Difference between revisions of "Mining"

Revision as of 15:35, 29 October 2013

Mining is one of the most basic activities in Minetest. Mining is the activity of removing a node with a mining tool.

How to mine

Mining requires the “interact” privilege (which is a default privilege).

Mining is done by pointing on the desired node and holding the attack button (Left mouse button by default).

Not everything can be mined with all mining tools. Some tools are better for certain materials. Also, Mining often takes some time to finish. The mining speed depends on your tool and the node you want to mine.

Drops

After a node has been mined, it may leave none, one or some items. The items left behind are also called the “drop” of the node and it is said that a node drops something after being mined.

Most nodes drop themselves. This is also the default behaviour if not specified otherwise by the modder. But of course there are other drops possible, too. This is the list of possible drop types:

itself
a different item
multiple items
nothing at all
item or items based on chance (probability-based drop)

When a node was mined and it drops something, it is immediately transferred into your player inventory. If there is no more free inventory space, the drop appears on the floor instead.

Mining speed

The mining speed is determined by groups.

Mining in the vanilla Minetest game

You start with a hand which is itself able to mine a lot of nodes already, but at the worst speed. Axes are good to mine wooden nodes. Pickaxes are good to mine stone-like nodes. Shovels are very fast at mining dirt, sand, and gravel. Axes, pickaxes and shovels come in 6 variants: Wooden, stone, steel, bronze, mese and diamond. In this order, the tools become stronger and stronger and therefore mine faster.

Most nodes drop themselves. Notable examples for nodes which don’t drop just themselves:

Stone (drops 1 Cobblestone)
Clay (drops 4 Clay Lumps)
Coal Ore (drops 1 Coal Lump)

Notable examples for probability-based drops:

Jungle Grass (drops 1 Cotton Seed or itself)
Cotton (drops 0 to 3 Cotton Seeds and 0 to 3 Strings)

Mining in other games

Mining basicly works the same in all Minetest games. The tools and digging times are probably different, but the concept stays the same.

@@ Line 4: / Line 4: @@
 Mining requires the “interact” [[Privileges|privilege]] (which is a default privilege).
-Mining is done by pointing on the desired node and holding the attack button (<kbd>Left mouse button</kbd> by default).
+Mining is done by [[pointing]] on the desired node and holding the attack button (<kbd>Left mouse button</kbd> by default).
 Not everything can be mined with all [[Tool#Mining Tools|mining tools]]. Some tools are better for certain materials. Also, Mining often takes some time to finish. The mining speed depends on your tool and the node you want to mine.