Healer at Heart I just can't get enough of that healing power.

Allods Online: Mining

Though Mining in Allods Online is pretty self-explanatory, getting started may be somewhat frustrating.

One of the first things you should do is take the quest offered by the trainer.  If he doesn't show an exclamation mark above his head just talk to him, a quest should show up as a chat option.  The quest will bring you to three places.  Remember them!  Doing the quest should get you to a skill level of 60-ish.

Here's a map of the city with these areas marked:

Here are screenshots of those three areas:

Zone 1

Zone 2

Zone 3

You'll need to raise your skill level before moving from Nezebgrad (for Empire) to the Igsh Military District.  The easiest way to do this is to mine Rock Chips directly behind the Mining trainer until you hit skill level 90.  You can then move to the second area the quest brought you to.  From Bort Quarter head to Boiler Camp.  I stopped gaining levels at 101 and moved to the next area.  From Bort Quarter head to Hadron Quarter.

Something to keep in mind is you can only be a skill level of 10x your character level.  I had to stop at skill level 110 since I was only level 11 at the time.  That proved to be a high enough skill level to move on from the city.

At character level 20 (and 30 and 40) go back to the trainer and purchase an upgraded Pick.  Supposedly, you will get better quality gathers with the higher quality tools but that's not 100% confirmed.  If you have the money you might as well buy them, better safe than sorry.

One thing I've noticed: once you leave the city the nodes do not act the same.  In the first three zones, one node (or glowing orb) equaled one gather.  Outside those zones 4-8 nodes equals one gather.  You CAN fail an attempt at mining and that's when the multiple nodes comes in handy.  Only one will disappear if you fail to gather but once you are successful all the rest of the nodes in that one area will disappear.

Mining Nodes

If I find out anything else I'll make sure to update this post.

Hope this helps!

EDIT: As I'm not currently playing, things may have changed since I've written this.