The Comprehensive Gnomoria Mining Guide

Learn how to efficiently and safely mine in Gnomoria.

Introduction

The first thing to understand about mining in Gnomoria is that it is the most basic and important way for you to advance your kingdom. By the same token however, it is the easiest way for you to undo yourself and your kingdom by literally digging yourself a grave if you approach it without the right tools and knowledge. In this guide, you will be given the knowledge you need to mine and therefore play Gnomoria on the whole with confidence.

Striking the Earth

So you've just started a new world and you are looking to make a place for yourself and your Gnomes. One of the first tasks you will need to attend to after getting everything and everyone set is to start your mining expedition in order to increase your kingdom worth and attract more gnomes, as well as defend them with valuable metal weapons and armor.

Depending on how hilly your map is or if you've opted for a flat world, you may have to approach mining differently. Let's assume for now that you are in a hilly world with normal metal depth. In this case, you will be able to mine above 'sea level', or depth 0. This will enable you to safely mine for Copper and Sapphire, as both spawn in stone at height. Copper specifically spawns from +25 down through to -49, while sapphire can spawn at all levels. The reason it can be considered safe is that you do not need to light up your mines at these depths in order to block monster spawns. So if you find that the area your base is going to be established in has mountains that can be mined, do so. However, I do not recommend relying on this for long. It has very diminishing returns and can be difficult to manage as well as can leave your gnomes exposed to wildlife and other potentially hostile creatures.

If you are playing on a flat map you may be having trouble finding the most basic of resources: stone. Most often you will find stone at and below -7 depth, so it is highly recommended to simply skip every other level so that you can get to the stone you need. Of course with the stone comes copper ore and coal, so your sights should be set on this from the get-go.

A very important note here should be kept in mind during this early stage of mining: Monsters do not spawn above -8 depth in the dark. This means you do not need to place any torches yet whatsoever. The exception to this is the Golem, which can spawn anywhere no matter of light levels. Golems are minor inconveniences at worst and can be kept from spawning entirely simply by keeping unstocked resources from piling up past 250 in an area. Because of these spawning mechanics, you should take full advantage of mining the entire -7 level for stone, ore and coal. During this time, prepare your workshops and gnomes to stockpile at least 50 torches before venturing any further down. If you find you still need more coal for this, it can be made by processing logs into coal at a furnace.

Journey to the Center

At this point you should be ready to advance downward and seriously get into mining. You should have your torches prepared, your miners ready, and some sort of defensive military force, even if it is only a handful of naked gnomes with stone weapons and wooden shields. It will also be greatly to your benefit to have many builders available to quickly place down torches as you mine. Once you feel ready, open up the next level by mining stairs down all the way to -10. Make sure you leave space to place one torch in your staircase for each level so that no enemies may spawn in the one place that can be easily overlooked.

Once you are at -10, make a 9x9 or similar square room around your staircase as a base of operations for your miners. Here you can easily place guard posts, traps, stone stockpiles, and bandages in easy reach for your miners and all that may find themselves underground.
Also mine out nodes for where you will mine out from and put doors down as a last resort buffer to give escaping gnomes something to help hold off enemies. And most important, do not forget to place a torch! As you are now low enough for monsters to spawn if you do not remember to do this quickly enough you may find your safe room is not so safe.

Next you have a choice to make. In my experience there are only two good ways to mine: Clearing and Tiling. Here I will show you how to properly do each one and the reasons you might have for doing one over the other.

