Mining

“It's taking longer than I calculated.”

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The pursuit of mineralogy can make a person very happy indeed!

—Smokefinger

Mining is a non-combat activity that allows players to excavate various minerals and ores used as resources in Cetus or Fortuna. It can be performed in the Plains of Eidolon and Orb Vallis.

Mechanics

Gear Acquisition

Before players can begin mining, they must first acquire a Sunpoint Plasma Drill  from Smokefinger in Fortuna for Solaris United standing. Players must then equip the mining tool on their Gear menu to be able to use it.

Alternatively, players may also acquire one of Nosam Cutter from Old Man Sumbaat in Cetus, although this is not recommended, because Sunpoint Plasma Drill is the only one that can mine very rare gems, it has all the benefits of all other cutters, can be upgraded, and can be purchased earlier than most other cutters, as this one does not require any syndicate standing rank upgrades.

Finding Veins

Out on the Plains or Vallis, players have several means of finding resource deposits.

• Veins stand out visually as bright colored spots surrounded by light grey patches on rocks and rock formations. Red spots denote Ores, while Blue spots denote Gems. Note that the various fossilized Sentient bones littering the Plains are not rocks (despite bearing a superficial resemblance to them) and will not have any mineral veins.
• Mining tools have several features to find minerals from a distance. Equipping Sunpoint Plasma Drill or the Nosam Cutter (default hold Q  and select the desired cutter) will bring up a HUD with the following features:
  • The left side of the HUD will display icons of rocks indicating the number of mineral deposits within the detector's range (higher tiers of Cutters will increase the detectable number).
  • The right side of the HUD is equipped with a rangefinder that shows the distance to the nearest mineral vein being detected (higher tiers of Cutters will increase the detection range).
  • Finally, an audible repeating tick (akin to a metal detector) will be heard if the detector is within range of a deposit. This sound will grow in pitch if the player is looking in the direction of the vein, and tick more frequently the closer player is to the source.

Mining Process

Once the player has located a vein, they can begin mining it by equipping their Cutter, and then zooming in on the vein (default hold RMB ). This will reveal up to three blue drilling spots. Aim onto a drilling spot, then Press and Hold the fire button (default LMB ) while remaining still. A ring of unlit colored lights with white brackets will appear. You can also press the Secondary Fire button after zooming in to adjust the magnification of the zoom (default MMB ).

The goal is to stop firing when the colored lights reach as close to the middle of these white brackets as possible. The brackets can sometimes be moving or changing in size, presenting a challenge in hitting the desired spot. Occasionally, these brackets can also be accompanied by a second, smaller set of special narrow brackets, which players can attempt to hit in lieu of the larger brackets for additional rewards.

A progress gauge will fill up at the top of the Cutter's HUD, composed of 5 small mineral icons determining the amount of resources gained and the quality of the deposit that was just mined, all affected by the timing of the cut. The mining is completed once the yellow gem bar fills up, which will reward a random mineral, either Ore or Gem depending on whether an Ore or Gem-type deposit was mined. Additionally, successfully hitting the special narrow brackets during mining will grant additional gem rewards on completion, even on ore veins.

The more accurate the timing during cutting, the higher the likelihood a better-grade mineral will be mined, and the higher the amount of minerals will be given upon completion. Players can halt cutting at any time, however doing so will immediately "complete" the drilling spot that was cut into, preventing a retry of that spot, and thus reducing the quality and quantity of extracted minerals. This makes uninterrupted cutting most desirable, after clearing the immediate area of enemies.

The result of the mining is determined by different factors:

• The usual calculation is to first multiply the total amount of filling of small icons by the multiplier of the resource type and then rounding the result to the upper integer number.
  • Blue veins have a x1 multiplier and Red veins have x2. Some resources have no multiplier as there can only be 1 gain, such as Nyth.
  • For example, newly added Pustrels has a x2 multiplier and 10 maximum gain from a vein. If total amount of filling is just below 3 full icons by a small amount then the result will be 6. And if it is above 3 by just a small amount then it will be 7.
• Minimum and maximum number of gains are also affected by the distance of the vein to the gates.
  • Red veins start giving at 3 near the gate, and will give at least 6 far away. In both cases, 10 is the maximum number.
  • Blue veins give a minimum of 2 but maximum of 4 near the gate, and will give a minimum of 4 and maximum of 6 far away.
• Without boosters, Blue Veins have a maximum gain of 6, and Red Veins have a maximum gain of 10.
  • Resource Booster will double (x2) this amount.
  • Smeeta Kavat's Charm also affects the resulting numbers by the total stack of Charm's given boosts (x2, x4, x8 or even x16, depending on one's luck).
  • While having both boosters, gain will be multiplied by at least 4; x2 from Resource Booster and x2 from Charm.

