Salem

I guess the most basic question is simply, is mining worthwhile?

This is all back-of-the-envelope, but 20 wood takes a little bit, turning it into coal requires you lead coal production pretty heavily. You need to then dig, chip, and haul some lime. You then burn, mine, and chip the ore. You also need fairly consistent phlegm food input so you can do all this. Then it takes igniting, which requires either a nearby stove, obnoxious tinder drills, or expensive flint and steel (which eats roughly 5.4% of your iron outputs with optimal lime ratios). And all this results in ~180 silver of iron. A stamp press negates the need for some of the phlegm and some of the micro, but costs 5.8 iron bars itself, and the mine entrance alone costs 3.4 bars.

Assuming mining is worthwhile, what's the most efficient way to mine? How can I best reduce the labor intensiveness of it? Am I better off just killing crickets and buying what modest iron needs I have? Anything else I ought to know?

And further, crap, this means mounting a legit defense is going to be pricey. I figured iron would be easier to get once I had an infrastructure. Oh well.

once you get econ operating it takes nothing to make iron O-o if you dont royally screw up how you smelt ore you can get 1-2 iron per 40minute run. which more then pays for it self pretty quickly.

The phlegm isn't the biggest issue. Lime and Charcoal are the bottlenecks. One coal clamp gives enough coal for about 3 smelting runs, and Lime determines how much mileage you get out of your Charcoal.

1 tree = 60 woodblocks = 3 coal-clamps = ~140 coal.

Charcoal definitely causes some "lead-time" issues (56 hours to char!) but isn't inherently problematic to get. Lime is harder to get, since you can't get it reliably in quantity except at special locations. You need a minimum of 3 Lime in each smelting batch in order to get at least a full bar. More Lime is better, but balance this against availability and fertilizer demands.

It's really less about the amount of inputs, and more about the time. For every 40 minute run, I probably have to do 30 minutes of stuff (mine, chip. dig, chip, haul. chop, build, collect). And every solution costs more iron for not terribly much gain (a mill saves you the pain of chipping, that's it. A pickaxe will probably speed up things a bit, but it's the hauling that kills me).

Any efficiency tips? I don't think I have the manpower to run 2 smelters unless I get some more reliable lime, and that's the only real way I can see to increase iron/manhour.

Jaunt wrote:It's really less about the amount of inputs, and more about the time. For every 40 minute run, I probably have to do 30 minutes of stuff (mine, chip. dig, chip, haul. chop, build, collect). And every solution costs more iron for not terribly much gain (a mill saves you the pain of chipping, that's it. A pickaxe will probably speed up things a bit, but it's the hauling that kills me).

Any efficiency tips? I don't think I have the manpower to run 2 smelters unless I get some more reliable lime, and that's the only real way I can see to increase iron/manhour.

Are ur limefield far from ur actual camp that smelt in?
i started smelting being very far from a limefield and walked forth and back with a sled with 4 chests i filled up
(now we are a few guys playing together so it worked ok but it was still time consuming.
Living next to a limefield is gold but i did not see any possible way to do that so it only leaves 2 doors open.
Buy the lime or Haul it in by an Lime alt by teleporting to and from boston 500 times a hour as u can multiclient aslong as you got 2 accounts.
I took the alt way,trained basic skills to be able to build a leanto/dig lime fields,gave him a pickaxe.
Diffrence is huge and some ppl may consider it "cheating" but u do what u gotta do.
Now he lives in medium lime fields untill they are out and iam forced to move but this is the only way to keep up with my Current 12 smelters.
I can currently fill my 12 smelters in the area of 25-30 minutes so inbetween runs.
Not much advice i guess but
1.Lime and Mine close together would be gold.
2.Buy lime?
3.Multibox and trade the lime in boston with ur smelter char.
4.haul by sleds/boats

Hi there, i agree with you, its the hauling that wastes time.
Best solution is to buy the lime, maybe strike a deal for large batches.
For me though, i moved my homestead.
My first homestead was in a nice place, next to a forest with swamp nearby and a small stream. Nearest mine was only 5 mins away, but lime quarries were no near. Like you, i spent a lot of time just for a few bars, so the question of whether to move and abandon fields, building, etc was always on my mind. Then I got raided, losing not only my stockpile but also my machinery, so i made my decision to move.
I spent a day running around the map looking for lime quarries, of course with my trusty woo-woo wand by my side.
At first I situated right next to quarry, with the nearest mine about 2 minutes (walk) away, not very far, but not ideal either.
So I moved again, this time part-way between mine and quarry, and in-between 2 streams, which was perfect, since one stream passed near the lime quarry and the other passed not far from clay mine. I still keep the claim near the quarry to store excess lime, and to store the food I eat when I dig lime.
Moving was totally worth it, since the time I saved from hauling lime, I now use for other, better things, mostly chopping and hauling trees. Also, having the river for transport helped, as boats are faster than sleds, or so it seems.