Resources resources

In addition to gold, mana, and gems, Mine Defense includes several other resources used in industry, upgrades, military, and purchasing pickaxes.

Getting Resources

Gold

Gold is the first resource produced in the game and is typically first produced by clicking on the mine on the main screen. The amount of gold received from clicking on the mine is determined by your pickaxe strength. After reaching ten gold, you can begin to purchase hirelings to mine gold for you. After purchasing the Delve Greedily and Embrace the Swarm upgrades, goblins and spiders, respectively, will begin to attack your mine and drop gold when killed. You may also earn gold through random events like finding buried treasure or conning hard drive vendors. (These random events occur even at the start of the game and would allow you to play a no-click play-through, though some upgrades, picks, and dragons require clicking the mine and prevent progressing fully through the game without clicking.) You may also sell gems to generate gold, though the gold value of gems quickly becomes worthless as you progress in the game. After amassing 1K sandshrews, you can purchase the Team Rocket Buyer upgrade to alchemize gold out of sandshrews. Late game gold generation is typically dominated by the ants produced by hive queens boosting world eater gold production until the very end game where gold becomes useless. At that point, the machinst's auto-production of craftsmen allows bloodhounds to surpass world eater production.

Mana

Mana becomes available when your mages first kill an attacking goblin. Initially, you gain 1 mana per goblin kill, though this is upgradeable with the purchase of the nightmare series and arcane series of upgrades. Killing spiders yields five times as much mana as killing goblins. After getting five mages, you are able to devote a portion of your mages to meditation through which they increase your mana pool each second. The rate at which meditating mages generate mana is upgradeable through a series of mage upgrades as well as the nightmare and arcane series of upgrades, the mage wisdom multiplier generated by the mage tower, raising the mage aura by clicking the mages on the main screen, the fire shrine multiplier, and the Volcanic Fury dragon upgrade. The neurochrysalis hireling unlocks after hiring 30 alchemists and generating 20T total mana; this hireling generates mana rather than gold. Alchemists can convert gold to mana as soon as you purchase the alchemist's lair and an alchemist and gain the ability to convert dirt to mana after gathering a total of 500M dirt. Alchemized neurochrysalises dominate mana production late in the game.

Gems

After playing for ten minutes, there is a chance to find a low level gem each time you click to dig in the mine. Higher level pickaxes have a much greater chance and produce many more gems. See the mining gems and resources section for more information about finding gems while digging. Killing invading goblins and spiders also has a chance to yield gems. With the Gleaming Treasure upgrade, each buried treasure you find will contain gems as well. The Advanced Delving Techniques mage upgrade allows your delving mages a chance to find gems each second. With two series of mage upgrades that increase the chance to find gems and the quality of gems found as well as the ability to boost the amount of gems found by sacrificing goblins to the smelting pit, this becomes the main source of gems in the later stages of the game. After unlocking the industry portion of the game, the quarry construct will provide a small chance to find gems each second and the regal statue will provide gems every ten minutes. The Miner Blindness Reduction upgrade gives miner hirelings the ability to find a small number of gems each second.

Dirt

Dirt is produced at a rate of 1 per second for every bagger 288 you own after purchasing the Precious Resources upgrade, which can be upgraded with the purchase of the Diesel Engines and Myth and Machine upgrades. Dirt can also be produced at a rate of 8K per world eater with the Makes Sense upgrade, which will easily dwarf the bagger 288 rate once purchased.

Stone

Upon hiring 12,340 rock golems, you can purchase the The Wheel Turns orange upgrade which allows you to build the quarry. Once constructed, you will begin to gain stone at a rate of 1 per second for each rock golem you own. This can be increased with the purchase of the Birth of a World, Rock Out, and Machine and Myth upgrades as well as by having the egg dragon. Trading dirt for stone at the exchange market is the most effective method of accumulating stone after purchasing Makes Sense.

Iron

After you have produced 50M stone and built the quarry, the Deep Mining orange upgrade becomes available, which will then allow you to produce iron at a rate of 1 per second for every 2,000 rock golems you own (upgradeable to 1.5 per second per 2,000 golems with Iron Affinity). Iron is also gained through military campaigns.

Coal

The Deep Mining upgrade also provides a 10% chance every second to produce coal equal to your rock golems divided by 10,000 (multiplied by 1.5 after purchasing Dirty Hands), The Dig Smarter, Not Harder upgrade allows production of coal at a rate of 1 per 100K baggers, upgradeable with the Diesel Engines upgrade.

