Mining

Updated 1 November 2026

Mining is a second way to play: instead of fighting, your hero digs Scrap Metal, gold or gear fragments with a pickaxe. Tap the Mining switch at the top of the Zone List, next to Nightmare, to look around the mine: your hero keeps fighting while you look at the hexes and fundings. It starts mining only when you press Mine here on a hex. Tap Mining again to go back to the battle view.

Three mining zones

The Fragment Rift is the main source of gear fragments: opened chests and salvage no longer give them, and only Ancient Recovery Caches and some packs still hold a few. Fragments can be bought and sold on the Marketplace (Materials tab, Fragments category).

Hexes and rings

Each zone is a map of 91 hexes in 6 rings: ring 0 is the single centre hex and ring 5 the outer edge. The further out a hex is, the richer its rock and the better the pickaxe it asks for:

A hex's rock is shared by everyone mining it. Your share is your dig rate against the dig rate of everyone on that hex, and the earnings strip shows it: it drops when a stronger miner joins, so a quieter hex can pay you more. A hex pays out faster as more miners dig it, up to its capacity. One miner can fill that capacity alone, up to the limit of their pickaxe. Tap a hex to see what is inside.

Your pickaxe

Power sets how hard each blow hits and Speed how many blows land per minute: together they are your dig rate. Durability and Efficiency decide how long the pickaxe digs before it needs a repair: it mines Durability × (1 + Efficiency ÷ 100) hours, and repairs cost gold. See Pickaxes & Crates for upgrades, rerolls and fusion.

Every pickaxe has a limit: the most it can mine, with all your bonuses. A higher rarity has a higher limit. While you mine, you see the limit under your earnings per hour. On a small hex, the hex fills up first, so you see no limit.

A pickaxe wears only while it digs. When its durability runs out it stops digging, but it is not lost: press Repair to restore full durability for gold (the price follows the wear), and while you still have energy it goes back to work on the same hex. Until you repair it or equip another pickaxe, your hero stays in the mine and gets no battle rewards, so switch Mining off if you will not repair it soon.

• Pickaxe Crates drop from bosses: every boss you defeat with a Boss Key has a 10% chance, and so does every boss in a Boss Rush.
• Pickaxes and crates trade on the Marketplace.
• No pickaxe yet? Buy a Basic Pickaxe for 250,000 gold. It can mine ring 1.

Energy

You have 8 hours of mining energy. With an Angel pickaxe it lasts 12 hours, and with a God pickaxe 24 hours. It drains only while you mine and refills while you fight. It refills at the same speed it drains, also while you are offline, so an empty bar is full again after 8 hours away from mining. With an Angel or God pickaxe the bar is longer but refills faster, so a full refill also takes 8 hours. You need at least 10 minutes of energy to start, and when it runs out your hero goes back to battle on its own.

Claiming

Every rock you break fills your cart. Press Claim and everything in the cart goes straight into your bag, together with any royalties from hexes you funded.

Funding a hex

The outer rings start locked. Players open a hex for everyone by funding it with $AFKHERO from their balance. The smallest gift is 1,000 $AFKHERO, or whatever the hex still needs if that is less. The funders of a hex share 30% of everything mined there, split by how much each one gave, and collect it with the same Claim button.

The Angel Hex and the God Hexes

The centre hex of each zone is the Angel Hex. Only an Angel or God pickaxe can mine it. It pays like a ring 5 hex.

Six hexes of ring 5 in each zone are God Hexes. They glow on the map, and only a God pickaxe can mine them. Nobody can fund a God Hex: it opens for free when a hex next to it opens.

Rich veins

Every zone has 3 rich veins this season. They glow on the map, on locked hexes far out in ring 4 or 5. A rich vein holds twice the ore of its hex, and the extra ore is dug twice as fast. To reach one, fund a path of hexes out to it: a hex can be funded only next to an open one.

Guild hexes

A guild leader or officer can fund a hex for the guild. Pick a hex that can be funded and press Start guild funding. For 24 hours only the guild's members can give to it, and what they give is held until the guild reaches the hex price.

