Mining for Niter(saltpeter)

[Damien Kilcannon]

If I can figure out how to get saltpeter(someone said it is from mining in dungeons) then I am going to spend a weekend stockpiling as much as I can get...hehe...That seems to be the hardest of the ingredients to find...

[Ciara]

I thought you could buy salt peter from vendors at the new fishing port.

[KDSonoma]

I see that miners can get saltpeter through mining in Ilsh or dungeons. I am a bit confused though because on uoguide it says niter deposits cannot be picked up, and they get smaller and smaller till they go away.

how then do you get the saltpeter from these niter deposits? use a shovel on them? has anyone done this that can describe in detail how to mine for saltpeter?

KD

[KDSonoma]

oh and do you need to set the pick/shovel to dig for stone or ore or does that matter? And how often should you get the niter? I read that a gm miner should get it on the first shot if its within 8x8, but it doesnt say how often they should occur.

KD

[KDSonoma]

ok figured it out, I think. I read the stone mining book and then went to mining and set shovels to ore and stone (not sure if that makes a diff vs ore only).

After 6 tries found a vein and using control shift I could see it on the wall and then was able to target it and use shovel to get the saltpeter.

How often does this happen though? Was I just lucky or do people find saltpeter every 15 min or so on avg? Oh and the vein I had gave me 54 saltpeter then ran out.

KD

[Damien Kilcannon]

Were you mining in a dungeon KD?

[KDSonoma]

nope, I was mining in Ilsh, around Compassion and Honor shrines. I read that Ilshenar was considered a dungeon for saltpeter mining purposes.

KD

[KDSonoma]

quick update ... have mined 70 spots and hit saltpeter twice, first for 54 saltpeter, second for 118 saltpeter. The niter looks like a piece of mined stone, which is why I didnt spot it the first time. This time it stood out and I just mined the niter icon on the ground and got saltpeter. The niter gets smaller as you go till it disappears.

KD

[lkatana]

buying from a vendor
the alcomest on the floating docks are the only people that will sell it.
there are 2 one in tram and one in fel
they are a comidity item so the price keeps going up it started around 10 or so and now
the tram one is over over 500 gold ea
the fell one is close to 300 gold ea

now to keep this in mind it takes
6 salt peter per black powder and 4 black powder per heavy charge
which comes to 24 salt peter per heavy charge
so needless to say its going to cost thousands of gold per shot
if you are buying it
if tram is at exactly 500 salt peter it will cost 12k gold to fire a single cannon shot
and with my best round to disable a pirate ship 9 shots will cost
108k at best
my average is 14 shots which is 168k on average to disable a pirate ship

if fel is at 300 gold then
7200 per shot
64,800 best case
100,800 on average

now for mining it

first of all where to go and how
item 1 most important the miner has to be an account with high seas.

where to go

boat - the ither deposit will land on the deck of the boat while mining

ilsh - any where in ilsh though not sure in dungeons in ilsh tried in the cave by the cu teleporter but didnt get any tell i left there and worked my way down the mt to the gate

dungeon - according to the info when this first came out it can only be found in the deepest lvls of the dungeons. of this i havent fully tested my minor not set up to be in such dangerous areas.

now mining it on my first miner who was a elf with little to no luck and done from a boat on the mts on haven. i mined for a bit and was able to find 2 deposits nither which didnt gave very much
didnt get any when i tried in the bottom of despise. but like i said my minor is not set up for down there so couldnt do much before i had to run away.

now my ilsh run i had switched my mining to another char which was human. i dried in the cave leading to the cu area but didnt find anything
so i i mined the mts heading to on my way out. i didnt find any tell i was all the way to the opening in the mt at the moon gate where i got a good size strike. out of it i got 164 salt peter. which is only 6.8 heavy shots so basically not even enough to disable a single ship even if you hit with decent damage every shot. best i have ever done is 9 cannon ball shots to disable a pirate ship.

I have turned that char into an elf which is supposed to be more apt to find special resources when gathering and am going to retest it ill give more info once i have tested it more thurally

[lkatana]

ok well i did retest it
i thought things had greatly improved because i found some ither on the 6th spot
it was a giant hit that netted me 150 saltpeter
but i did not find any more and i mined the same distance i didnt check in the cave this time but will try it again later. now where i didnt any more hits of ither then when i was human but i did get 3 gems as apposed to none as a human.

i am using 700 luck and will see what happens if i up it.

[KDSonoma]

I've been saltpeter mining like crazy the last 4 days.

I get about 1600 saltpeter per hour doing this technique ...

Go to Ilsh, find a shrine with no spawn, and areas with lots of mountain and little to no spawn ...

then the trick is to just speed mine as I call it ....

hit once, move about 6 steps along mountain, hit again, keep repeating till you get the red message (its red for me using Pincos UI anyways, might be diff in 2d etc) ...

that tells you that you have struck miter. Sometimes its hidden in the mountain, sometimes its out in plain view. if its hidden, just use left control-shift and click on the word to highlight its bar. Then target the bar till its gone (it drops in size as you go and you have to retarget again with each new size).

Luck is extremely important. With no luck I got huge niters with about 70-90 saltpeter. With 1400 luck I got gigantic niters with about 200 or more saltpeter.

Oh and yes you get this same chance in Ilsh caves like the one west of Compassion (going to twisted weild I believe). Remember you can hit the ground in dungeons and caves too, so dont leave the open areas untouched.

Good hunting!

KD

[KDSonoma]

oh forgot to mention, the reason I speed mine for saltpeter is if you get a hit, it will be on the first try (as long as you have gm mining).

I didnt try to use mining gloves to see if that would help, because that would drop my luck in order to trade gloves.

Oh and have a macro set to all follow me if you ride a beetle to carry stuff, and have an arch cure also set as a macro. If your beetle gets attacked by spawn, and is poisoned, you cant ride it till its cured. I yell all follow me repeatedly and jump on the beetle even if its loaded with ore to save it since I can live much longer vs the low to mid level spawn in Ilsh where I mine.

Also watch your weight and be sure to transfer the one ore you get each time to the beetle before you get overloaded and cant move (in case you get attacked by spawn).

Oh and lastly remember not to try to run while on a weighted down beetle, just walk and you should be able to outwalk most spawn that might attack.

OK I think thats it. Will post more info if I left anything out.

KD

[KDSonoma]

just remembered, I have my shovels set to ore and stone. Not sure if thats required to get niter, but it makes sense since its a block of stone.

KD

[KDSonoma]

oh and the niter spawns after 5 minutes, not in the same spot, so you can go to most places and can keep looping around to speed mine to find more niter.

KD

[KDSonoma]

quick update ... speed mined for 5 hours over the last 4 days or so and mined 8680 saltpeter, avg of 1,665 saltpeter per hour.

At 400 gold each, thats 666k gold per hour. At 500 gold each, thats 832k per hour.

Previously, my t hunter and tamer made me about 200k per hour. I'm amazed at how much more per hour this would net me (if I sold the saltpeter).

I think Mile was right, there probably is a 10 step program to fight my addiction to saltpeter mining (I heard that just as I was leaving vent last night).



KD