Cutters

Cutters can be purchased from Old Man Suumbaat or Smokefinger for standing. More advanced Cutters feature more accurate mining beams, longer mineral detection ranges, minimap radar, and the ability to cut rare gems. Regardless, all Cutters have a base beam range of 9 meters.

Nosam Cutter	Focused Nosam Cutter	Advanced Nosam Cutter	Sunpoint Plasma Drill
			File:SunpointMiningDrill.png
Unstable mining beam   Not upgradeable	Somewhat stable mining beam, but unstable while zoomed in Not upgradeable	Perfectly stable mining beam Minimap radar Not upgradeable	Perfectly stable mining beam Minimap radar Can be upgraded with widgets
500 Standing 500 at 0: Neutral (Ostron)	750 Standing 750 at 2: Visitor (Ostron)	1000 Standing 1000 at 4: Surah (Ostron)	2,500 Standing 2,500 at 0: Neutral (Solaris United)
Plains of Eidolon Orb Vallis	Plains of Eidolon Orb Vallis	Plains of Eidolon Orb Vallis	Plains of Eidolon Orb Vallis
Common	Common / Uncommon	Rare / Eidolon Gems	Very rare / Eidolon Gems
30 m Detection range	45 m Detection range	60 m Detection range	60 m Detection range
-	-	50 m Minimap radar	50 m Minimap radar
5 deposits Detection amount	10 deposits Detection amount	10 deposits Detection amount	10 deposits Detection amount

Widgets

Widgets are upgrades that are permanently applied to only the Sunpoint Plasma Drill upon being purchased, enhancing their utility. There are two Widgets available and are both bought from Smokefinger for 30,000 Standing 30,000 at the rank of Old Mate. All Widgets can be applied simultaneously.

Sunpoint Plasma Drill Silencer Widget Mine in peace and avoid alerting nearby enemies with this drill silencing widget.	Sunpoint Plasma Drill Range Widget Increases plasma beam range. (14 meters)

Gems

Gems can be mined from blue veins. Raw gems can be refined for use in certain Foundry recipes, or trading to other players. Raw Gems found on the Plains of Eidolon can be turned in to Suumbaat for standing, while those found in the Orb Vallis can be turned in to Smokefinger, however once refined - they can no longer be turned in for standing.

Standing	Type	Plains of Eidolon Gems		Orb Vallis Gems
50 Standing 50	Common (All cutters)	Azurite  Devar		Phasmin  Noctrul
75 Standing 75	Common (All cutters)	Veridos
100 Standing 100	Rare (ANC or SPD)	Crimzian
200 Standing 200	Common (All cutters)			Goblite
400 Standing 400	Rare / Eidolon Gem (ANC or SPD)	File:Sentrium.png Sentirum  Nyth
500 Standing 500	Rare (ANC recommended (or SPD))			Amarast
1,000 Standing 1,000	Very rare (SPD)			Zodian  Thyst

Ores

Ores can be mined from red veins. Raw Ores can be refined and combined with other Resources in the Foundry to form materials suitable for construction. Unlike Gems, Ores cannot be turned in for standing to their local vendors, and cannot be traded to other players.

Type	Plains of Eidolon Ores	Orb Vallis Ores
Common	Coprun  Pustrels  Pyrol	Axidite  Copernics  Travoride
Uncommon	Ferros	Venerol
Rare	Auron	Hesperon

Tips

• Mining veins spawn in greater numbers in areas with many rocks packed closely together, such as caves, rock tunnels and Grineer excavation sites.
• The area on the Plains where one can consistently find the most mining veins in the smallest area is the bay known as Er-Phryah's Vigil. It is located west and slightly north of the Cetus gates, around Grineer Base #2 (as marked on the map). This bay area can be recognized by the towering Sentient bones in the local shallows, which are periodically electrified by a nearby Grineer machine. This bay and the nearby cave will almost always have 15 or more veins in a relatively small 100 square meter area, making it ideal for mining.
• While Grineer-occupied caves have a high concentration of veins, they may generate in areas that are quite difficult to reach with a cutter, such as high up rock faces and on ceilings.
  • Using  Ivara's Dashwire Arrow to create elevation can make reaching these veins much easier.
  •  Titania can also use the cutters in  Razorwing mode, which can aid in scouting for veins, and also reaching veins that are otherwise difficult or impossible to mine, within the 9 meter range of the mining beam.
• Entering and exiting Deck 12 in the Orb Vallis seems to cause more mining veins to spawn.

