SkyMines Progression

[LongInfinity]

See the introduction here: https://pika-network.net/threads/skymines-guide.419965/

This guide will teach the player how to properly progress and how to avoid potential dangers.

(my first attempt on writing a guide btw )

Part I: The Beginning
When you appeared on the Spawn Island, the first thing to do is take a look on every NPC and remember their position. When you right click one of the NPCs, you open a menu. Depends on which NPC you interact with, they will have different menus. For example, RC (right click) on the Upgrader opens a menu which you can use materials to upgrade your armors, weapons and pickaxes. You can also use commands (see GAMBL3T thread) for easier accessibility.
Currently you have:
- Leather Armor
- Wooden Sword
- Wooden Pickaxe
- 16 Steak

After you explored the Spawn Island, you should do as the Tutorial says. For context, the Tutorial helps you upgrade your Wooden Pickaxe to Stone Pickaxe and your Wooden Sword to Sharpness I. To upgrade, you mine some stone, go back to spawn and RC to the Upgrader for upgrade and you must have enough materials. If the Tutorial says upgrade your Wooden Pickaxe to Stone Pickaxe, you shouldn't do that, instead upgrade it to Efficiency V and upgrade the rest of your gear to chain armor and stone sword.

Next thing to do after you upgraded your gear (except pickaxe) to chain and stone, start mining a lot of coal (about 32 stacks of coal) and upgrade your pickaxe to Efficiency V. After that you do the same thing to your armor, sword and pickaxe but do NOT upgrade to iron. Next part I will show the reason why you shouldn't upgrade to iron and the first dangers of the Iron mine.

Part II: The Dangerous Mines
At this point, you should have:
- Full Protection III Chain Armor (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- Sharpness III Stone Sword (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- Efficiency V Stone Pickaxe (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- 64 Steaks
- 1 compressed block of coal for upgrading your equipment to iron

Before going to the iron mine, I recommend you to do this command /withdraw all to keep all of your money in your inventory and mine 64 stone for 64 steaks at The Basic Shop. DO NOT GO TO THE OUTPOSTS AT ANY COST (your entire inventory will drop there if you die except pickaxes, they will not drop there).

Last part I mentioned "do NOT upgrade to iron", why?
- Every new tier of pickaxes always mine slower than maxed out of the last tier.
- Almost every new tier of swords always deal less damage than maxed out of the last tier (except golden tier to diamond tier because 7 damage = 7 damage).
- Every new tier of armors always protect you less than maxed out of the last tier.
- The only upside of upgrading gears is increased durability (except golden, which decreases; netherite, which is p a i n; and bows, which increase damage).

After you have maxed out coal tier, now you enter the iron mine. This mine is the first that does have PVP enabled. This means that you can fight other players for money and/or kills. The first thing to do in iron mine is carefully see if there is any people wearing netherite armor camping at iron mine. Don't go there or you will keep getting killed repeatedly. Next, you steal get 1 iron and do /is create, make a shield with 6 wood and 1 iron (for ranked, you don't need to do that command, do /craft to craft a shield instead). After you have a shield, you type /passive, start mining a lot of iron again (64 stacks or 1 block of compressed iron), upgrade your iron pickaxe to Efficiency V and do the same as stone. Don't upgrade to golden gears, buy a bow, mine 9 compressed iron and upgrade the bow.

'Part III: Out of the dangers (not really)
Before going to the gold mine, make sure you have:
- Full Protection III Iron Armor (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- Shield (enchanting is optional)
- Power I Bow (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- Sharpness III Iron Sword (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- Efficiency V Iron Pickaxe (enchanting is optional, not recommend amethyst enchants)
- 64 Steak/Golden Apple
- your precious bank note
- 1 compressed block of iron for downgrading your equipment to golden

Now go to the gold mine. This mine and beyond (except lapis, emerald, redstone and amethyst) is pretty safe because there are less netherite armored people going there (they went to iron mine to camp). The more you progress, the more you need to mine: you need to mine 5 compressed gold blocks for upgrade (armor, sword, pickaxe and bow); go to diamond mine and mine for 8 compressed block of diamond for upgrade too; and some stacks of gold for arrows. Last, go to emerald mine (yes, we don't care about anyone there, just type /passive, assuming your 2 hours cooldown ended), mine until you enchant your pickaxe to Fortune X for tripled blocks drops and another 16 compressed emerald or more for fireworks.

