Legal Activities/Legal Mining
Mining
There are multiple resources you can legally mine, process, and sell or craft. Some materials require more experience to excavate than others.
In most cases, after obtaining the unprocessed goods, you must then refine them at their corresponding processing sites. The processor will deduct a fee per backpack processed. The final products can then be sold to traders, exporters, or other islanders.
Look out for matching icons across the map for gathering points, processors, and traders to help locate sites. You can use the navigation app to search for locations.
Minable Resources
Use a pickaxe to gather these legal raw materials at the mines (or oil rigs).
Upgraded Pickaxes
Are you looking for a more efficient mining experience? Craft a higher-tier pickaxe from ingots that can be occasionally obtained by mining at various sites. For each pickaxe, you need to acquire a certain level of mining and crafting to see and craft the pickaxe's recipe and be able to craft it.
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Tree Felling
Use an axe to harvest at tree farms, not a pickaxe.
Varieties of Wood
The main wood type is timber. Other wood varieties can be gathered as rarer drops of tree farming. The different varieties of wood are used in crafting recipes found in a workbench menu. Notably, oak, teak, and mahogany are used exclusively for carpentry; some recipes call for processed or unprocessed wood. Crafted furniture can be sold at furniture stores.
Port Contracts
Port export contracts are a bulk sale option for some minable resources. Export contracts can offer a greater price for large quantities delivered to the port within the selected time frame.
Use the sign at the port or speak to a port employee about available contracts. You will pay a small fee of typically a few thousand dollars for contract signing. You can choose any combination of the three quantities and time scales for your contract. For example, you might select a small contract of 1300 units of processed coal for completion within 34 hours at a rate of 120% payout. Your selection will impact the signing fee.
Ensure you read the terms and conditions of your contract before accepting. You will not receive a payout for anything less than 100% of what you agreed to export. You will not receive anything if your contract expires.
A maximum of 10 contracts can be active on the island at any time.
History
Removed Runs
In the New York Life 7.5 Update, runs were consolidated and ruby, iron, and aluminium mines were removed. Notably, ruby's role as the beginners first run was replaced by coal. Unlike ruby, coal holds more value for weapons crafters, encouraging player-to-player sales earlier on. Aluminium could not be sold or crafted with; the mine was solely used for gathering bronze ingots.
The 7.5 Update also saw Oak, Teak, Mahogany, and Rubber Farms removed. The resources can instead be gathered as rare items while felling regular timber.