VS-Mining

We have Interesting Mining & Extraction installed, as well as Interesting Ore Gen.

This is a pretty hefty overhaul to mining in Vintage Story.

Muck Bag

You will need a muck bag. The hide muck bag can be crafted from four medium pelts and some rope. It can be carried in the inventory when empty, but needs to be in a backpack slot for use. There are linen, leather, and sturdy leather upgrades as materials become available.

(picture of hide muck bag recipe)

First Tool

Your initial copper investment should be in a pick. A hammer is not required yet, and a prospecting pick isn't so vital. Pick up surface nuggets and pan sand until you have your initial 100 units of copper, then cast a pick head in the usual way using a clayformed crucible and charcoal in the firepit.

(picture of copper pick)

Boulders

While you're gathering copper and exploring the world, make sure to check any boulders you run across. If you find ore on a boulder, there is an ore vein of that type below.

(Picture of a boulder with ore visible)

Muck

Veins in Interesting Ore Gen are huge compared to vanilla, and they also generate differently. Check the mod page for more details. Be sure to mine either only stone or only ore at one time, don't mix the mucks. I generally mine out a bunch of stone around the ore first, then shovel all of that into my muck bag to move away from the mining site.

Stone muck can just be dumped in a tailings pile. Ctrl + 1-4 (Whichever bag slot is your muck bag) then shift right-click onto the ground to dump its contents.

(Picture of a tailings pile)

Sluice

For ore muck, you'll need a sluice. A primitive sluice can be made with sticks and dirt. It should be placed so water flows over the top, with room at the end for muck accumulation.

(Picture of sluice block recipe)

Dump your ore muck just as you did the stone muck, but this time dump it on top of the sluice block. The water flowing over the top will slowly push the muck downstream, but the ore will concentrate in the sluice. Once it's done, block the water flow, then right-click the sluice with your shovel to bring the concentrated muck up out of the sluice. Just dig it back into your muck bag and you're ready to take it to a smeltery.

(Picture of sluice with exit pond)

Smeltery

To turn the ore muck into usable metal, you need a smeltery.

(Picture of smeltery)

First create a smeltery door from light mud brick. Place two light mud brick blocks on top of one another and place the door on top of them. Shift right-click the door and fill in all the white ghost blocks with light mud brick. There are three tiers of smeltery, and continuing to shift right-click the door will cycle through their ghost images. See Interesting Mining & Extraction mod page for more info.

(Picture of smeltery door recipe)

Create a small smelting pot from clay, it does not need to be fired.

(Picture of smeltery pot)

Place the pot into the smeltery.

(Picture of pot in smeltery)

Shift right-click your concentrated muck into the pot through the door.

Make sure to add one layer of charcoal per four layers of muck in the smelting pot. This will give a 5% yield bonus.

• There are other fluxes with better modifiers

Flux	Gain
Charcoal	5%
(Flux)	%
(Flux)	%
(Flux)	%
(Flux)	%

Add enough charcoal in front of the pot to burn for at least 9 in-game hours. The smeltery takes one hour to heat up, then 8 hours to cook, then another hour to cool.

(Picture of charcoal in smeltery)

Once cool, your pig can be removed from the pot and melted/alloyed as regular metal in a crucible.

(Picture of pig)

I will add more to this as I progress.