Mr. Mine Idle: Scientists and Excavation Missions

Mr. Mine Idle is an idle mining game developed by Playsaurus that has captured the hearts of many miners.

With more and more features being added to keep the game fresh and engaging, it’s worth mentioning scientists and excavations – one of the most profitable features in the early to mid-game.

In this article, we’ll discuss everything about scientists and excavation in Mr. Mine Idle, explaining their roles, where to find them, and the best way to use these features!

The Role of Scientists in Mr. Mine

If you’ve played Clicker Heroes before, scientists and excavation missions in this game about mining work exactly like mercenaries and quests in CH.

For each scientist you’ve obtained in the mineshaft, you can send them on a mission to find various mission rewards, such as minerals and relics.

Although you can idle all day in Mr. Mine to get the required materials and upgrade your drill, it’s crucial to use scientists because they’re the main source of relics and building materials.

These rewards significantly boost your progress and make your miner life easier. As in an idle incremental game, small boosts create huge differences in the long term.

Once you’ve unlocked scientists and excavations, a new building will be unlocked at the top of your manager (or on top of the Sell Center). That’s the place you can interact with your scientists.

There are only 4 tabs in this new building. The first three tabs are where you can send your scientists on excavation missions and get rewards, while the final one is the Relic tab, which contains all of your discovered relics.

That said, you can only have 3 scientists at the same time.

How to Acquire Scientists

There are 3 main ways to get scientists in Mr. Mine Idle. However, the first chest you open after 50 km will always give you a scientist to start your mining journey.

1. From Chests

For each chest afterward, the chance to get a scientist depends on your current number of scientists. Specifically:

• If you have 0 scientists: 3.75%
• If you have 1 scientist: 2.5%
• If you have 2 scientists: 1.25%
• If you have 3 scientists: 0%

As you can see, with a full team of scientists, you can’t actually get more backup scientists from picking up chests. But check out the other two options if you’re interested in getting some.

2. From Excavation Missions

Besides normal rewards, your scientists can do excavation missions to get new scientists. Yes, it is just like they find a new friend deep down in the cave.

This type of excavation mission is only available if you have an empty slot (so 2 or fewer scientists in your building).

However, it’s advisable not to do so because this type of mission is pretty hard to complete unless you have some buff from relics.

3. From Caves

Unlike the other two methods, you can get an unlimited amount of scientists by finding scientist scrolls inside caves. The chance is not high, but you can have a strong backup line of scientists waiting in the cave building over time.

Once you’ve found a scientist scroll, do not use it immediately if you have all 3 scientists because instead of giving you a new scientist, it will give bonus XP to a random current scientist.

All Scientist Types and Rarity

Currently, there are 17 different scientists divided into 4 primary categories:

• 8 Common Scientists
• 4 Uncommon Scientists
• 3 Rare Scientists
• 2 Legendary Scientists

Although each scientist has a different icon, they’re all the same. The only difference here is their rarity, which will heavily affect the failure chance when you send them to do excavation missions, the EXP multiplier, and the chance they can actually die from a mission.

Rarity	Chance to Obtain	% Failure Chance Reduction	XP Multiplier	RNG Rolls on Failure
Common	5.2% – 10.5%	0%	1	1
Uncommon	5.2%	10%	1.1	1
Rare	5.2%	25%	1.25	2
Legendary	5.2%	55%	1.55	4

That said, higher rarity scientists level up faster, have a low failure chance for every mission, and are harder to die if they actually fail the mission.

On the other hand, the level of a scientist only affects the mission speed.

All 17 Scientists and Excavation Missions

There are four types of excavation missions in Mr. Mine Idle:

Difficult	Duration	Chance of Failure
Easy	30 minutes – 2 hours	0%
Medium	30 minutes – 2 hours	5% – 10%
Hard	1 hour – 4 hours	25% – 50%
Nightmare	1 hour – 4 hours	40% – 95%

Here’s the Mr. Mine scientist list, including all 8 common scientists, 4 uncommon scientists, 3 rare scientists, and 2 legendary scientists.

Avatar	Name	Rarity	Chance to Obtain
	Jank	Common	10.5%
	Mrs. Marge	Common	5.2%
	Taylor	Common	5.2%
	Ziggy	Common	10.5%
	The Aussie	Common	5.2%
	Lt. Ramirez	Common	5.2%
	Layla	Common	5.2%
	Dennis	Common	5.2%
	Dallas	Uncommon	5.2%
	Ernie	Uncommon	5.2%
	Dr. Gilbert	Uncommon	5.2%
	Dr. Franduzle	Uncommon	5.2%
	Mr. Mustache	Rare	5.2%
	Mr. Mustachio	Rare	5.2%
	Professor Zany	Rare	5.2%
	Dr. Archibald	Legendary	5.2%
	James the BEAR	Legendary	5.2%

When you send a scientist for an excavation mission, Mr. Mine Idle gives you 2 mission choices. Normally, the one on the left will be the easy one, and the other one is medium, hard, or nightmare.

