Ores

**Ores** are the medium you dig through in Digdig.io as well as the main method of gaining XP. Ores are also much better at obstructing your vision than unearthed areas. There are several different kinds of ores, which are shown below. All types of ores tend to show up in clusters. They also tend to "grow" from the same areas of the map. For example, if you dig up some diamonds, leave, and come back, it's likely more diamonds will be there. A similar effect has been found with the border - if you stay there long enough, some rare ores like diamonds or bedrock, or even in some cases, uranium.

## Types of Ores

### Dirt

This is the most common type of ore found throughout the game and is brown like dirt in real life. It gives only 1 XP when dug. In an area without dirt, usually thinner than the smallest Digger, the cleared area may sometimes point toward diamond, though this may be because of how it first forms. When an area is free of players, the dirt may slowly form bridges across empty areas, and will eventually fill up the whole area. Dirt has minimalized value, and yet it is the first requirement of the game.

### Lava

Lava is an uncommon ore and appears bright red. It gives 5 XP when dug but also damages the player. Smaller players will take more damage, but larger ones are still vulnerable to it as well, due to their large hit boxes. On the bright side, lava limits the top players' maneuverability, preventing them from ruling the server for long, and also prevents afk players from blocking the way. When the game first released, lava was lethal, but after the 7/10/21 update, if a player died to lava, the player who last damaged them was awarded their XP. This lasted until the 7/15/21 update. Currently, lava will leave you at 1 hp, leaving large players vulnerable to smaller ones.

### Diamond

Diamond is a somewhat-rare ore that is light blue in color. Diamonds gives 15 XP when dug, more than all the other types of ores except for gold and uranium. Diamonds generally form in large veins in a stream or pool-like formation. They can also be found encased inside of bedrock. This is commonly referred to as a blue egg or geode when it happens. Unrealistically, diamond may be found inside lava, and yet leaving absolutely no effect between the two.

### Gold

Gold is the rarest ore and appears as yellow. It gives the most XP out of all the dirt, a good 100 per bit. Finding gold is one of the ways to acquire in-game currency: you get 1 "gold" for every bit of the ore mined, which you can spend in the shop later. Unlike diamonds, gold usually forms in very small circular clusters. It's the second best form of ore in the game so far due to its high amount of XP (uranium is higher, with an initial 500 decaying to 150) and having no setbacks, but it takes a long time to find it, usually hidden in newly found areas. Gold also takes longer to regen that other ores.

### Bedrock

Bedrock is slightly rarer than diamonds and is a perfect pitch black in color. It bounces back the player by a slight amount when dug. The bounce is reduced when going faster, but increased when moving slower. It is typically found in areas that have been previously dug, but may be found in new areas as well. They yield a fair amount of 15 XP when destroyed, but due to the bounce back, the XP per second may be compared to lava, but less deadly. Unlike other forms of dirt, Bedrock reduces the depth at which you can see into the ores.

Sometimes, diamonds can be found in large clusters of bedrock. These formations are typically referred to as geodes.

### Uranium

Uranium is another very rare ore that appears lime green. It gives the player 500 XP for each bit of Uranium mined; however, this mass is completely separated from the mass you get by digging other ores or dirt: it decays much faster, but it doesn't increase the rate of natural XP loss (so if you have 1m in normal mass and 50k in Uranium mass, you will lose 2000 xp + Uranium withering every second). Of the 500 XP given from each block of uranium, 350 of it decays while 150 is retained, meaning that uranium gives the most XP per block.

### Quartz

Quartz is a common ores and appears as white. It gives you a varying amount of XP but does not slow you down when dug. Instead, it gradually speeds you up and gives you 1 XP. The XP goes up to 10 XP over time. It forms in large circular clusters and regenerates very quickly.

## Gallery

A picture containing all rare forms of dirt except quartz, uranium and gold.A picture of all rare forms of dirt except quartz and uranium.A rare dirt formation where lava and gold are found inside of bedrock.The same dirt formationAn old image showing an example layout for the whole map including rare dirt spawn points. (Image credit: M28)A bedrock moundA geode.A tiny gold vein. Gold usually appears in small amounts.A single pixel of bedrockSome uranium
## Trivia

* Some variants of ores are commonly named as other different things:
	+ Diamonds are sometimes referred to water. Players may state that diamonds are more valuable, and therefore rarer than gold. However, this is actually false, diamonds are more common than gold.
	+ Lava is commonly found underground, so some players may call it magma instead.
	+ Quartz is sometimes referred to as snow.
* Since lava is technically found deep underground in this game, it is technically to be termed as magma. Similarly, diamonds can be found anywhere in the game while in real life, they're usually deep under the soil.
* The names of all of the types of dirt, except for plain dirt, were confirmed by the developer on Discord and in the Changelog.

## References

2. ↑ https://www.diamondnet.ca/blog/which-is-rarer-gold-or-diamonds/