7 Days To Die Mining

Overview Of Mining In 7 Days To Die

From early on in the game you will realise that in order to survive in the 7D2D world, you need resources. And as the game progresses you will need larger quantities of the various resources. One way of obtaining such resources in large quantities is by mining for them.

Mining is the act of harvesting such resources from metal and earth-based blocks. You collect the respective resource as you damage and destroy the block containing the resource. This is a very important activity in order to obtain resources that are required for the crafting of most items required for the mid and advanced stage of the game.

Tools For Mining

Harvesting for resources is something you have to do right from the start of the game. Remember gathering those plant fibres to make a bedroll etc.? As you did it then, most items can be harvested by just using your fists. However, that is a very inefficient and painful way to go about mining for resources.

This is where the various tools come in handy. Using the right tool against the appropriate material will greatly increase the yield while reducing the time required to harvest. So which tool is best against which surface? Well, the Auger is by far the best tool you can use to harvest any kind of material. However, it is a pretty advanced tool, and it’ll be some time before you get your hands on one.

Mining From Soft Terrain

When harvesting from soft terrain for resources such as dirt, clay, gravel or sand, you should use a Stone shovel at the start of the game, and then upgrade to an iron and steel shovel. Of course, finally, when you’ve advanced enough, you’ll have an Auger and get through the soft terrain in no time!

Mining From Hard Terrain

If you want to gather resources such as Stone, Iron, Lead, Coal, Oil or Nitrate then you need to harvest them from hard terrain such as Boulders, Metal Ores, Oil Shale etc. During the early stage you can harvest these items using a Stone Axe, and then in later stages upgrade to Iron Pickaxe and then Steel Pickaxe. Finally, of course, the best tool even in this case is the Auger.

Mining For Common Materials

Some of the natural resources that you will need especially early-stage of the game are Stone, Clay and Sand. You find these easily pretty much anywhere in the 7D2D world. Using a Stone Axe, Pickaxe or Auger, click on Boulders to collect small stones. Clay soil can be gathered by digging on regular forest terrain, while Dessert terrain will contain both Clay and Sand equally. Digging on gravel roads will yield Sand and Stones.

Mining From Ores

In the case of more advanced resources like Potassium Nitrate, Iron, Lead or Oil, you will have to mine them from their respective ores. The major chunk of all Ores is mainly underground and this is where you can harvest the most resources from. So how do you find these Ores? Two ways – Surface Nodes and Random Mining.

Surface Nodes

Between the two ways of finding these advanced resources is by looking for surface nodes of the ore type you want to mine from. Surface nodes are just the tip of the iceberg, Below it will usually be 2 to 3 more Ore Blocks. And if you keep digging underneath and around that area then the chances are you will find more ore blocks, even those of different ore types.

So while exploring around in the 7D2D world if you spot a surface node, just go at it with one of the tools mentioned. Continue digging below to take back to your base a huge chunk of resources. But if your resource requirements are even higher and you feel like putting in even more work, then it’s time to build your own mine! Continue reading to find out how.

Random Mining

Ores are spread all over the 7D2D world. And as we mentioned before, the major chunk of it lies underground. So you can actually just start digging randomly anywhere, and if you go deep enough, you are sure to hit an ore. Continue digging below and around it to find even more ore deposits.

These deposits will also contain different ore types from the one you found earlier. With a bit of planning, you can actually build a proper mine underground with proper support structures in place. This way, you can return anytime to your mine and start harvesting useful natural resources.

Detecting Ores Using Gravel

One trick to finding Ore blocks is to look for Gravel blocks. This is because Ore are always surrounded by other ore blocks or gravel blocks. It is never just Stones and boulders around an Ore block. This way, by also keeping an eye out for gravel blocks you can discover Ore blocks to harvest from.

Mining: Biome Affinity

Before Alpha 18 different Ore types had different Biome affinities. However, since the release of Alpha 18, Ores are almost evenly spread out all over the 7D2D world. The only exception to this is the Oil Shale which is only found in the desert biome. In fact, as mentioned earlier, you can pretty much start digging anywhere and discover all the different types of ores scattered underground.

Perks For Mining

You can improve your mining skills using the following perks:

• • Mother Lode is a very important perk that you should probably get as early as possible. This perk will increase your harvest yield from all resources including wood.
  • Miner 69er is a perk specifically for mining. This perk enables you to craft better tools. It also increases your Block Damage rate.
  • With the Advanced Engineering perk, you will be able to forge Iron and Steel. This will help you craft better and more advanced tools.
  • The Sexual Tyranosaurus perk reduces the amount of stamina that is drained while using tools.

Mining-Related Books

There are also a series of Mining related books called The Art Of Mining. By reading these books you can get additional bonus yields while mining. Some of the books increase your chance of finding gems, gold & silver while others enable you to stack ores making them easier to carry. If you read all of The Art Of Mining books, you have a chance to harvest any ore block in one shot!