However, remember that when your scientist’s level is higher than 30, a nightmare difficulty mission can spawn on the left to bring unavoidable death.

Rewards from Excavation

There are more than 50 different rewards you can get from excavation missions. Each comes with a different rarity and benefits.

Overall, the one with a higher rarity will be harder to obtain. But they play a huge role in boosting your progression significantly.

Reward	Benefit	Rarity
Small Mineral Pile	Small amount of minerals	0
Banana of Time	3.5 minutes timelapse, scale with scientist’s level	0.05
Basic Chest	It’s a regular chest	0.1
Small Bag of Money	Small amount of money	0.1
Large Mineral Pile	Large amount of minerals	0.12
Pile of Building Materials	2 Building Materials	0.18
Medium Bag of Money	Medium amount of money	0.2
Medium Mineral Pile	Medium amount of minerals	0.2
Carrot of Time	6 minutes timelapse, scale with scientist’s level	0.22
Strawberry of Time	12 minutes timelapse, scale with scientist’s level	0.3
Bullseye	Increase critical hit chance by 5/7/10%	0.3
Large Bag of Money	Large amount of money	0.35
Oil	Gain some Oil	0.4
Scythe	Increases chance to resurrect a scientist by 2/4/5%	0.4
Light Boot	Increases weapon speed by 1/3/6%	0.4
Cargo Expansion	Increases cargo capacity by 15/30/45%	0.4
Wooden Shield	Increases max health by 3/6/12%	0.42
Pay Cut	Decreases miner upgrade and hire costs by 5/8/10%	0.45
1 Ticket	Gain 1 Ticket	0.45
Chocolate of Time	16 minutes timelapse, scale with scientist’s level	0.45
Eagle Eye	Increase critical hit chance by 7/10/15%	0.45
Super Miner Souls	Get some Super Miner Souls	0.45
Stack of Building Materials	10 Building Materials (<= 600km)	0.49
Sword of War	Increases all damage by 5/8/12%	0.5
Wider Well	Increases the oil generation rate by 5/8/12%	0.5
Unlock a New Weapon	Unlock a new weapon	0.5
Sack of Endurance	Increase the Buff duration by 7/10/15%	0.5
Endless Miner Speed Potion	Increases miner speed by 6/8/13 %	0.55
Steel Shield	Increases max health by 5/10/15%	0.55
Light Golden Boots	Increases weapon speed by 5/8/10%	0.55
Endless Gem Speed Potion	Decrease gem upgrade time by 5/10/15%	0.55
1km Depth	Gain 1km depth (<= 600km)	0.55
Golden Shovel	Increases minerals and isotopes sell price by 6/8/13%	0.56
New Contract	Unlocks a new scientist (if you have free slot)	0.57
Sparkly Distraction	Decreases blueprint purchase price by 6/8/10%	0.6
Book of Ingenuity	Increase the Building Materials find chance in basic Chests by 6/12/16%	0.65
Book of Time	Increases all timelapse durations by 10/12/15%	0.65
Copper Scythe	Increases chance to resurrect a scientist by 3/5/7%	0.65
2x Tickets	Gain 2 Tickets	0.67
Endless Drill Speed Potion	Increases drill speed by 10/15/20%	0.7
Nugget of Attraction	Increases money from treasure chests by 10/15/20%	0.7
Golden Bow	Increase critical hit chance by 10/15/20%	0.7
Key of Luck	Increases chest spawn frequency by 5/7/10%	0.71
Relic Bag	Increases max relic slots by 1	0.72
Endless Scientist Speed Potion	Increases the experience of scientist by 15/20/25%	0.75
Egg of Incubation	Increases offline progress maximum duration by 10/20/30%	0.75
Golden Scythe	Increases chance to resurrect a scientist by 5/7/10%	0.8
Midas Touch	Increases chance of selling for 2x the price when selling minerals and isotopes by 5/7/10%	0.85
Elemental Pickaxe	Increases the chance of finding isotopes by 15/20/25 %	0.85
Book of Success	Increases all excavation success rates by 10/12.5/15%	0.9
Copper Pickaxe	Each new KM depth reached grants 3/7/10 hrs worth of your highest mineral unlocked	0.9
Key of Gold	Increases the current spawn rate of golden chests by 5/6.5/8%	0.91
Golden Chest	Gain 1 Golden Chest	0.92
Big Cheese	Double all current minerals in inventory, limit 2x your capacity	0.94
Book of Secrets	A legendary relic used to sacrifice in the Core	0.94
The Golden Pickaxe	Each new KM depth reached grants 12/16/18 hrs worth of your highest mineral unlocked	0.97

On harder missions, the reward’s icon is replaced with the “???” image. So you can only see the reward after your scientist completes the mission. This small detail adds a surprise element to the game.

