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Hey all...I recently completed the quest "The Final Descent" and was told I could now mine Ebony in the Raven Rock Mine. I can go in to the mine and see the ore in a couple places (this wiki claims there are 9 ore locations, I think I found 4). I was able to mine from one but the rest won't give me the "mine ebony ore" option when I pass the cursor over the rock. The miners in there seem to be doing quite well - they're chipping away. Is there something I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!

Dedawen

This happens from time to time. Try reloading Skyrim, as in exit the game. If that doesn't work, try hitting it with a pickaxe. If it still doesn't mine, reload another save.

Ok great thank you!

Oh one question while I'm at it - do miner NPCs deplete the ore when they mine it?

No.

Which is a good thing. For the most part, NPCs continue to live while you're not there. If they mined up anything, we'd never get any ourselves.

This often happens quite often with ore veins that were depleted before. Leaving the mine and going back in usually fixes this.

Ok thank you. I asked that question about (about NPCs) not to sound like a moron but because the ore veins that I tried to mine did have miners chipping away at them. I logged out and back in about three times and still couldn't mine so I gave up and went back to Skyrim to work on my house....

If there is a miner currently mining an ore deposit, you have to wait for them to finish before you will get the option to mine it.

They don't let you push in like Blacksmiths do.

NPCs will "mine" depleted veins, as well, sometimes even just rocks where no ore vein is to be found. You can't take them as indicator of where you are able to mine.

@Believe: Instead of waiting, you can just manually mine by equipping the pickaxe and hitting the vein with it. Just be careful that you don't hit the miner by accident .

Well I tried every trick listed here - I've logged out & back into the game, re-loaded from an older save, anything I can think of. Raven Rock Mine is simply un-mineable for me.

Belthazor wrote:NPCs will "mine" depleted veins, as well, sometimes even just rocks where no ore vein is to be found. You can't take them as indicator of where you are able to mine.

@Believe: Instead of waiting, you can just manually mine by equipping the pickaxe and hitting the vein with it. Just be careful that you don't hit the miner by accident .

I even tried this - every vein gave me the message "this vein is depleted"

I believe that when I first completed that quest all of the ore veins were depleted (to prevent you from mining during the quest I suppose) and I simply had to wait for them to respawn. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's like 1 week for ore veins...

dedawen wrote:

Belthazor wrote:NPCs will "mine" depleted veins, as well, sometimes even just rocks where no ore vein is to be found. You can't take them as indicator of where you are able to mine.

@Believe: Instead of waiting, you can just manually mine by equipping the pickaxe and hitting the vein with it. Just be careful that you don't hit the miner by accident .

I even tried this - every vein gave me the message "this vein is depleted"

If it's depleted, you obviously can't mine anything from it. You have to wait for it to respawn. I thought your issue was that you couldn't mine despite a "refilled" ore vein.

Belthazor wrote:

dedawen wrote:

Belthazor wrote:NPCs will "mine" depleted veins, as well, sometimes even just rocks where no ore vein is to be found. You can't take them as indicator of where you are able to mine.

@Believe: Instead of waiting, you can just manually mine by equipping the pickaxe and hitting the vein with it. Just be careful that you don't hit the miner by accident .

I even tried this - every vein gave me the message "this vein is depleted"

If it's depleted, you obviously can't mine anything from it. You have to wait for it to respawn. I thought your issue was that you couldn't mine despite a "refilled" ore vein.

I had just completed the quest and was given permission to mine the ore. I had never mined in it until the quest was completed. Visually the ore seemed to be "full" (it had the shimmering quality that full ore has). I wasn't even given the "mine" feature when I passed my cursor over it. When I equipped a pick and manually swung at it, that is when I got the "this vein is depleted" message and the vein lost its luster.

Vulokaazmaar wrote:I believe that when I first completed that quest all of the ore veins were depleted (to prevent you from mining during the quest I suppose) and I simply had to wait for them to respawn. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think it's like 1 week for ore veins...

Now this I didn't know - I can't remember if any of the other ore mines in Skyrim made me wait to access them.

look deeper the first half is the played out ore that they talk about in game. Some of the ore is down by where you killed the drauger.