276694. otherwise do what i do brave the pkers and go up there for fun rather than the money.

 

 

 

Good luck,

 

Hope it helps,

 

 

 

Anashya

 

 

 

P.s. Fell free to Pm me in game on Anashya or here if you want to ask anything mining related. Or advice generally but I can't promise I can help mining is what I enjoy and what I know.

 

 

 

P.P.s. Gold and silver i count as crafting ores rather than mining ones. I can add them if people want but I decided to exclude them from this guide.

 

 

 

P.P.P.s. Just proof read it, sorry to all those who had to put up with some shockingly bad grammer. Should be ok now.

[Pinkbullet3]

Just a suggestion: You should highlight the mining level ranges in bold so people with, say, level 45 mining can find their section easier if they don't want to read everything.

 

 

 

Other than that, it seems pretty good. Right now, I'm trying to get my mining and smithing up. I'm mining in the Falador east mines (can't get in the Mining Guild yet :cry: :notalk: :wall:).

[hellbellz]

Very nice guide \

[seanite]

Uhh this is just proof reading, you spelled Crandor, Cranor alot

 

 

 

but otherwise great guide now people now where to go instead of having to search through the mines list at tip.it

[Anashya]

Ok thanks for the suggestions and spelling corrections. Just included them. (think i got all the spelling of Crandor correct)

 

 

 

Thanks for the support and good luck pink.

 

 

 

Just a foot note if anyone thinks i have missed anything just point it out and i'll put it into the guide.

[reversal]

Nice guide, fairly detailed with the location

 

of each ore.

 

 

 

For your consideration, I think you

 

should include superheating into the

 

guide. I'm also a lv 85 miner and i

 

believe superheating to be an incredible

 

tool for any miner/smither combo.

 

 

 

All you need is a supply of nats and a

 

fire staff along with your pick. Then pick

 

a spot where you have ores and coal

 

to make bars with.

 

 

 

Pros:

 

Saves time by reducing the number of

 

banking trips you have to make. Saves

 

you even more time having to go

 

to a furnace. You get smithing and

 

magic xp at the same time, and

 

because you can mine longer you'll

 

get faster mining xp as well.

 

 

 

Con:

 

Nats are expensives, especially for f2p players.

 

Superheating bars is recommended only for

 

mith and addy bars. You'll also have to

 

be the required smithing lv to superheat

 

the ore into bars.

[Anashya]

Thanks for the addition, sorry for the delay in putting it in.

[jwrm22]

what about with 80+ mining: 8 rocks coal at the skeleton mines till full backpack run to the bank and repeat... (if you are lvl 70+ youll only need 1 lob or less when wearing some armour)

[Anashya]

but I'm assuming with 80+ mining you have used some if not most of the mining places in the world. Once your past 70 really its up to you where and how you mine.

 

 

 

Anyway i can't comment on your strategy... Im not 70+ combat and have no armour in my bank... If you want to type it up and pm me with it i'll add it in.

[Guest WadeDesarmo]

Nice guide but i found a fault in your logic. You said there is 2 addy rocks at scorpion mines but there is 3 \

[starsteller]

Nice guide, fairly detailed with the location

 

 

 

of each ore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For your consideration, I think you

 

 

 

should include superheating into the

 

 

 

guide. I'm also a lv 85 miner and i

 

 

 

believe superheating to be an incredible

 

 

 

tool for any miner/smither combo.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All you need is a supply of nats and a

 

 

 

fire staff along with your pick. Then pick

 

 

 

a spot where you have ores and coal

 

 

 

to make bars with.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pros:

 

 

 

Saves time by reducing the number of

 

 

 

banking trips you have to make. Saves

 

 

 

you even more time having to go

 

 

 

to a furnace. You get smithing and

 

 

 

magic xp at the same time, and

 

 

 

because you can mine longer you'll

 

 

 

get faster mining xp as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Con:

 

 

 

Nats are expensives, especially for f2p players.

 

 

 

Superheating bars is recommended only for

 

 

 

mith and addy bars. You'll also have to

 

 

 

be the required smithing lv to superheat

 

 

 

the ore into bars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dwarves drop nats, sometimes.

[miner49er]

nice guide 8-) this will help my lvl 3 alot, and mabey it could help my main. keep up the good work, and mabey invest in a dictionary. may help in the long run :thumbsup:

[Doomster]

A crucial F2P spot for coal is the Mining guild, entered at level 60 (or 59 and a dwarven stout). You will be competing with other high level miners, all there for only two things, the coal or the mithril... busy?, it can be a madhouse!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I actually like the skeleton mine, on my main, though not on my defenceless pures. The wilderness location with skeletons guarding and potential PKers means it's rare to see more than one other miner. Where they are close to enough to your level to attack, keep as much distance as possible. use the skeletons to "lock out" Pkers as it is not multicombat.

 

 

 

If you have one, the skull sceptre comes into it's own here, the only one-space teleport in F2P, and a space well spent - though in several runs, only faced a couple of PKers and was not greatly troubled, other than being driven off. If they hit you once, then you can return (quickly) with full combat gear and food, to take the attacker on without skulling.

[l0rdbarney]

very well written guide, u covered just about all there is to high lvl mining besides rune(which isnt that important since few ppl would have reached that lvl)

 

 

 

btw owange 87 mining

[juicce]

This guide is very good and pretty indeph, just check some spelling errors there and there, and add some pictures, and it will be gold!

[sparticus348]

Awesome Guide, also, My guide helps with F2P rune mining, and getting away from the pkers.

 

 

 

Good guide, and congrads on 85 Mining f2p!