Steel

Once you have purchased the Secret of Barad-dur upgrade and built a smelting pit, you can begin to combine goblins, coal, and iron to smelt steel at a rate of 1 goblin, 1 coal, and 200 iron per 1 unit of steel.. The smelting pit's level may be upgraded using increasing amounts of stone and goblins. Each smelting pit level increases the amount of steel produced by 1 and raises the cost by 1 goblin, 1 coal, and 200 iron. Smelting pit steel production can be increased with the Steel Affinity, Peer Pressure, and Enter the Horde upgrades. Costs can be reduced with the Waste Not and Want Not upgrades, though getting these upgrades before sacrificing 100K goblins at the smelting pit makes reaching Learn from the Fallen slower. Steel is also produced through military campaigns.

Food

Food is generated upon construction of the farm (which requires producing 2,500 steel to unlock) as well as at the more advanced expanded farm and vast farm. Food is initially produced at each farm at a rate of 120 per minute per farm level and is upgradeable to 360 per minute with Agriculture and 1080 per minute with Irrigation. Food production is tripled by Higher Learning, doubled with A Whole New World, and multiplied by eight with Center of the Quake. The hatchling and eternal dragons multiply food production by 1.5, while the eternal dragon also multiplies raw material gain by 10, affecting food production as well. Food production is made insignificant in the late game as the steel-to-food market exchange far surpasses what can be raised by farms.

Population

Food is used to sustain another resource--population. You can begin allowing citizens to move in by constructing the habitation after having produced at least 2,500 steel. Each person requires one unit of food per second to survive, so it is important to upgrade your farm(s) enough to sustain your maximum population before raising your habitation's level at first. Population operates differently than other resources in that raising the habitation's level raises the maximum population, and the people that move in may die in battle or from starvation or be converted to scholars at the university, lowering the current population level while leaving the maximum population level the same. Your population will regenerate at a rate of one person per 3600 population cap per second until it refills your habitation. Population regeneration can be increased with the On and On, Baby Bonuses, Green Revolution, and First Steps upgrades. After raising your maximum population to 50, you will unlock the barracks and the military portion of the game. At this point, half of your population will be available as a standing army for military campaigns.

Adamantium

Military campaigns provide an additional opportunity for acquiring iron, coal, and steel by conquering your enemies and looting their resources. In addition to the iron, coal, and steel won after each successful battle, you may also occasionally come across a strange green ore in the ruins. The ore is adamantium, another resource used to purchase several upgrades, build constructs, and level up dragons. You can also spend one adamantium to convert your population into scholars at the university, raising your civilization's education level. The initial chance to find adamantium after battle is 7% and is upgradeable to 10.5% with the purchase of War Vultures. The amount of adamantium gained after battle scales upwards with the number of campaigns won. It is also possible to find the square root of three times your current level of adamantium worth, up to 1B, at the quarry. The earth shrine picks have a ten percent chance to mine adamantium each time you dig. With the Heavy Smelting upgrade, the smelting pit has a chance to create adamantium each second; the amount created can be upgraded with the Energy of Earth upgrade. Wyverns begin producing adamantium with the Adamantium Affinity upgrade, and this quickly becomes the fastest method of producing adamantium.

Scholars

After accumulating at least one adamantium, you gain the option to build the university to which you can send your citizens to become scholars at the cost of one adamantium per group of citizens sent (not per citizen). Scholars sent to the university no longer take up space in your habitation, and new citizens will move in to take the place of the population you send to the university. The total number of scholars sent to your university determines your civilization's education level. Certain upgrades provide benefits based on your education level: Collective Knowledge boosts essence gain, Academic Symbiosis boosts earth titan gold production, and Ghosts of Economic Prowess boosts the average exchange rate at the market. The university dialog in the industry tab displays your current education level, average market boost, and scholar-based essence multiplier. Additionally, some upgrades require a certain education level to unlock as shown in the table below.

Flax

Flax is produced each minute by the expanded farm and three times as quickly by the vast farm. Flax is used to construct and upgrade the fletcher construct and is also one component of the cost of dragon hunters along with gold and adamantium, with flax being the bottleneck component. Flax production remains slow until you amass 100M neurochrysalises and purchase the Flax Affinity upgrade which allows production of flax at a rate of 1 flax per twenty million neurochrysalises per second. This rate is multiplied by 1.5 with the Mana Man upgrade.

