I already did an article about Alien Worlds a couple of days ago. That alone should serve to proof that I'm pretty excited about the game. One of the cool things about is that you can just jump into it right away and start mining without having to know anything about the game. It will suggest you a planet, assign you a plot of land and that's it - just click Mine and you are all set. Once you start to dig deeper (pun not intended), you'll slowly realize that there's a lot going on behind the scenes and if you really want to optimize your mining effort, there's a lot for you to consider.
In this article I'll give a brief introduction to everything you need to know to get the most from your mining endeavor. From picking the correct spot on the right planet to explaining the different attributes playing a role in the game, you'll find all you ever need to know right here. Well... for now, as things are bound to evolve a lot more in the coming weeks and months!
The first decision you need to make is what planet you want your mining operation to be taking place on. There are a total of 6 planets available, each coming with their own layout of land. Take note that only the first 3 planets are shown when you open the planet selection. If you want to go to one of the other 3, you have to scroll to the right. Each of the 6 planets has its own mining pool and refill rate. The refill rate is determined by the amount of TLM staked to the planet. The Mining Pool determines how much TLM is up for grabs and this directly determines how much TLM you can mine at most in a single go. The current numbers can be found here.
Keep in mind that these numbers are changing all the time, so don't take them for granted. Also, there's no statistic available how many players are active on what planet. So while the pool on Kavian is replenishing a lot faster, there might be 5 times as many players depleting it than on other planets. Personally, I prefer to go to one of the three planets on the second page, simply because I assume that a lot of players are just going with the first best planet and won't even realize there's a second page. That leaves me with a choice between Naron, Neri, and Veles.
Once you've chosen the planet you want to mine on, it's time to decide what plot of land you want to work. There are a lot of parameters to consider when choosing the perfect spot for your mining operation, so let's discuss them one by one.
The first thing you need to keep in mind is the Owner profit share from mining. This is a percentage value between 0% and 100%. It determines the amount of TLM that will go to the landowner instead of your own coffers each time you mine. Obviously, you want this value to be as low as possible to make your mining more worthwhile. The default value is 20% to the landowner and 80% to you, so anything below that is already better. When I look around for a new spot, I aim to find one with a Owner profit share from mining of 5% or less. I've even found a plot with just 1% commission once. So don't just go with the first one you find, look around a bit and you'll find a spot with lower fees eventually.
The Charge Time Multiplier determines how often you can mine on that plot. It's simply multiplied with the combined charge time of your tools (we'll get to that later) so the higher this value, the longer you'll have to wait until you can mine again.
The pickaxe in the upper left corner is the lands mining power. Basically, the higher it is, the more TLM you can expect to gain each time you mine. So obviously, you want this value to be as high as possible in order to earn more TLM from your mining endeavor.
The snowflake in the bottom right corner is your luck. This determines how high your chances are to find a NFT each time you mine. It's important to note that this only influences how likely you are to find a NFT but it has no effect on the quality of it. So once you find a NFT, you have the same shot at a legendary as anybody else.
The pyramid in the bottom left corner determines how long it will take for your mining to compute. So the higher this value, the longer it will take for you to get your results. Obviously, you'll want this value to be as low as possible but to tell the truth, at least for me, it didn't make all too much of a difference so far. I've never waited more than a couple of seconds for my result, no matter the value given there. It might be a factor if the value gets a lot higher, though. So just remember to keep an eye on it in case your mining results take too long to show up.
Once you've chosen your mining spot, it's time to decide what tools to use for your mining operation. You can use a total of 3 different tools for the job, each coming with mostly the same attributes as the plot of land itself.
As you can see, each tool also has mining power, luck, and computing time on it. These attributes are always additive, so if I mined the spot shown above with these tools, I'd end up with a total mining power 17, a luck rating of 4.7, and a total computing time of 2.
Each tool has an individual charge time and these are additive between all tools. So before I can mine again, it will take 930 seconds for all my tools to fully charge. Because of the Charge Time Multiplier of 1.1 from the Grass Coastline, it takes a total of 1,023 seconds or roughly 17 minutes before I can mine again.
You now know all the rules to determine where to mine and what tools to use. There's one important question left unanswered, though. What's the best strategy to follow? Well, cool enough, there's no single answer to that! It fully depends on what you want to do, really. You can either try to optimize your TLM gains or increase your chance to find NFTs. Alternatively, you could try to find a balance between both. There are also tools with wildly varying charge times, so it would be possible to come up with a build that can mine every 5 minutes or with one that's only going to mine every few hours.
The above picture is taken from Alien Worlds Discord and shows some viable builds the community came up with so far. It's a great starting point if you want to follow one of the proven strategies. There's nothing wrong with experimenting yourself, though.
If you are coming in as a new player and don't want to invest some WAX upfront, I'd advise you to spend your first TLMs on some of the abundant tools on the market, farm more TLM, buy a common tool or two, and then decide what route you want to follow and save up to get the more rare tools. Personally, I'm going with the Balanced Medium Build for now, simply because I won't be able to afford several builds for a while so I feel like having a balanced build is the best starting point.
The TLM you earn can be traded for WAX here, NFTs can be bought and sold on Atomichub. With current prices, farming up from scratch to the balanced medium build is going to take you several weeks. There's always the chance of being lucky with a NFT drop, though, so it possibly could be a lot faster for you.
And that's really everything you need to know to be a successful miner in Alien Worlds. There's a lot more to be learned and even more yet to come to the game, but with this guide backing you up, you should be able to have a successful start to your mining career. If you have any questions, feel free to leave me a comment below!
And that's all from me for today, thank you all for reading and see you next time!