Optimal Boulder Mining

Where to find these ore nodes, how long they last verses speed of ore production for more drills, etc. Updated for 0.5.0.0 Desert of Beginnings!

Wiki

I've ported this guide over to the wikizet, with some minor additions:
https://corekeeper.atma.gg/en/Ore_Boulders

Location & Appearance:

Item images from https://corekeeper.atma.gg/en/Core_Keeper_Wiki.

Relative incidence tiers have these numerical spawn chances per tile of world terrain generated: "Frequent" = 1 in 333 tiles, "Common" = 1/1000, "/Rare" = 1/2000, "Very Rare" = 1/10'000 (or less).

Mining Setups:

Raw ore is extracted from boulders (ore nodes) using from 1 to 8 powered drills:

Ore Production Rate by Number of Drills:

Above figures come from very precisely timing individual ore items output from boulder drilling (in 0.4.1). Corrected total ore amount from 1730 to 1800, updating graph (0.4.2).

Getting Started:

Each drill requires 10 scarlet and 10 Iron bars to craft, at the Automation table. That is itself crafted at the Scarlet Workbench. So you will first need to mine, by hand, enough Scarlet from the Azeos Wilderness, before making your first drill. 25 + 8 + 10 = 43 scarlet minimum.

Priority should probably then be given to mining Scarlet boulders, to make more drills, to increase production rate. Assuming one has easier, more plentiful access to iron.

There are diminishing returns with the rate of ore production from adding more drills to the same boulder. So, if you are very limited for drills, it may be faster to spread them out between different boulders.

One can collect raw ore from the drills directly (left and middle image in "Setup" section), or use a more complex setup (right) to automate processing the ore into bars, ready for crafting. This is mostly a matter of preference. But automated processing means carrying more inventory items around, when setting up drilling sites.

Note: if you're not collecting periodically, your smelter/furnace output could fill up to 999, and stop. So, you'll need to add a second robot arm to unload finished metal bars from the smelter, into a chest (or a second smelter).

Boulders can now give 4 times more ore (with 8 drills) than in previous game versions. This figure also takes no penalty from using more drills on the same boulder. Also, the Wilderness is infinite in size, with every type of boulder below Octarine available, so one should never run out of ore.

Single Image Cheat Sheet:

Click to view full size (made for this artwork):

Update Changes:

► 2022-11-16 (0.5.0.0) - Added Desert biome including new Galaxite boulders.

► 2022-08-01 (0.4.3) - Updated the main location graphic with boulder images and relative probabilities of spawning, per biome, all taken direct from game assets.

► 2022-07-18 - Corrected location graphic to show that copper can also be found in Clay Caves. Credit to Sarah, Ruub & Craigins for each pointing this out.

► 2022-06-21 Overhauled guide due to "Sunken Sea" 0.4.0 Update - patch notes:
• "Ore Boulders no longer give less total amount of ores before depleting when drilling with more than one drill."
• "Doubled the amount of ores in Ore Boulders making them last for twice as long."
• "Automation structures (Conveyor Belt, Robot Arm, etc.) now work as expected at an infinite range."

So drill's ore production should never stop, now, even when you are very far away. All automation and electrical systems are persistent.

Old Cheat Sheet artwork has been set to "unlisted" but can still be viewed here, for historical reference of how having more drills used to decrease a boulder's total ore output.

Acknowledgements:

• Credit: Thanks to Discord user nineforty for investigating unloading distances (in previous guide version). And to Sarah for highlighting location exceptions, with Mz and Peace pinning down why that happens. And other Discord users for checking on my graphics.

• Fellow creatives: if this material inspires some of your content, I'd appreciate a quick shout-out and link back to this guide. 👍

• Core Keeper content and materials are the intellectual property of their respective owners. The above textual and graphical guide information is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0[creativecommons.org]). For as far as this is compatible with Steam community terms and conditions. Specifically, I do not consent to duplication of of my original work for commercial use. Which includes websites running advertisements besides copies of this material (you know who you are).

My Core Keeper Guides on Steam:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2793169894 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2797638499 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2802836829 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2806120066 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2846860078 https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2916017422

[MerrittLS]

Thanks, i've been ignoring boulders, i won't any longer!!

[DreamingDemon]

One note about mining... a Lever [corekeeper.atma.gg] is cheaper than an Electricity Generator [corekeeper.atma.gg] and currently also powers the drills, though the descriptive text implies its not supposed to.

Also, this guide is still mostly accurate. There is a new tin drill that's half speed, so you can start mining earlier. In addition items now stack to 10k (9999) not 1k (999), so you don't need to worry about whether you remember to gather the ore or not.

[Rathlon Tobias Riverwind]

What I would like to know is this, is this still good in 1.0?
Cause I've heard different things about the ore boulder nodes and how many drills you can have on it to mine it.

[Masquerade]

Just a random note, you can use two generators for an 8 drill boulder setup instead of three, just to save some resources. Although, ten copper per generator isn't that demanding.

[Dr_Shadox]

Yeah i'll ZG ^^

but after search on internet and read the mod page again i didnt found anything , then i've landed here so i asked in case someone outside of the discord had an answer ^^

[ZeroGravitas]

@Dr_Shadox - I think you'd best ask this in the modding chat channel of the Discord. Where I see you've been talking already. 😜

[Dr_Shadox]

Does someone know if we can spawn boulder with chat command mod please ?

[マSouchiマ]

я выш мама рот

[Bort]

you're freaking Amazing

[ZeroGravitas]

► Update note 2022-11-16 (0.5.0.0) - Added Desert biome including new Galaxite boulders.