Dragonscale

After building the fletcher construct, the dragon hunter hireling is unlocked for purchase. Dragon hunters produce a very small amount, 0.006, of dragonscale each second rather than gold. Dragon hunter production can be increased with the Archery Courses, Adamantium Tipped Arrows, and Homing Darts upgrades as well as by raising the level of the fletcher. Dragon hunter production is vastly outpaced by the water essence to dragonscale alchemy recipe unlocked after building the water shrine until purchasing the Human Fusion upgrade unlocked after getting 100 dragon hunters that allows for alchemization of dragon hunters. You will also gain between 10 and 30 dragonscale per rebel goblin kill with Traitorous Goblins and an additional 100 to 300 if you also have the Teenage Rebellion upgrade. Dragonscale is used to construct and level the four elemental shrines, to purchase the dragon hunter and dragon upgrades, to construct the machinist, dragon nest, and dimensional rift buildings, and to feed the hatchling and majestic dragons.

Elemental Essences

Fire, water, earth, and lightning essence are produced by the fire shrine, water shrine, earth shrine, and lightning shrine, respectively. The fire shrine becomes available after winning 500 military campaigns and purchasing 400 mages, and each subsequent shrine requires essence produced by the previous shrine in addition to increasing numbers of military victories (1K, 2K, and 3K) and one other requirement specific to each shrine--150 alchemists for water, 25K mine clicks for earth, and 1QaDe gold for lightning--to unlock. After building each shrine, they will begin producing the corresponding essence once per minute and once every thirty seconds after purchasing the corresponding first tier elemental dragon's upgrade: World of Flame/Water/Earth/Lightning. The shrines produce one tenth of the corresponding essence plus one tenth per shrine level, which is upgradeable with dragonscale and gold. Collective Knowledge provides a boost to your essence generation rate based on the amount of scholars at your university, and the arcaneum's essence category boosts elemental essence production as well. In addition to shrine production, rebel goblins produced by the Traitorous Goblins upgrade drop 2 of a random elemental essence after purchasing the Teenage Rebellion upgrade. The rebel goblin essence amount also benefits from the scholar and spirit essence multipliers and is also multiplied by 5/2 when the youngling dragon is active and by 100 with King of the Sky. Elemental essence can be used to feed the master dragon and each of the elemental dragons and to build clockwork mages, craftsmen, and alchemists at the machinist.

Spirit Essence

Spirit essence is produced by sacrificing adult dragons at the dimensional rift. The amount of spirit essence gained is determined by the dragon's level when sent through the rift and is shown in the sacrificing dragons chart. Spirit essence is used by the arcaneum to boost production of several categories of resources listed in the chart below. Each spirit essence devoted to a category boosts production of resources in that category by 10%. See the sacrificing dragons section for more information.

List of Resources

Update Info

• Version 1.00 - 13/12/2014
  • 100 iron now yields 5 coal rather than 1
• Version 0.98 - 13/09/2014
  • The university now defaults to the max number of scholars you can send
  • Food in the market is slightly more expensive
  • Fixed several bugs with how food interacts with population
  • You can now gain land for two more farms via campaigns
• Version 0.97 - 06/09/2014
  • Farms now show food per second
  • The military screen now shows food remaining after upgrade (to avoid overspending)
  • Habitation level is now a maximum, and soldiers who die now regenerate slowly
  • Military rewards are now higher and soldiers are now killed even in victory
  • The initial bagger upgrade for acquiring dirt is now cheaper
• Version 0.96 - 30/08/2014
  • Fixed bugs with the market and industry screen
  • Added habitations and farms
  • Added the barracks to start your military campaign
  • Added a new resource (sadly it has no use so far, but it will soon)
• Version 0.951 - 23/08/2014
  • Fixed bugs with the oracle and the smelter
  • Market dialog now updates properly
  • Added upgrades to increase resource gain
• Version 0.95 - 16/08/2014
  • Added a new resource
  • Added a new building that allows exchanging resources with varying prices
• Version 0.94 - 09/08/2014
  • Auto-smith upgrades now require coal after a certain point
• Version 0.93 - 02/08/2014
  • Dirt amount is now shown in the industry tab, not on the top bar like before
• Version 0.92 - 25/07/2014
  • Added a new resource (super late game - listen to the oracle and get tons of baggers)
  • Added a new game section, involving construction and automation