Notes

• A Nosam Cutter and a Plasma Drill cannot be equipped at the same time.
• Cut gems are tradeable under "Crafting Components".
• Gems are used as materials in Ostron crafting, including the creation of Zaws and Amps.
• The secondary fire function (default middle mouse button) can be used to enhance the mining tool's zoom level while aiming.
• Firing the cutter is considered an alarming action, and will thus alert enemies within the vicinity. Consequently, it will disrupt  Ivara's  Prowl ability when used, rendering her visible for the duration that the cutter is active. There is an upgrade for the Sunpoint drill purchasable from Smokefinger that will silence it, costing 30,000 Standing 30,000 with Solaris United.
• The color of the Cutters/Drill and its beam is determined by the Warframe's chosen colors and energy color.
• The Advanced Nosam Cutter or Sunpoint Plasma Drill is required to mine the Eidolon gems Sentirum and Nyth, while the Sunpoint Plasma Drill is required to mine Vallis gems Zodian and Thyst.
• With an Advanced Nosam Cutter or Sunpoint Plasma Drill: although it may show that 10 deposits were detected, there can be more than 10 deposits marked on mini-map.
• Using the built-up charge of  Volt's passive ability, it is possible to do damage with a Nosam Cutter or Sunpoint Plasma Drill equal to the amount of electricity stored.
• The amount of resources yielded in mining is affected by a Resource Booster, doubling the amount mined.
• The frequency of gem deposits is affected by a Resource Drop Chance Booster.
• With Update 24, Fortuna, ore veins had their visibility improved. They appear to be a lot brighter and slightly bigger, making them more visible and easier to be spotted. This also applies to ore veins in the Plains of Eidolon.
• There appears to be a bug where mining nodes will never appear during the current session. It seems to be tied to your operator. Enter and exit operator mode and it should fix the issue.

Media

A concise guide to mining- Ores, gems and locations

Warframe Farming - Eidolon Mining (Gems & Ore)

MINING ON VALLIS - Toroid Hunting and Cave Dwelling Warframe

Patch History

Hotfix 25.7.4 (2019-09-05)

• Mining will no longer show the player if they're cloaked and zooming in (Loki’s Invisibility etc).

Hotfix 25.4.1 (2019-07-24)

• Fixed a massive hitch when equipping the Mining Laser.

Update 24.4 (2019-03-08)

Mining Additions & Changes

• Sunpoint Plasma Drill Range Widget: Increases plasma beam range.
• Sunpoint Plasma Drill Silencer Widget: Mine in peace and avoid alerting nearby enemies with this drill silencing widget.
• Reduced Focused Nosam Cutter standing cost to 750 and Advanced Nosam Cutter cost to 1000.

Hotfix 24.2.8 (2019-01-15)

• Reduced the flashlight FX further when Mining to avoid excessive bloom and inability to see deposits.
• Improvements towards Vallis Mining deposit spawn locations that resulted in an inability to successfully Mine them.

Update 24.2 (2018-12-18)

• • Mining success FX now reflects the colour of your chosen UI Theme!

Hotfix 24.0.5 (2018-11-12)

• Added strokes to Mining laser HUD components based on Forum request for improved visibility.

Hotfix 24.0.2 (2018-11-09)

• Improved Mining visibility in low lighting by dimming the flashlight more when aiming with any Mining tool.

Update 24.0 (2018-11-08)

Smokefinger - Mining

Meet 'Smokefinger', the Orb Vallis mineralogy enthusiast. This Fortuna vendor is your one-stop shop for the mining tools and resources you need! Speak with him in Fortuna to purchase the SUNPOINT PLASMA DRILL a fast-ignition, high-intensity mining tool capable of extracting the rarest of materials with surgical precision, and get to mining the Ores and Gems of The Orb Vallis:

• Axiditre
• Noctrul
• Phasmin
• Travoride
• Goblite
• Venerol
• Hesperon
• Amarast
• Zodian
• Thyst

Note: Ostron Mining Tools can be used out in The Orb Vallis to mine Gems/Ore, but the Sunpoint Plasma Drill is required to mine the rarest Gems in Vallis.

