Mining Camp
| Mining Camp | ||
| ||
| Research | ||
|---|---|---|
| Basic Building | ||
| Construction Material | ||
 Logs
|
3 | |
| Employees | ||
 Mining Guild Preference
|
No teaching required | 2 |
| Foot Print | ||
| Mines nearby blocks that are designated to be mined. | 2x1x1 | |
 Hard Labour
| ||
You will use this building to mine Stone and other resources found in the earth.
Mining Camps will be your most ubiquitous resource gathering building outside Farms. The Claw wants raw resources and ore will help you pay the tax bill. The Claw tax ship will accept everything this building can pull out of the ground except Stone. Iron Ore and Tin Ore are the best focus for early mining.
Mining Camps will only mine tiles marked for mining by the Mining Tool. When no tiles are marked inside of their working radius, the Mining Camp will issue an idle camp warning. Do note that the Mining Camp radius is horizontal and is not limited by depth into the ground. Care should be taken as this can lead to extremely long transit times between mining and the camp.
Mining Camps can be moved freely to relocate and refocus mining efforts. Mining Camps can be placed underground, even in narrow passageways, as long as there is a route to their entrance. Consider installing elevators, once the technology is unlocked, to expedite mining at more extreme depths. This is especially important for mining Copper Ore deposits, which are frequently only in significant quantities deep underground.
Mining will produce a significant amount of Stone in the quest for more ore to feed The Claw's tax appetite. There are only two significant ways to handle the stone that can quickly overwhelm your warehouses. You can make Cut Stone] which is needed for most late game buildings and is a valuable resource to sell to the Smuggler. The Stonecutter is slow and may not fully keep up with your incoming supply of Stone. Earthworks buildings can also fill in tiles with more stone than is extracted per tile. It may be helpful to expand islands, build mountains, fill in old mining shafts, etc. to expend the excess stone. Stone is currently the bane of mining and Mining Camps with nowhere to deposit stone will issue warnings and may cease operations until more storage is available.
Use the Mining Tool to explore for resource veins. Yellow shaded areas indicate resources are nearby even if visible ore is not showing. You may have to do some exploratory digging to find the vein. Also utilize the available filters to locate a specific ore you need. Copper Ore is required for midgame research and can be tough to find on the surface. Start drilling deep early to find it, along with Coal.
Mines can extend at least 20 tiles below the water level, and you may make unexpected ore vein discoveries deep in the ground as compared to the surface composition of ores. For example, you may find Copper Ore, Rock Salt, and Coal deep beneath an island that is covered in Iron Ore and Tin Ore.
Mined tiles will have ladders and pillars placed on their walls. Whiskers can utilize these ladders to move around in Mines both horizontally and vertically. They are not particularly efficient so larger Mines should take advantage of built pathways, elevators, stairs, etc.