Clearing:

Clearing is a simple method of mining that you may have already stumbled upon yourself. It involves clearing out 'rooms' one after the other so that you can attack a layer of stone chunk by chunk and be sure to not only grab all the ore within the room but to give yourself an easy way to place down torches and be sure that every bit of it is lit up.
Simply tell your miners to clear a room of an odd dimension and then place a torch in the center. I recommend 9x9 or 11x11 squares, but go no larger than 13x13 as your torches will not reach to whole room. Then section off more rooms to be cleared next to that one leaving connecting passageways between each one and repeat. You are essentially just copying the exact same room you mined out where your stairs down to the level is.
The reasons you might want to use this method are because it is simple, uses as few torches as possible, gives you access to large amounts of stone, can be used effectively to level up mining skills, and allows you to easily re-purpose cleared space for actual rooms, workshops, or stockpiles. The drawbacks however make this option a second-class choice. The amount of time it takes to mine out an entire level is absurd, as is the time it takes for your gnomes to stockpile all the resources you dig up in the process. This leaves you open to deal with a great number of golems that, while are not serious threats on their own, can corner defenseless gnomes and kill or seriously injure them while your defense force tries to make their way to them without being cutoff by other golems. Keep in mind however that golems have a rare chance to drop Cores that can be used to make Automatons, so you arguably want to use this method over tiling when you are looking to farm them.

Tiling:

Then there is Tiling. This method is similar to clearing, but is functionally the inverse. Instead of clearing out rooms, you leave the chunks there and instead mine out what would have been the walls; You simply mine out a grid of hallways so that only chunks of rock and ore are left.
The aim here is to have each chunk of rock be as similar to the next chunk as possible so that you have an orderly pattern, but it does leave room for error. Try to leave the chunks or 'pillars' as close to 9x9's as possible, and then simply place a torch down at every intersection of hall or every corner of each pillar.
This method allows for you to easily pick out veins of ore, gems, and coal, as the veins will almost never be small enough to not have any bit of them exposed on the side of a pillar chunk. When you see ore exposed, simply mine from the corner of a chunk to where you think the ore is likely contained. If you have waited for your torches to already have been placed, then you will be happy to find that you need not place any additional torches as the corner torches are more than enough to cover any removed sections of pillar they are next to.
Tiling is the fastest form of mining an entire layer as the amount you must mine to cover the entire floor is the inverse of Clearing. As such, as little stone as possible is exposed, leaving far less to clean up and making it much more difficult for golems of any number to spawn. The downsides are that a few more torches are used and you have far less stone available to you. It also requires a bit of spacial reasoning from you if you want to have exactly proportional and congruent chunks. But because there is some margin for error, this is not such a problem. Simply try to get a good row or section of them mined out and then when you are ready to mine out another section just start mining from where a hall already existed.

You may find that you have exposed a vein of ore on the walls that are not within the section you just mined out; in this case I would recommend holding off until you are finished with the previous section to mine it out. The reason for this is that you may make it overly difficult to continue your pattern in the future as well as you may need to put torches in awkward positions just to make sure it is lit up in the meantime.

Dangers

Mining is a dangerous activity if precautions are not taken. Even when all has been going well and you have been careful, occasionally you slip up and forget to light up an area or your gnomes become too occupied to clean up leaving golems to spawn en masse. Here you will learn of the dangers in detail and how to deal with them should the worst happen.

Caverns:

Caverns are one of the most dangerous barrels of monkeys you can open up. You may have stumbled upon them already, and unaware of the danger they bring you opened it up and left it alone. Never under any circumstance open up a cavern purposely.
Caverns may lead to depths you never want to delve into until you are ready, and are entirely unlit giant breeding grounds for hordes of monsters. They are difficult to view fully and may sometimes contain hidden ramps giving an excuse for your gnomes to try to use them to mine an area where they are exposed or worse a path for monsters to invade your kingdom from underground.

If you have accidentally opened one up, so long as it is early in the game it is not too late to quickly cover it up and forget about it. In this case it may be that few or no monsters have spawned and therefore it poses no immediate threat, but given time you will regret having left it open. For late game, you will want to build traps and gate systems underground so that if the worst occurs and you need to isolate your mines from your kingdom you can do so. The longer you have played the more the monsters will be found inside - particularly Beetles. These nasty armored monsters spawn and reproduce in the dark about every 4 days, laying eggs and hibernating until a path is open to attack your gnomes.

