Changelog

1.0.0 - 2026-09-30

First release.

Tap Left Alt with a pickaxe out to switch vein mining on, and tap it again to switch it off. A small gold "Vein" just above the crosshair shows it is on. While it is on, a blow on any chunk of a deposit you have opened does not break that chunk. The damage it would have done goes into a bar on the deposit, a thin gold bar just under the crosshair with "Copper vein 45%" under it. At 100% the whole deposit breaks, buried chunks included, and every chunk drops its ore. 100% is the current health of every chunk still standing, so chunks mined by hand in the meantime make the total smaller. A deposit that grows back, like a vein Dvala restocks, starts with an empty bar.

The damage counted is what vanilla would have dealt that chunk: the deposit's resistances and its tool tier apply, a pickaxe that is too weak gets the usual "too hard" and adds nothing, and the normal damage number shows. Stamina, pickaxe wear and skill gain come from the swing as in vanilla, so a deposit costs about the swings it would by hand. The bar is saved on the deposit, and another player with vein mining on can finish it.

The key is VeinToggleKey and stays your own on a server. It only listens while a pickaxe is out, and only a short tap of the key on its own counts, with the game in front the whole time, so Jafna's Left Alt on the hoe, Taum's Alt+E and Alt+Tab do not switch it. malmr vein on and malmr vein off do the same from the console.

What vein mines, and from which Pickaxes level: stone 20, copper 30, iron 40, silver 50, the Mistlands' giant brains 60, flametal 70, bloodgold 80. The level is the one you earned, so a bonus from gear, food or another mod does not open a metal early. Tin and obsidian are left out. In 1.0 both are single rocks rather than deposits, and Malmr does not touch them whatever Unlocks says. With vein mining on and the metal still shut you mine the normal way, and once per deposit the top left of the screen says what is missing, like "Iron veins need Pickaxes 40 and Bonemass beaten at one star through Vandi".

Stone means the rocks and boulders that drop nothing but stone. A deposit with any ore in it is that ore's vein or no vein, never a stone one. A rock that drops something else beside its stone only vein mines when that is in Unlocks as well and both are open to you, and one drop left out or set to -1 keeps the whole rock by hand. A big rock comes down a little at a time once its bar is full, so breaking it does not stall the game.

In the Mistlands only the giant brains and stone vein mine. Copper, iron or anything else found there is mined by hand even when it is open to you, and the top left says so once per deposit. The Mistlands setting lists what still vein mines there.

A metal also waits for the boss of its biome: Eikthyr for stone, the Elder for copper, Bonemass for iron, Moder for silver, the Queen for the brains, Fader for flametal. Bloodgold is on Fader too, because Vandi and Utangard both give the Deep North to Fader and Vandi does not count the Frozen King. With Vandi installed the boss has to be beaten at one star, which is your second kill of a boss you summoned yourself. Without Vandi one kill by your character is enough, read from the kill record the game keeps on every character. That record starts at the game's Call to Arms update, so a boss beaten before then has to be beaten again, and it counts a boss spawned with devcommands like any other. Vandi is recommended in the README and is not in the manifest. Bosses and BossKills are in the config, and BossKills 0 turns the boss half off.

The unlock message comes when a metal opens, on the level-up or on the boss kill, whichever is last. It says what opened it, including which boss count applied, and it names the key. Once per opening, and never for a metal that was already open when you logged in.

A deposit's metal comes from its drops: whatever its ore smelts into at any station in the game, so an ore from another mod works once its metal is named in Unlocks. Deposits overrides that per deposit, and Names sets what the screen calls a deposit, which is how the brains are called giant brains. On world load the log lists every deposit and what it counted as, what the ones that are not veins drop, and every boss in the world with the key it sets on death.

The malmr console command prints your level, whether vein mining is on, which boss count applies, the Mistlands line, and for each metal its level, its boss, your kills of it, whether it is open and what is missing, followed by the deposit list. malmr progress shows the bar of the nearest deposit within 10 metres, or of the nearest one with a given name, or further when given a distance. No devcommands needed.

Only whoever owns a deposit may change its bar, so a blow is sent to the owner the way a normal pickaxe hit is, and the owner fills the bar and breaks the deposit. That owner can be any player or the server, so Malmr is registered Everyone with Core: it has to be on the server and on every client. So does Vandi when it is used.

Eight Devkit scenarios pass in singleplayer: the unlock levels, the bar filling and the deposit breaking, the deposit table, the Mistlands rule, a shut metal, stone, tin, and the pickaxe wearing the same into the bar as by hand. The Left Alt tap and Alt+Tab were checked by hand. Two players on one deposit and a bar kept across a logout have not been run.