Guide to Hard Tack: Prospector

This is a guide to the Prospector role in the Hard Tack of Thorin's Hall Craft Event.

Introduction

The Hard Tack Event is currently scheduled to occur from the 1st to the 8th of each month. (That is, from 00:01 on the 1st, to 23:59 on the 7th.) The event itself occurs in Ukhbab-gairu, Vault of the Great Forge, the door to which is found just to the side (West) of the entrance to Thorin's Hall.

The event will broadcast in Thorin's Gate and Ered Luin:

Hard Tack of Thorin's Hall is now recruiting volunteers. 10 minutes before the hour
The Hard Tack of Thorin's Hall Event begins in five minutes. 5 minutes before the hour
The Hard Tack of Thorin's Hall Event has begun. at the top of the hour (the start of the event).

There are three roles in the event:

Prospector - available to anyone with the Prospecting skill at any level
Cook - available to anyone with the Cooking skill at any level
Assistant - available to everyone (even if they have one or both of the skills above).

The Prospector role

You participate in the event in the Prospector role by going to Skuld Scentlode and accepting the quest Hard Tack Event: Prospecting. You can accept this quest at any time after the 5 minute warning until the end of the event round.

Having accepted the quest, and once the event actually starts, you are offered a set of further quests:

[...] Hard Tack Event: Discover Nodes
- when you get into the mines, you Look for ore nodes. You can only do this quest once per event round, and you are not required to complete it in order to mine nodes. It's sort of a "gimme".

Prospecting quests

Each of these allows you to mine a node of that type, once. Mining the node is like mining any other prospecting node in landscape: there is a progress time involved. Unlike normal mining nodes, the progress timer for these nodes is quite long indeed.

Gathering quests

[...] Hard Tack Event: Large Ore Delivery
[...] Hard Tack Event: Medium Ore Delivery
[...] Hard Tack Event: Small Ore Delivery

Each of these has you picking up ore from the ground and delivering it to an Ore Cart. Again, there is a progress time involved in picking up the ore.

Carrying ore is an induction: you cannot interact with quest items or NPCs while carrying ore.
While carrying the ore, you are slowed for a while, usually longer than the time it would take to get to the nearest ore cart. (But not always.)
While carrying ore, you are vulnerable to Sluggard Miners. Much like the Nosey Hobbit during the mail delivery quests in the Shire, getting too close to a Sluggard Miner will cause you to drop your ore, losing it.
How many ore you have to carry to complete the quest varies: one for the Large Ore, two for the Medium Ore, and three for the Small Ore. A node of the corresponding size will drop enough ore to complete at least one (and possibly several) quests for that size.

Strategies

At base, the prospector strategy is:

accept all of the mining quests, accept one of the delivery quests (your choice), and accept the Discovery quest (if available).
go into the mines (the West side tunnel is best)
complete all of the quests
come back out, and repeat.

This works out fairly well, when you are the sole miner in the event round. Why?

You need to complete as many quests, in as little time, as possible. The induction time (progress time) for mining is not nearly so long as the round-trip time to pick up new quests.
All of the node types can be found near the outer junction of the west tunnel
There is an Ore Cart right nearby to deposit ore into.

If you are only one of several miners, your results may require a somewhat different strategy. (To be developed.)

Additional Strategies

Help from Cooks

If there is a cook present during the event, or if you have saved cooked event food from a previous round, you can use it for a temporary (3-4 minute) bonus that will reduce time needed to complete quests. You would want/need to pick up more as they become available, as you use them.

Thorin's Hall Brew
- Everybody wants this: It reduces induction times by 2/3 for 3 minutes. You would drink this immediately before tapping that first node, and you'd keep tapping nodes until you've completed them all. (Those are the long inductions.) But also, this will help with the induction time to pick up ore, so it helps out there too. If you're swift and clever, you might get back to the center and out again to get some final use out of the brew before it expires.

Thorin's Hall Mushroom Snack
- This will help you get to the center and back out again more quickly. It isn't quite as useful as the brew, but is still handy. It lasts 4 minutes. (Note: It may not be compatible with the Thorin's Hall Brew. (To be developed.)

Thorin's Hall Hearty Meal
- This ... is of marginal use to you. It speeds you up while carrying ore, overcoming the speed penalty. But honestly, you aren't spending the most of your time carrying ore. It lasts 4 minutes, which is nice.

Help from Assistants

Assistants don't give you things, but if you ask, they could get rid of the pesky Sluggard Miners troubling you in much the same way that they get rid of the Sneaky Hobbits to help the cooks (and themselves).

Rewards

Each of these needs to be finished before the event round ends, for the reward to be given. Stages I to IV auto-complete/auto-bestow. You need to talk to the event coordinator (and probably also, complete the quest, closing the dialog and accepting the reward) before the event concludes, or you do not get that final reward.

Stage	Quests	Total Quests	Reward
Stage I	5	5	10 Participation Ribbon
Stage II	5	10	10 Participation Ribbon
Stage III	5	15	20 Participation Ribbon
Stage IV	5	20	5 Runner-up Ribbon
Completion		-	Winner Ribbon

The rewards for completing this are greater than that for the Assistant role. Note, though, that you may be competing against other miners for nodes, which may risk slowing you down.