There is a useful method of avoiding caverns, albeit a bit cheaty. You may have already noticed it when trying to section off areas to mine; When you order an area to be mined out, before you confirm the order you can see that some tiles will be red and will have white under them to indicate the presence of empty cavern space. Do your best to clearly mark it out for yourself and mine around it.

Monsters:

There are a good deal of enemies to deal with in Gnomoria, and many of them can only be found to spawn underground in the dark. They include Skeletons, Zombies, Beetles, and Spiders. The general danger they pose to you is in ascending order, with Spiders being the biggest threats. Skeletons are only serious threats if they spawn with armor and weapons, something that is decided based on your kingdom worth.

Skeletons and Zombies spawn at -8 depth and below. This is why you are cautioned to wait to mine below -7 until you have solid torch supplies. Zombies individually are not huge problems but can spiral out of control as anyone they kill or in fact bite becomes infected only to rise as a zombie after death with the same gear loadout as in life. Skeletons do not bleed so piercing attacks are less effective, but zombies do. Both can be dismembered.

Beetles spawn at -10 and below, and will continue to reproduce indefinitely in the dark until disturbed. They are considered armored and attack in hordes. Use blunt weapons to dispatch them.

Spiders spawn at and below -78 depth, so you likely will not encounter them for a while (unless you opened a cavern that leads to that depth...). They can quickly overwhelm gnomes. If you thought you were being careful enough before -78, be twice as careful when you get this low. You do not want to deal with these things.

Golems can spawn from large amounts of unstocked materials in an area. They can take the form of dirt, clay, stone, metal, wood, and wheat golems. They are all of little threat, but do have to ability to one shot unlucky unarmored gnomes. To avoid them simply prioritize stocking, use discretion and caution when mining large amounts, or simply place stockpiles over your mined out areas (they are not really enough of a threat to do this).

Make sure you have soldiers with easy access to your mines as well as bandages in easy reach of your miners in case you ever miss lighting up an area and monsters spawn as a result.

Lava:

Not as dangerous as you might think, lava can be found below -99 depth. It can be pumped up to the surface for decoration, but will turn into obsidian (a very good material for weapons) when in contact with water or rain. It damages anything that touches it, but as gnomes will happily wade in some to get at ore or rock on the ground it seems to do little damage for the short time they stay in it.

Rescources

Coal:

Coal spawns in small veins at all depths. It is required for smelting anything and everything, required for making torches, and required to run steam engines and Automatons. It can be alternatively made through 'smelting' logs at a furnace.

Ores:

In descending order these metals may be found: Copper, Tin, Malachite, Silver, Iron, Lead, Platinum, and Gold. They require 2x ore and one coal to make one bar of metal.

Copper can be found at +25 until depth -49. The most basic metal used to make bronze bars.
Tin can be found at -10 to -49. Terrible on its own it can be used to make bronze alloy.
Malachite can be found at -10 to -59. It is equivalent to copper in stats but cannot make bronze.
Silver can be found at -10 to -59. Valuable but not useful in military applications.

Iron can be found a -50 and below. Decent by its own right, can be resmelted to make Steel.
Lead can be found at -50 through to -84. Only seriously useful in the form of a blunt weapon.
Platinum can be found at -60 and below and is the most precious metal.
Gold can be found at -62 through to -84. Valuable but not useful in military applications.

Gems:

There currently exist only two gems, both of equal value: Sapphire and Emerald. Sapphire is found at all depths while Emerald is only found below -10.

Tips

Bind an easy to reach key to the cancel order and mining command so that you can easily plan out your mines without hassle. Don't forget that you can use 'H' by default to make red tiles show up where you have not enough light to block monster spawns.

When you break into a new layer, set a quickview slot to your stairs down into it (Use 'Ctrl+#' to set). This way you can simply 'Shift+#' to instantly center in on what you are currently mining and therefore can easily keep an eye on how things are coming.