Excited for surprises? Play Mr. Mine now and discover all the hidden rewards ahead!

Handling Scientist Death and Immortality Strategy with Warped Scientists

It’s important to understand the game mechanics. Eventually, your scientists will die from excavation missions, no matter how hard you try. So, keep this cycle in mind, and don’t be frustrated when one of your scientists dies.

1. Get a new scientist.
2. Send to the mission.
3. If the mission succeeds, get the rewards and repeat step 2.
4. If the mission fails, you can either bury your scientist or revive him/her using Tickets.
5. Repeat

The scientist’s life is decided right after you hit the “Start” button in each excavation mission. That said, you can only know the result after the mission is completed.

By default, your scientists have a 1% chance to instantly revive on death. And 3 Scythe relics can increase this chance significantly.

Moreover, you can lower the failure (or death) rate by using the Book of Success relic and high-rarity scientists. In addition, sacrificing a scientist to the Core has a 50% chance of returning a warped version.

So, by using relics and upgrading your scientists, you can create immortal scientists with a low death chance and a higher resurrection chance.

If you don’t have a good setup just yet, you can always use tickets to revive dead scientists. Remember that the ticket cost scale with the scientist’s level, ranging from 1 to 32 tickets per revival.

Leveling Up Scientists

Scientists in Mr. Mine Idle gain XP over time upon successful missions and will level up when they spend a certain amount of hours.

Level	Hours to Reach Next Level	Total Hours
1	2.0	2.0
2	2.1	4.1
3	2.2	6.3
4	2.3	8.6
5	2.4	10.9
6	2.5	13.4
7	2.6	16.0
8	2.7	18.8
9	2.8	21.6
10	3.0	24.6
11	3.1	27.7
12	3.2	30.9
13	3.4	34.3
14	3.5	37.9
15	3.7	41.6
16	3.9	45.4
17	4.0	49.5
18	4.2	53.7
19	4.4	58.1
20	4.6	62.7
21	4.8	67.6
22	5.0	72.6
23	5.3	77.9
24	5.5	83.4
25	5.8	89.1
26	6.0	95.1
27	6.3	101.4
28	6.6	108.0
29	6.9	114.8
30	7.2	122.0
31	7.5	129.5
32	7.8	137.3
33	8.2	145.5
34	8.5	154.1
35	8.9	163.0
36	9.3	172.3
37	9.8	182.1
38	10.2	192.3
39	10.7	202.9
40	11.1	214.1
41	11.6	225.7
42	12.2	237.8
43	12.7	250.6
44	13.3	263.8
45	13.9	277.7
46	14.5	292.2
47	15.1	307.3
48	15.8	323.2
49	16.5	339.7
50	17.3	357.0
51	18.1	375.1
52	18.9	393.9
53	19.7	413.7
54	20.6	434.3
55	21.5	455.8
56	22.5	478.3
57	23.5	501.9
58	24.6	526.5
59	25.7	552.1
60	26.8	579.0
61	28.1	607.1
62	29.3	636.4
63	30.6	667.0
64	32.0	699.0
65	33.5	732.5
66	35.0	767.4
67	36.5	804.0
68	38.2	842.2
69	39.9	882.0
70	41.7	923.7
71	43.6	967.3
72	45.5	1012.8
73	47.6	1060.4
74	49.7	1110.1
75	52.0	1162.1
76	54.3	1216.4
77	56.7	1273.1
78	59.3	1332.4
79	62.0	1394.4
80	64.7	1459.1
81	67.7	1526.8
82	70.7	1597.5
83	73.9	1671.4
84	77.2	1748.6
85	80.7	1829.3
86	84.3	1913.6
87	88.1	2001.7
88	92.1	2093.8
89	96.2	2190.0
90	100.5	2290.5
91	105.1	2395.6
92	109.8	2505.4
93	114.7	2620.2
94	119.9	2740.1
95	125.3	2865.4
96	130.9	2996.3
97	136.8	3133.1
98	143.0	3276.1
99	149.4	3425.6
100	156.2	3581.7

So, what does the level of a scientist do in Mr. Mine?

It’s simple! The scientists’ level only affects how fast they complete the excavation mission, not reducing the death chance of the missions.

Conclusion

So that’s all you need to know about Mr. Mine Idle scientists and excavation missions!

If you have any new knowledge or strategies to optimize the gameplay and improve the experience for the game community, feel free to leave it in the comment box below or let us know in Discord.

Remember to calculate the risk and make the right decision to boost your mining experience to a new height. And enjoy this idle clicker game!