Depth pays, distance costs
Deeper tiles hold better resources, and every tile adds distance to the trip home. Dome Keeper is a game about that trade, not about digging as far as you can. The best miners are not the ones who go deepest — they are the ones who get home in time.
How each keeper mines
Your keeper decides your baseline tool:
- Engineer — single-tile drill, one hit every 0.35s; tile health varies by biome and rock hardness.
- Assessor — bouncing orbs plus slower compress-mining; more reach than a single tile.
- Infiltrator (DLC) — explosive kunai, one block each, unlimited range, slow fire, strong on dense rock.
- Beastmaster (DLC) — two tentacles slamming claws; speed builds up while mining, fades when stopped.
Gadgets that change mining
The gadget database lists these by slot and type:
- Drillbert (Cellar, Creature) — an auto-digging creature that bores straight tunnels; 200 drilling hits by default (upgradable to 300), power 0.80 (upgradable to 8), and only stops at an indestructible wall. Great for a straight shaft.
- Drilling Rig (Mine Shaft) — a central drill that goes straight down under the dome and can drill through bedrock; side drillers reduce their cooldown to zero.
- Blast Mining (Cellar) — carries blast charges that clear a small area when dropped.
- Suit Blaster (Cellar) — clears all tiles in a 1.5-tile radius around you.
- Lift (Shaft) — hauls resources up automatically; the Gravitational Lift supplement replaces orbs with a beam that pulls everything up at once.
- Teleporter (Cellar) — a two-way link between a cellar station and a portable portal, collapsing the trip home to an instant.
- Resource Packer (Keeper Suit) — bundles resources so they count as one item, negating carry slowdown.
- Droneyard (Primary) — auto-transports mined resources back to the dome.
Build the route home first
Before you chase a vein, make the way back fast. A Lift or a Teleporter turns a dangerous walk into a short one; Drillbert and the Drilling Rig build the shaft that the Lift rides. A mining gadget early usually beats two later, because it compounds every day after.
Related guides
- Resources Guide — mine to a shopping list, not by instinct.
- Gadgets Guide — the slot conflicts behind every mining pick.
- Exploration Guide — recon first, dig second.