Assign 5 gnomes to be miners and put them in a squad of their own in which they are to wear armor, use a shield, and hold their pick. Then have them train at some point each day so that they may be able to protect themselves if cornered. You may also wish to give them some of the highest value rooms you can make and easy access underground dining rooms with food/drink stores so that they may maximize the time they can work on the jobs you have given them.

Pickaxe material and value does not matter. Do not waste valuable resources on them just because you think it will improve their mining. Only do so because you want them to use certain picks, and even then you must manually tell them to use picks of that type. The only possible application of a higher value metal pick is in combat, and even that is speculation.

When you reach the point technologically you should try to build many traps underground that lead to the upper reaches of your kingdom. It is also advised to build a few gate systems so that you may lockdown your mines if necessary.

When you have the tech and the resources to build them, it is advised that you replace your miners with Automatons. They have no need of sleep, food, or drink, and they cannot bleed. In fact, if they die, they may be rebuilt with a small penalty to stats. Mining is the perfect application for them as you will not have to risk your gnomes by sending them instead and they can maximize your mining by never needing breaks.

You can use the 'dig stairs down' or 'dig ramp down' order to discover the location of ore veins before unearthing them, but it is considered a bit cheaty. Regardless, it isn't very necessary as it is very easy to uncover the veins with Tile mining anyway, and it probably would take longer and more effort from you just to discover where all the veins were using this method.



Another more effective cheaty method to targeted mining of ores is to use the 'replace wall' command. First mark the layer or area you wish to mine with the mine command, and then mark the same area with 'replace wall' and try to use a material you don't have (like ceramic) so that your gnomes won't actually try to replace all the walls. This method will uncover caverns for you by leaving them blank, will leave ores set to the mine command, and will only leave dirt and stone with the replace order. Now that you know where the ores are, you can specifically mine to them either with standard tunneling or even dig down from above a level to get to the veins easily. Thanks to /u/adamanter from /r/gnomoria for this one!

If you are feeling cocky you can skip all the way down to level -50 to start mining iron; there is not really any reason to waste time on copper and tin mining so long as you have the torch supply to keep your mines lit. Up until depth -78 where spiders can be found the same monsters will spawn down there that you find at -10. The only real downsides are that it will take longer for your gnomes to make their way down there and you may find that your kingdom worth inflates beyond where your gnomes fighting capabilities lie.

Give all of your gnomes the ability to build and haul save for a few and set building to a high-priority job type. This may make the rest of your ventures less efficient, but any build orders you have will be carried out very quickly and you can easily keep your mines well-lit as you mine them out when so many are available to place torches.

Remember that the game's difficulty on standard settings scales with the amount of progress you have made - it is very easy to control and therefore advised that you take your time to keep your gnomes safe. There is no need to proceed with anything risky in order to advance more quickly. Take your time and mine at a pace that feels right for you.

Conclusion

You should now be more than prepared to head out into your world and dig down without fear. I hope that you take the information you have gained by reading this guide into account when playing and moreso I hope that it benefits your experience with the game. Gnomoria is a lot of fun and is a very enjoyable experience but can be frustrating at times. With enough knowledge and caution however you can turn it into a very casual game where you just have fun making progress.

Please let me know what you think of this guide and expect more to come regarding other aspects of the game.

Have fun and happy mining!

[Lyra]

tyty

[Gerrr]

Good shit!

[Lyra]

Yw <3

[nicht immo]

Thanks!

[Donnerama]

Very comprehensive! I actually never knew the "mine down" or "replace walls" trick. Neat!

[Lyra]

Thanks!

[Piratebear]

That's some good info.

[Lyra]

You're welcome! Good luck!

[Wahliby]

What a great article! Thank you so much for putting this together.

[Lyra]

@sgt.hennessy Not sure how that could have happened, all my experience from playing and sources online from the wiki and others justify the information that except for golems, monsters do not spawn at -7 or above.

Could it be that you have your difficulty or world map settings somehow different? A mod maybe? or just a singular stairs down you have dug at -7 that actually ended at -8?

Either way I'm sorry to hear that. Good luck in your next run!