The Motherlode mine is a type of mining training method, found in the Dwarven Mines below Falador. While it does not provide efficient rates of mining experience per hour, it is often a very popular location to train. Mainly due to its low-intensity and being known as one of the best AFK training methods. In addition to its moderate levels of passive profit, through collection of ores and gems which can be sold.
How to get to Motherlode Mine?
The Motherlode mine entrances are located in the Dwarven Mines and the Mining Guild. Both of these can be found by entering the house in the north-eastern part of Falador and climbing down the stairs. The fastest methods to reach the mine include:
- Skills Necklace to the mining guild will put you directly adjacent the northern entrance
- Falador teleport and enter the most north-eastern house and climb down the stairs. The entrance to the mine will be slightly south once climbing down the stairs.
- Enter the Dwarven mine through the camp south of Ice Mountain and run south-east to the northern entrance.
How does the Motherlode Mine work
The main concepts of Motherlode mine is simply to mine the ore veins you see scattered around the room and dump them in a hopper to be cleaned. Once cleaned they will reward you with a random assortment of ores based on your mining level. In addition to granting bonus mining experience, paired with the exp you got for mining the pay-dirt. A simple step by step guide of what to do can be seen below.
- Enter the Motherlode mine and begin mining the ore veins
- Mine until you have a full inventory
- Take the pay-dirt and deposit it in the hopper in the centre of the motherlode mine
- Run south of the hopper to the sack, wait for the pay-dirt to arrive (8 seconds) and collect your ore’s from the sack.
- Bank the ore’s you have received and repeat the process.
The hopper is able to hold a maximum of 81 pay-dirt (or 162 if upgraded). So, it is possible to dump multiple inventories of pay-dirt and collect the ore’s at a later date. This is also slightly more efficient as the time it takes you to run from the hopper to the sack is slightly faster than the amount of time it takes the pay-dirt to arrive.
Fixing the Water Circuit
Every so often the water circuit that takes your pay-dirt from the hopper to the sack will stop working. This can be fixed very easily, but you will need a hammer. To the west you will see two large water wheels, if the water circuit is not running then it means both struts are broken. Simply fix them using a hammer.
The two water wheels are not player-specific, therefore, anyone in the world can fix them and it will apply to all players in the area. If you do not have a hammer in your inventory then it may be optimal to simply hop worlds, if no one else is nearby and attempting to fix.
Random Rockfalls
Rocks will fall from above on specific tiles in the mine, this is aimed at blocking access to veins and sections of the mine. They can be removed with a pickaxe easily, but if they fall on your while running through later it will deal between 1 and 4 damage.
Mine shortcut
With completion of the Falador medium diary and 54 agility, players can use the shortcut that connects the east side of the mine to the centre.
Mining Experience per hour
At level 30 mining, expect around 13,000 mining experience per hour with moderate concentration. This scales to around 39,000 at level 80 and 52,000 exp per hour at level 99. The full breakdown of each level bracket and the experience rates received can be seen in the table below.
Profit per hour
With low mining levels the average profit per hour is very bad as you do not have access to high level ores. When at level 30 mining expect around 40k gp per hour. At around level 80 you can expect 166k gp per hour, which more than doubles at level 90 with around 350k gp per hour. This is because runite ore is unlocked at level 85, drastically increasing profit per hour.
A full breakdown for the profit per hour amongst all of the different level brackets can be found below. Keep in mind that even higher levels of profit can be achieved with the Falador elite diary, which provides a boost to motherlode mine ore success chances.