INTRODUCTION I have been playing Minecraft since Alpha and over the years there has been numerous and continuing changes! Sometimes I find it mind boggling to try and keep up with it all. Some changes I overlook but others I compile and try to create concise and detailed logs of important details. Especially on a server like ECC, I think it's important to know how cost effective it is to embark on certain endeavors. Currently the question, "What makes the most money?", is extremely polarizing and people are either in the mining or farming camp. Hopefully this guide can help you decide whether or not mining is worth your effort! NOTE: I will be covering mostly common world items (; nothing from nether, etc.) MINING XP (XP ORBS) Experience orbs are obtainable in numerous ways, one of them being mining certain blocks! These include: Coal, Redstone, Lapis Lazuli, Diamond and Emerald. On ECC, you can only gain experience orbs through mining in the Mining World (; to get to the Mining World, go to spawn and look for the nether portal with "MINING" above). Mining in any other world (i.e. Legacy/Rising) will not give any experience orbs from mining. Below is a list of the XP Orb values: Coal - 1 XP Redstone - 1 to 5XP Lapis Lazuli - 2 to 5 XP Diamond - 3 to 6 XP Emerald - 3 to 6 XP Now why should you care about XP orbs? Well for starters it's essentially free money. What I mean by "free" is that the current market value (player stores) is average 1$/1XP. In addition to this, the EXP Shop sells enchants at a fairly cheap value if you are constantly collecting XP. For just 16k XP you can build a pickaxe with Fortune 3, Unbreakable 3, and Efficiency 5. This pickaxe can help you make 10k/hour or you can sell it for somewhere between 16-20k ECD. MINING XP (MCMMO plugin) The mcMMO bukkit plugin is adds extra abilities obtainable only through rigorous repetition in a specific skill. Obviously we will be focusing on the mining aspect of this plugin but I would suggest reading up on the other skills as well. Below is a list of the mcMMO Mining XP values: Stone - 3 Coal - 6 Redstone - 6 Lapis Lazuli - 6 Iron - 9 Gold - 9 Diamond - 12 Emerald - 12 The only mining skill that you might find useful (if you do not have an Star Pickaxe) is "Super Breaker". It allows you to mine extremely fast for x seconds and has a x minute cool down on the ECC server. It starts at 2 seconds from level 0 and increases by one second after 50 mining levels are completed. Due to speed caps, Super Breaker in combination with an Efficiency 5 pickaxe will result in a Efficiency 7 speed. You will not notice Super Breaker increasing the speed of an Efficiency 7 pickaxe due to the capacity speed being maxed at Efficiency 7. However it should be noted that you will be able to break blocks faster using Super Breaker in combination with an Efficiency 7 pickaxe. This fact makes it more desireable to mine blocks that may have taken longer to break previously, if Super Breaker is available. ECD Values (/worth) The EcoCity Dollar. The thing These values were derived from the /worth command thus it is possible to get more from player shops/trade signs. Below is a list of the ECD Values ($) according to /worth command: Cobblestone - $0.05 Stone - $0.10 Coal - $1.00 Redstone - $1.75 Lapis Lazuli - $4.00 Iron - $7.50 Gold - $10.00 Diamond - $25.00 Emerald - N/A In comparison to the prices for certain items and rank upgrades, these values are extremely low. But it keeps the economy stable and low, not out of a control. It takes incredible skill , determination and possibly some luck to rise up echelons on this server. Choosing to go mine takes little bit of all of these things, especially when the Mining World is rampantly "voided" with giant chunks missing. Also I would like to point out the price difference between the cobblestone and stone. The numbers are tiny but it does make a huge profit margin. The Star Pickaxe is a Efficiency 7, Unbreakable 3, Silk Touch 1 enchanted diamond pick. Just by buying it you automatically double the cost of all stone and in addition can sell the ore at a higher rate (in player shops). This could possibly be grounds to push the production of Efficiency 5, Unbreakable 3, Silk Touch 1 pickaxes as well because of this doubling of price of stone and general increased price of other ores as well. CONCLUSION As long as you put a little effort into a skill you will profit. There are numerous of ways to use mining as your springboard into success so take advantage of it. It's there for the taking. All that free coal - ahem - I mean money! (No but seriously, stop leaving your coal un-mined. You're literally throwing away tens of thousands of ECD away.) But ultimately, you should just try to have a fun time! SOURCES DATA CHART ENCHANTMENT WIKI McMMO MINING WIKI If you see a(n) error(s) or want me to add, just post a response and I'll get right to fixing it!
CHANGELOG Spoiler: [UPDATE] 5/6/2014 There has been XP changes to the following: Coal, Redstone, Lapis Lazuli, Diamonds and Emeralds. Redstone and Emerald XP gain was reduced to 4 and 3 XP respectively while Lapis Lazuli and Diamonds were raised to 4, and 6 XP respectively. Changed values are reflected in the "Mining XP (XP Orbs) Section" and the "Data Chart". Spoiler: [UPDATE] 5/6/2014 After some more investigation, it appears all XP orbs given per ore is not static and can vary for each. It seems to directly correlate to how much (redstone dust, diamonds, emeralds, lapis lazuli) is released from the ore(s). The XP values are as follows: Redstone (1 - 5 xp), Lapis Lazuli (2 - 5 xp), Diamond (3 - 6 xp), Emerald (N/A). I've tested each around 100 times to get the range so it will take some time before I can confirm but for now I will say Emerald is 3 - 6 xp since the settings for emerald/diamonds seem to mimic each other usually. Will update when more data is acquired. Changed values are reflected in the "Mining XP (XP Orbs) Section" and the "Data Chart". Spoiler: [UPDATE] 5/13/14 Made changes based on suggestion by _TAANSTAFL, about information pertaining to Super Breaker skill in combination with Efficiency 7 usage. (Thanks for the tip _TANSTAAFL!)
