Mining is the most technically ambitious system in The Legend of California, and it is not a minigame bolted onto a survival game — it is the reason the terrain behaves the way it does.
In most survival games, mining is an animation played against a rock node. Here the terrain itself is voxel-based and fully destructible. You swing a pickaxe and physically carve through rock, dirt and ore veins, and the hole you leave behind is the hole you left behind. The developer team has described this as one of the first systems built for the game and a significant engineering investment, because deforming terrain in real time across a shared multiplayer server is a genuine technical achievement, not a shader trick.
It also enables something unusual: procedurally generated mines — vast underground networks of tunnels, caverns and ore deposits that are different on every server. These are not small instanced dungeons. They can run deep with multiple levels, branching paths and hidden chambers, and every mine entrance on the map leads to a unique network.
Your mining efficiency follows the same four-tier ladder as everything else.
| Pickaxe | Tier | Speed | Durability | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Makeshift Pickaxe | 1 | Slow | Low | Starting tool. Handles basic stone and soft ore. |
| Iron Pickaxe | 2 | Moderate | Moderate | Significant upgrade. Mines mid-level resources. |
| Steel Pickaxe | 3 | Fast | High | Breaks hard rock and reaches deeper ore veins. |
| Hardened Pickaxe | 4 | Very fast | Very high | Top-tier mining tool; handles all material types efficiently. |
Procedural mines are disorienting, and the game gives you a tool that is better than any minimap: place candles at intersections to mark paths you have already explored. The developers call this the candle trick, and they describe it as essential in deeper mines. The pro tip that circulates in the community is to place them consistently on one side — always left — so you can retrace your route to the elevator without thinking about it.
Two elevator types connect the vertical structure of a mine. Local elevators move you between adjacent mine levels and are frequent, providing short vertical transitions between tunnel networks. Express elevators travel directly between the surface and deep mine levels; they are rarer but are what make a mining run efficient rather than a grinding climb.
Kaplan has summarised the game's mining into three categories, and the structure is worth understanding before you invest in a pickaxe.
Not every resource appears in every mine — some are exclusive to overworld vignette mines, others to stronghold mines — and the deeper you go the richer the yield and the more dangerous the environment. AI inside POI mines is in active development, so that you fight while you extract rather than after.
Cave-ins and timber supports existed in an earlier build, were pulled back for being disruptive, and are planned to return: rumble cues, collapsing dirt, and 1800s-style timbering on the tunnels.
| Resource | Source | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| Ore | Mined | Refined into bars for weapon and tool crafting |
| Sulfur | Specific mine deposits | Essential for ammunition and explosives |
| Minerals | Mined | Advanced crafting recipes |
| Stone | Mined or surface boulders | Basic building material, abundant near the surface |
| Coal | Mined | Fuel for smelting and processing stations |
| Wood | Felled trees | Building and fuel; giant redwoods give a massive yield |
| Plants & herbs | Foraged | Cooking recipes and crafting materials |
| Pelts | Hunting | Leather, armour, and specialised crafting |
Whether mine resources are finite or replenishing is a live design question. Finite resources would force competition and exploration for fresh mine sites; replenishing them would remove that pressure. The team has leaned toward some form of regeneration on official servers to prevent depletion over a monthly cycle, but the final answer may vary by server type.
Whether mines are server-wide shared spaces or instanced per player and Company is also still under evaluation. Server-wide mines create emergent encounters and griefing risk; instanced mines give a controlled solo experience. The developers have said the final implementation may vary by mine type or server setting.