Mining Changes (Plains of Eidolon & Vallis)

Mining launched with Update 22: Plains of Eidolon and introduced a new resource extracting system to Warframe! Collecting Ore and Gems required you trace a pattern around a deposit using a Mining cutter tool in order to release it from its encasement. Since then it has seen several small iterations over time in order to ease what was at times tricky to execute, especially since the quality of the deposit was affected by the accuracy of the trace (which typically made the process very slow).

With the introduction of a brand new open landscape with deposits of its own, we knew that we needed to add new challenge that required similar levels of precision and skill, but in a speedier fashion and with much more return. So with that said, we have made the following changes to Mining:

Extraction is now done by heating a deposit to the ideal temperature. Aiming and shooting your Mining tool at any of the heat spots (flashing blue dots) on a deposit will begin the process.

A thermometer gauge ring will appear with boxed indicators that denote where you have to land in order to extract from the deposit. Simply hold the fire button and release when you are inside any of the indicators on the ring. Red deposits still indicate Ores and Blue indicates Gems. Landing in the smaller of the indicators yields Gems (even on a Red deposit).

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General mining notes

• All hot spots must be completed in order to successfully collect Ore/Gems.
  • Heat spots will glow red to indicate when you have successfully completed it.
• The more heat spots, the harder the extractions become with timing pressures and moving boxes.
• If all of the indicators are missed, you will still be rewarded a small amount of Ore/Gem (depending on the deposit type).

Hotfix 22.12.3 (2018-02-12)

• Fixed a script error that could occur when Mining.

Update 22.12 (2018-02-09)

• Resource Drop Chance Boosters now affect Mining.
• Fixed a Mining exploit caused by switching weapons while zooming in.

Update 22.11 (2018-01-31)
Mining Additions & Changes: We want you to feel like the perfect Gem that you are, and that means giving Mining a bit of a revisit! Feedback about difficulty level and perfect extraction recognition are just a few of the concerns we acted on and tweaked for the better.

• Added a new celebratory success sound for doing a perfect Mining extraction in the Plains!
• Added different levels of FX for Mining success.
• The Gem count now stays on screen until the Mining reward fades.
• The Mining outline now stays visible longer (8 seconds) while you're cutting.
• Reduced the accuracy required to get a perfect Mining extraction, meaning you don’t need to be as close to the line as before!

Hotfix 22.10.2 (2018-01-26)
Mining Buff:
For those of you who may not have been aware, mining in the Plains has a base chance, as well as a bonus based on your accuracy, to reward a rare gem. We’ve increased both the base chance as well as the bonus for accuracy. You can tell how accurate you are by the number of gem icons that you fill up while mining. Each filled gem icon increases the total chance to receive a rare gem.

• Now: 15% + 3% per filled gem icon
• Previously: 10% + 2% per filled gem icon

Hotfix 22.8.3 (2018-01-11)

• Fixed a script error when Mining in the Plains.

Hotfix 22.6.1 (2017-12-08)

• Improved the ability to hear the mining laser audio more clearly when it's raining.

Update 22.6 (2017-12-07)

• Fixed crosshair being visible when opening and closing the Gear menu while holding your mining beam.

Update 22.4 (2017-11-23)

• Fixed minimap Mining markers lingering for the Advanced Nosam Cutter when the tool is put away.
• Fixed minimap Mining markers lingering for the Advanced Nosam Cutter for Clients if the Host has their Cutter out.

Hotfix 22.2.4 (2017-11-06)

• Fixed the Mining UI not appearing after switching to a different weapon and then back again.

Update 22.1 (2017-10-25)

• Limbo can no longer mine while in the Rift. Rocks aren't affected by his Void Magic.

Hotfix 22.0.7 (2017-10-19)

• Fixed a memory corruption error when using the mining tool.
• Fixed mining deposits overlapping on certain rocks.

Hotfix 22.0.6 (2017-10-18)

• Fixed the Mining laser permanently hiding the normal reticle.

Hotfix 22.0.5 (2017-10-17)

• Optimizations towards Mining.

Hotfix 22.0.3 (2017-10-16)

• Fixed mining Resources collected in the Plains duplicating if you went from Cetus to the Plains and then joined a Conclave mission.

Hotfix 22.0.2 (2017-10-13)

• Fixed Mining breaking and the UI getting stuck on screen if you were Mining out in the Plains, walked back into Cetus and then back out into the Plains, and then completed Mining a deposit.

Update 22.0 (2017-10-12)

• Introduced

Last updated: Hotfix 22.19.1 (2018-05-03)