@idkhowtoplay - fantastic post that assembles so much useful information in one easy to digest place!
Thanks! I thought "The News of the Main World" to also be an interesting read! I look forward to your continuous work!
After the first paragraph I've written: "NOTE: I will be covering mostly common world items (; nothing from nether, etc.)" I haven't gone to the Nether in ECC yet but plan to in the future!
About your part on Super Breaker, you should note that EFF7 pickaxe does benefit from it because ores, cobble, obsidian and probably other stuff breaks faster with Super Breaker on. Super Breaker adds 5 to your pickaxe's efficiency. Also, Super Breaker is part of the best technique for fortuning your ores if you mine with silk touch.
Also, Eff7 miners see an increase in $$/hour if they skip coal. They should mine it during super breaker only. Eff5 Fort3 miners absolutely should mine the coal. big mistake not to.
I agree, and I often benefit from this when I come across mine areas already worked by other players. Use a Eff5 Fort3 diamond pick and mop up the abandoned coal, easy money and resources.
Currently I'm running some testing concerning _TANSTAAFLs' statement: "Also, Eff7 miners see an increase in $$/hour if they skip coal. They should mine it during super breaker only." So far it seems as though using an Star Pick (Eff7/ST1/Unb3) and Max Fortune (Eff5/Fort3/Unb3) is the most profitable in a short time frame. The current prices on the market for buying ore is much lower than what you would get using a Fortune3 enchanted pickaxe to break said ores. In combination with this, there is also EXP Orbs released that you would not get just using a Silk Touch enchanted pickaxe. The issue with just using a Star Pick is that if you wanted to break the ores after, the foreseen time it takes to retrieve your profit seems to be significantly less in comparison to using an Star Pick/Max Fortune. I'll post a graph chart of my findings in the future once I have more data. It'll include different versions (i.e. Mining with Eff7 Exclusively, Mining with Eff5/Eff7 Combination, Mining Every Ore, etc.)
So I ended up volunteering with @idkhowtoplay to give another data point for his number crunching. I mining for a half hour today (With a timer set and stopped as soon as it went off.) and have written down what I got with it. What I had: Eff5Ubr3 Diamond Shovel Eff5Ubr3Fort3 Diamond Pickaxe Multihome Feature My technique: I set up a home in front of some chests with mutihome then went to the mining work and set a home where I was mining. I would reset the mining home before going back to the storage area then dump my stuff and go back. As for the actually mining technique I would mine at 11 and since I have the shovel, instead of avoiding the dirt and gravel I know dig through it and in the case of dirt, I recall reading somewhere to break all the dirt you will almost always reveal more ores, so with the shovel being so good I would instantly break dirt so it took barely any time at all to do. Other then that I would dig straight until I either hit a patch of lave and would choose a new random direction, or if I hit an area already mined out area I would move until I can dig into a wall more then 3 away from a tunnel on both sides of the place where I want to start a tunnel. The Loot ($7,572.94): 1,303 Xp ($1,303) 1205 Coal ($1,205) 1079 Redstone ($1,888.25) 892 Dirt ($44.6) 37 Glowstone Dust ($3.70) 163 Lapis ($652) 53 Diamond ($1,325) 21 Gold ($210) 113 Iron ($847.5) 1878 Cobblestone ($93.9, This was sold to the server and not stored.) (I am counting dirt in this as I was unsure of the resale value and because it didn't slow me down to just chest it) @idkhowtoplay: Idk what standard for prices you are using so as such I have not priced what I got. I will let you price it and let me know what my "Average" hourly total should be for this method. I will repeat this method a few more times, Giving it some thought using a Eff5Ubr3S1 I don't believe would be worth testing multiple times, I feel that the amount of work you have to do to fort them later or the lose of the xp and extra money you would have gotten from the harvest vs the ore would make it not worth it. Edit: Something of note, As it is a feature I am currently not use to and as such often forget, I did not use superbreaker at all on this trip. Edit 2: I have calculated the worth of this trip with the server /worth prices. Using these figures would put my hourly income at ($15,145.9) Not factored into the gain of this trip was that I happened upon a unset up zombie spawner. So that potentially adds more value but at the cost of time. Edit 3: Sorry, Also worth noting is that the mining world was reset 13 days again and as such I am sure there is crys of "The mining world is shot we need a reset". I note this because this is how much I was able to get with the mining world the way it is.
@doomed_fire Thanks for posting the results! I'll collate the total data and release either an update/new thread about it all. As for values, they can vary heavily so I'll be using the amount produced and server value (/worth). The method I use, instead of multihome or selling, is a combination of taking screenshots of when i use /sell command and whatever is leftover. Your help has given me the idea to possibly start a thread asking for help with gathering data, with clear and concise instructions. I hope to see any future data you may be able to provide!