Next, go to the amethyst mine. It is located in the middle of the end, which is inside the End outpost. We probably don't want to walk a long way and lose your stuff there so before go there, type /pv to open your personal vault, put everything besides your favorite diamond pickaxe. Go there, either mine 10 compressed amethyst blocks for Haste II or (greedy) mine 42 compressed amethyst blocks for Haste III, and another 5 compressed amethyst blocks for an elytra. Remember, every time you mined a compressed amethyst block, you put it in your vault and repeat. After that you take a break for a while, take your equipment in your vault, and prepare for the pain and trouble.

Part IV: Fiery Nether, chilling miners

After the trip from the End, now you should have:
- Full Protection III Diamond Armor (enchanting is optional, recommend amethyst enchants)
- Shield (enchanting is optional)
- Elytra (enchanting is optional, recommend amethyst enchants)
- Power III Bow (enchanting is optional, recommend amethyst enchants)
- Sharpness III Diamond Sword (enchanting is optional, recommend amethyst enchants)
- Efficiency V, Fortune X, Haste II/III Diamond Pickaxe (maxed enchant, no need further enchanting)
- 64 Steak/Golden Apple
- 1 or more stacks of fireworks
- 1 or more stacks of arrows
- your precious bank note
- some spare compressed blocks of diamond for upgrading equipment to netherite

The Nether is a pretty painful here, not because of the lava, fire or fighting players, but the time you mine netherite here (about 2 seconds per ancient debris/netherite block). It takes about 8-12 hours of straight mining netherite with your diamond pickaxe to get maxed equipment (without ranks). But with this guide, you can probably reduce the time by uhh...1-2 hours! Now start mine netherite, 8 compressed netherite blocks (someone already quit trying to mine netherite for pickaxe because it's painful) and do not upgrade your pickaxe until you done mining. Then go to either left or right to the obsidian mine. Upgrading costs for netherite significant reduce when upgrading to Efficiency II and VI, so upgrading to max level is needed (9 for non-ranked players, increases by 1 for each rank higher you have: X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV/XV). If you're not satisfied, ask your high-ranked friend to upgrade your pickaxe (Regent-ranked friend is ok for Efficiency XII, which instamine every ores in Overworld). After maxed out your pickaxe, you upgrade your armor to max too, which is another 8 compressed blocks of netherite for full protection III netherite armor, 3 compressed block of obsidian and 1 compressed block of crying obsidian; and all of your equipment. Also ask your friend for further upgrade levels.

Part V: The end?...or not
This is your current equipment:
- Full Protection IV/VI Netherite Armor (probably maxed out the enchants/amethyst enchants)
- Shield (probably maxed out the enchants/amethyst enchants)
- Elytra (probably maxed out the enchants/amethyst enchants)
- Power VIII Bow (probably maxed out the enchants/amethyst enchants)
- Sharpness V/VII Netherite Sword (probably maxed out the enchants/amethyst enchants)
- Efficiency IX/XV, Fortune X, Haste II/III Netherite Pickaxe
- Optional Axes (Iron/Diamond/Netherite)
- 64 Steak/Golden Apples
- 1 or more stacks of fireworks
- 1 or more stacks of arrows
- your precious bank note
- Don't (or do) lose your items in outposts.
We have reached the end of SkyMines progression...?

No. There are two final progression branch here to choose:
- P2W, this unlocks many armor, swords, pickaxes skins, ranks, tag, chat color, etc...to be bought in-game, which you can buy Pika Gold to use in-game from the server's store.
- Voting, this also unlocks many mentioned above, but this method spend time instead of money. You will receive Pika Iron from the server's voting page, which you can also buy almost everything in the in-game store.

After that, this is the end of the progression. But, you can have fun in this gamemode after the long, tedious time of progressing:
- You can be pacifist, talking to people, finding friends, or even protect new players from being killed by stronger players.
- Or, you can either genocide people for farming kills and money.
- Either way, if you die in outpost, you can still use your overpowered pickaxe to progress back.

That is the end of this guide, have fun in SkyMines gamemode!
If you want to meet me in-game, wait me in the spawn at:
GMT+07:00, 5:24 PM 31st October 2024