Township Mining Guide: Tool Usage, Pathing, and Event Timing

To mine efficiently in Township, use pickaxes to uncover dark tiles and soft earth, reserve dynamite and TNT for clusters of multi-hit stone, and hold major digging sessions for ore-doubling events. Systematic descent provides the copper, silver, gold, and platinum ore needed for foundry ingots without depleting your tool supply.

Matching Mining Tools to Tile Hardness

Every mine layer contains different terrain densities. Hitting reinforced blocks with basic tools or dropping heavy explosives on weak dirt wastes inventory and stalls descent.

Soft Dirt: Breaks with one pickaxe strike or any blast. Clear this with pickaxes to preserve explosives.
Cracked Stone: Takes two pickaxe hits to break manually. A blast is more economical when multiple cracked blocks sit together.
Reinforced Granite: Requires three pickaxe strikes to clear. Use dynamite or TNT charges rather than burning through pickaxe inventory.
Indestructible Bedrock: Dark boulders that cannot be broken by any tool or explosive. You must dig horizontally around them.

The following table outlines tool coverage, optimal placement, and misplays to avoid:

Tool	Area of Effect	Best Placement	Inefficient Placement
Pickaxe	1 tile	Revealing fog, clearing soft dirt, collecting exposed ore	Breaking 3-hit reinforced granite
Dynamite	5 tiles wide (horizontal line)	Clearing horizontal stone rows and flat shelves	Detonating on single isolated tiles
TNT Barrel	3x3 square (9 tiles total)	Dense multi-layer clusters of cracked stone and granite	Placing directly against indestructible bedrock

Scouting and Descent Pathing

Downward progress increases the frequency of ore veins and treasure chests, but blind digging leaves materials stranded on the margins. Plan your descent path two to three rows ahead:

Scout with Pickaxes First: Break single dirt tiles to illuminate adjacent dark squares. Never detonate dynamite or TNT blind into the fog, as bedrock absorbs the blast radius and wastes the charge.
Carve a Staggered Center Shaft: Dig downward through the middle columns of the mine. This reveals tiles across both sides of the shaft without requiring extra tool expenditure.
Weigh Ore Retrieval Costs: If reaching a single copper node requires spending multiple pickaxes on reinforced granite, skip it. The tool investment is worth more than a single raw ore.
Collect Clay Along the Path: Pick up clay when it sits directly in your clearing path for later factory goods, but avoid carving deep side detours solely for clay.

Smelting and Upgrade Priorities

Raw copper, silver, gold, and platinum ores must be smelted into ingots at the Foundry, then spent at the Academy of Industry. Manage your resources with these rules:

Watch Barn Storage for Ingots: Raw ore does not consume barn space, but smelted metal ingots take up barn slots until spent on upgrades. Do not run heavy mining sessions if your foundries are backed up and barn space is tight.
Upgrade Train Lines First: Spend ingots at the Academy of Industry on train lines until reaching the maximum 50% time reduction. Faster train returns deliver more mining tools, sustaining future runs.
Hire the Market Dealer: During periods between train deliveries, hiring the City Market dealer to purchase pickaxes in bulk provides a reliable supply of digging tools.

Maximizing Value with Events and Boosters

Mining continuously outside of event windows yields less value per tool. The most resource-effective approach is stockpiling tools from train shipments and deploying them during promotional bonuses.

Save Tools for Ore Galore: The Ore Galore event doubles all mined ore collected during its active window, halving the effective tool cost per ingot.
Activate the "See the Light" Booster: This laboratory booster reveals all buried ore, chests, and artifacts in dark layers. When combined with Ore Galore, you can bypass exploratory pickaxe strikes entirely and navigate straight to platinum, gold, and gem veins through the lowest-cost path.