Guide:Mining techniques

This is a collection of mining techniques to enhance Terrarian mining.

Grapple Shaft Mining

 * Also see: Guide:Travel.

Required Items:


 * Grappling Hook (or Ivy Whip)
 * Any type of pickaxe
 * A high amount of wood or wood platforms

Just dig a two- or three-block-wide hole going down, bridging the area between with wood platforms every time the last one placed has moved off the screen.

This is very useful for discovering caves and the Underground Jungle, as well as providing quick access to The Underworld.

The best part is the quick ascent, as you can use momentum if you are quick enough with your clicks, the biggest con is that you need a lot more wood compared to other techniques.

To reduce the use of wood and increase mining speed, use a Lucky Horseshoe (which negates fall damage) and a Magic Mirror (to return to base quickly).

For a safe and quick way down to the Underworld, assuming you don't have a Lucky Horseshoe, bring a few buckets and make a two-block-deep pool of water to fall into. This must be placed just above the Underworld, however, as water cannot exist in hell.

Ways to improve your mining efficiency

 * 1) Upgrade your equipment regularly.  Better pickaxes mean faster mining.  If you carry a Nightmare Pickaxe as well as a Molten Pickaxe then you have the ability to dig through dirt, mud, and sand extremely quickly. The Nightmare Pickaxe should be used on said blocks due to its faster swing speed and it takes the same amount of hits per block as the Molten Pickaxe making it more efficient. The Molten Pickaxe should be used on all other materials as they take one or more hits with the Nightmare Pickaxe whereas the molten pickaxe has the higher power so it is more efficient when mining harder types of block. Note that the Molten Pickaxe requires only one hit to destroy grass covered blocks, but the Nightmare Pickaxe requires two. The use of Feral Claws or Shadow Armor (melee attack speed enhancing items)makes you swing the pickaxe faster, but the actual speed at which the blocks are mined remains the same. Still, the use of such items can be a good idea for certain mining situations, where you have to protect yourself from the enemies. These situations include meteorite ore mining (swing your pickaxe faster to defend against meteor heads)and hellstone mining (to defend against fire imps).
 * 2) Mining with a friend makes it go by extremely quickly.  You can increase your speed about 300% in multiplayer.  One player can aim at blocks on one side and the other can focus on blocks on the other side.  Since there's no mouse movement, you move downwards at an extremely fast pace.
 * 3) If you can't mine with a friend, make sure you're mining only two blocks width. If you have a hole 2 block wide, you can easily click and hold the left mouse button, moving the cursor back and forth quickly (so long as your pickaxe is strong enough), instead of moving your mouse around. You hardly have to move at all if you click in the right spot (aiming directly under your feet when standing in the middle of the two blocks).
 * 4) If you come a choice between stone or dirt, dig through the dirt, as it is faster to dig through with any pickaxe compared to stone.
 * 5) Potions can greatly enhance your mining trips. By bringing potions such as the spelunker potion, the shine potion, the hunter potion, the gravitation potion, the waterwalking potion or the swiftness potion you can see all the hidden gems that you would have missed otherwise, or save on torches to become one yourself, or to see mobs like worms, or outrun skeletons, or walk on the ceiling or walk on lava unscathed.

Required

 * Pickaxe
 * A source of light
 * A block to be placed (Dirt, Stone, etc.)
 * A few Gills or Obsidian Skin Potions (if desired)

Digging Downward
If you encounter water when digging downward, replace the water in your path with the blocks you brought along. Place them at least 4 blocks wide and as far downward as you can reach. You can then dig the 2 middle blocks out, leaving walls on either side to hold back the flood. Repeat this process until reaching your goal.

Digging Crosswise
This is performed almost exactly the same as digging downward, except that you'll place blocks to the side at least 5 high, as far as you can reach. Dig the middle 3 blocks out, leaving a passage high enough to walk though, but still protected from flooding. Fill the liquid with blocks, dig some of them, and repeat until you've reached your goal.

Constructing Air Pockets
When digging underwater or exploring flooded caves, you may run out of breath far from the surface. To avoid drowning, you can place blocks above you 4 across and 2 high, so you have 8 blocks in total. Then dig out the 2 blocks in the middle of the bottom layer, as shown to the right. Jump (or grapple) into the new air pocket to get a breath of fresh air. If you're digging sideways underwater, you can simply dig a hole 2 blocks wide in the ceiling. Alternatively, using a Gills Potion makes constructing air pockets unnecessary.

Digging through Lava
All solid blocks cannot be placed in lava, so digging through lava can be a problem. Also digging in horizontal direction through lava is not recommended, because it is difficult and expensive.

Required

 * Pickaxe (Nightmare Pickaxe or better if using water)
 * Dirt Rod (if using that method)
 * Large quantity of sand, water, or dirt
 * Source of light (optional)

Using Sand
Sand can be dropped into lava from above, replacing it. When you encounter lava, place at least 6 columns of sand. Then mine inner columns and place walls. Now you can mine remaining sand. Keeping sand walls is not recommended as they are unreliable.

Using Water
In this method you turn lava into Obsidian while mining downward. Newly formed Obsidian will become the walls of your tunnel (but can be replaced). Using water you can also dig diagonally. Also you may want to use some method for breathing underwater, because the tunnel will be flooded. The Gills Potion is particularly useful because air pockets tend to clutter the tunnel. Note that this method is not applicable in the Underworld.

Using the Dirt Rod
In this method you will place Dirt Blocks and then use the Dirt Rod to move them into the lava, replacing it in much the same manner as with sand. The strengths of this method are that it can be used to build in any direction as far as you can see and can even be used in the Underworld.

Start out by placing a few Dirt Blocks in a convenient location. You will then use the Dirt Rod to move these blocks into the Lava. In order for the dirt to "stick", there must be a block already present to attach itself to. Move the dirt into position so that it replaces the lava, moving it slowly in the direction you're headed, and repeat until satisfied.

Remember that you always need a clear path in order to maneuver the block into its new location, which may require a bit of planning. Be careful to never risk flooding your tunnel with lava! As always, you can replace the walls with something more appealing, simply by making your dirt tunnel wide enough to allow placing new blocks inside.

Hellstone Mining
Hellstone drops lava when it is mined and this can be a big pain if you don't take the right precautions.

Things you will need:
 * Sand (one full stack is plenty)
 * Obsidian Skull (optional but will speed up mining a ton)
 * Nightmare Pickaxe or better

The basic strategy is to place one block of sand above the Hellstone you are going to mine, and as you mine, the sand will fall into the lava/crevasse and make it disappear.

This technique requires the obsidian skull because your toes touch the Hellstone and it will injure you if you don't have it. (or use two layers of sand to not step on any hellstone, thus not needing obsidian skull.)

You can sweep back and forth across the screen now by aiming at the left side of the block when you're mining toward the left and on the right side of the block if mining to the right. If you go to close to the middle, your pickaxe will destroy the sand block as it is falling down, and you would need to fill it back in with sand. Once you have your cursor in the right spot, all you need to do is hold down the key to move and the button to mine and you'll zip across the screen collecting the Hellstone and ash blocks.