• When the gifts reach the price, the hex opens for the guild's members only. The guild's gifts pay the price and are not given back: in return the members who gave share the funders' 30% of everything mined there, to claim in the mine. Players who gave to that hex in public before the guild funding started get their gifts back.
• Every hex a guild holds flies the guild's banner on the mining map, with its approved emblem, or its tag on a shield when it has none. The hex panel shows the emblem too.
• If it does not fill in 24 hours, or a leader or officer cancels it, every gift goes back in full. That guild can start a new funding of the same hex 24 hours later; other guilds can start one there at once.
• When a funding starts, every member who can give gets a pop-up in the game to give from, and a guild with its own Discord channel gets a message there from our bot with the guild role tagged. The channel hears when it fills too. A guild announces at most 10 fundings a day.
• A guild runs one funding at a time and holds at most 10 guild hexes in each zone. It can start the next one as soon as a funding fills.
• A member who leaves the guild stops mining its hexes. If the guild disbands, its hexes open to everyone.

Renting a pickaxe

On the Marketplace, open Gear, then Pickaxes, and switch to For rent to see the pickaxes other players lend by the hour. Pick one, choose 1 to 8 hours (fewer if its owner set a shorter longest rental) and pay up front. The hours count from the moment you rent: your hero mines with that pickaxe until the lease runs out, then goes back to its own pickaxe, or stops if it has none. The wear goes to the owner's pickaxe, never to yours.

• Need more time? Press Extend on your rental, under My Listings or on the mining screen, to add hours at the same price per hour, paid up front like the rent. A rental never runs past the longest rental its owner allows (8 hours at most), the pickaxe's durability or the end of the season.
• You can end a lease early. It gives no refund, and you can rent again 10 minutes later.
• To lend one, press Rent out a pickaxe, pick an idle pickaxe from your bag, set a price per hour and choose the longest rental you allow, 1 to 8 hours with extensions included. It leaves your bag while it is up for rent, and you can take it back from My Listings whenever it is not rented.
• Every rent pays you the price less the market fee, which stake tiers lower as on sales. Listing for rent costs the same listing fee as a sale.
• You rent one pickaxe at a time, only for the hours its durability still covers, and only one that can dig the hex your hero is on.

Diamond Digger trips

The Diamond Digger pet can go mining on its own. From the Pets tab of your bag, send it to the Scrap Yard, the Gold Vein or the Fragment Rift with one pickaxe from your bag: it digs an open hex for 1 hour (3 hours with an Angel pickaxe, 12 hours with a God pickaxe), brings the goods to your cart, then rests for 6 hours (5 from level 3, 4 from level 6 and 3 at level 10). While your Drop Boost is on, it digs twice as hard too.

• The pet takes a place on a hex like any miner, never on your hero's hex. Its level raises its dig rate, and your gold and scrap bonuses make it dig faster too.
• The pickaxe leaves your bag for the trip and comes back with its wear. A rented pickaxe never goes on a trip.
• Every Diamond Digger you own can go on its own trip, each with its own pickaxe and its own rest, and never two of yours on one hex.
• One in your bag can go without being equipped: tap it in your bag and press Send to the mine. It leaves the bag for the trip and comes back to your bag when it has rested (to your mailbox if the bag is full). Your hero keeps the mining bonus of the equipped one meanwhile.
• While the equipped one is away or resting it stays with you: it cannot be unequipped, sold or put in a guild vault until it is back and rested. Your hero does not get its mining bonus while it is away.

Bonuses in the mine

• Gold bonuses from your gear, skin, guild, card binder and Server Goal 2x gold days make you dig faster in the Gold Vein: you mine more an hour and empty a hex sooner, but a hex never gives more than the ore it holds, and your pickaxe never digs past its limit.
• Scrap bonuses from Server Goal scrap days, the Prism Reliquary skin and the card binder make you dig faster in the Scrap Yard.
• No gold or scrap bonus applies to the fragments you mine in the Fragment Rift (a Drop Boost still raises your dig rate there).
• While a 2x Drops boost is running, your dig rate doubles. It still counts within the limits above, so a miner who already fills a whole hex, or whose pickaxe is at its limit, gains nothing extra.
• Your hero still gains XP while mining: a fifth of what battle gives. It also earns your guild the Guild Points that fighting in your zone would have given, and adds half of that fight to your Season score.

There is no daily limit: you can keep mining for as long as your energy and your pickaxe last. Mining goes on while the game is closed, until your energy or your pickaxe runs out.