2:28pm EST - After some testing and tweaking on the development branch last night, the team released quarries into the wild earlier today. An exciting new game dynamic, quarries allow you to automatically mine for metal, ore and stone. This article covers all the details you’ll need to know as you enter your first weekend of mining.

How to get quarries

There are two main items involved with this new mining process: Survey charges and quarries. Both are non default blueprints, so you’ll have to find or research them prior to starting your new career in mining.

What they cost

Survey charge
30 gunpowder
10 metal frags
5 cloth

Quarry
10,000 wood
1,750 metal frags
500 cloth

Where to place quarries

Survey charges help you determine a good place to put a quarry. Looking like a dark beancan grenade, charges are dropped on the ground and explode a sampling of the available resources under that section of ground (don’t worry, they don’t deal any explosive damage).

If the area is rich in resources, you’ll see 10 or so stones and sacks pop out of the ground. If the area doesn’t have resources, you’ll see nothing pop out. So far, the resources available in any given location appears to be completely random.

Here’s a list of the resources which can be mined:

Stones
Metal ore
Sulfur ore
Metal fragments

How to mine

Once you’ve found a good place to mine (ideally one with metal fragments), you’ll want to place your quarry. Once you’ve placed this behemoth down, you’ll need to fuel it up and turn it on. Here’s a visual guide:

Put low grade fuel in these barrels (doesn't matter which one, they both have the same inventory).

Climb the ladder and turn the engine on (it's loud as fuck).

Resources get dispensed into his hopper. — Resources get dispensed into his hopper.

Fuel is now cheaper!

The price of low grade fuel has dropped significantly with this update:

Old cost
2 animal fat
1 cloth
Yields: 5 fuel

New cost
3 animal fat
1 cloth
Yields: 10 fuel

Protect your quarry

Protecting your quarry is a bit tricky, you can’t simply place a wall directly around it. Quarries block placement of items within 15 meters in all directions and you can’t place a quarry within 15 meters of any pre-existing structure. I’m not saying it's impossible to wall a quarry in, however, given the build block radius, it might be cost prohibitive.

Instead, you may want to consider a small outpost or watch tower near the quarry. That way you can monitor and take out any would-be quarry thieves. Also, you could stand on the top of the quarry (where you start the engine) to try and guard it, but that leaves you very exposed from all angles, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Quarry health

Quarries have 2500 health and are pretty resilient to taking damage. It’ll take a ton of whacks or 9 C4 to destroy one of these bad boys. If your quarry gets damaged, you can repair it with a hammer (just like a wall). If your quarry gets destroyed, the loot from the fuel barrels and the hopper will spew on the ground.

Sample yields

Here’s a sampling of what 100 fuel (30 animal fat and 10 cloth) will get you in various places:

Sample 1
460 stones
25 metal frags

Sample 2
770 stones
82 metal ore

Sample 3
470 stones
90 sulfur ore

Sample 4
485 stones
18 metal frags

Other notes

You cannot put code locks on the hopper or any other part of the quarry
Ladders cannot be placed on or near the quarries
Building blocked by cupboards will prevent placement
You can place them in water but not in rad towns

Video introduction

Here's an overview video of the quarry.

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