Everything you need to know to start your mining journey
When you start Ore Journey, you're piloting a mining ship through an endless asteroid belt. Your goal is to mine ore, sell it for credits, and upgrade your ship to travel deeper into increasingly hazardous—but more lucrative—space.
Click on an asteroid to target it with your mining laser. The laser will fire automatically and extract ore over several seconds. You can only target one asteroid at a time with your manual laser.
Gold asteroids appear occasionally and contain 3x more ore than regular asteroids. These are reserved for your manual laser—auto-lasers and drones won't target them, so click fast!
Purchase auto-lasers to passively mine asteroids. Each auto-laser independently targets and mines asteroids, extracting ore without any input from you. Upgrade their power, cycle time, and cooldown to maximize efficiency.
Drones fly out to asteroids, mine them, and return ore to your cargo hold. They're slower than lasers but can mine multiple asteroids in parallel. Upgrade their speed, cargo capacity, and mining cycle to boost production.
Every 60 seconds, the trader arrives and automatically converts all ore in your cargo hold into credits. Credits are used to purchase upgrades and are your primary measure of progress.
Your game is saved at each trader tick, so you never lose more than a minute of progress.
Your ship continuously travels deeper into the asteroid belt. The further you go:
If your hull reaches 0 HP, you'll perform an emergency warp back to safer space, losing some distance progress.
To push deeper, you need to balance:
When your hull HP drops below 50, your ship automatically slows down to reduce hazard exposure. At 20 HP or below, your ship stops completely until repairs bring you above the threshold.
This gives your repair systems time to restore your hull before you push further into danger.
There are 14 upgrades across four categories. A balanced approach works best:
| Category | Focus | When to Prioritize |
|---|---|---|
| Mining | Manual & Auto Lasers | Early game, active play |
| Drones | Drone Count & Efficiency | Idle play, mid-game |
| Ship | Engine, Cargo, Hull | Progression milestones |
| Survival | Hull & Repair Power | When hazard outpaces repair |
See the Upgrades Encyclopedia for detailed stats on each upgrade.
Anonymous play: Your progress is stored locally and will be lost if you clear your browser data or switch devices.
Signed in: Create an account with Google or Discord to save your progress to the cloud. Your game syncs automatically every trader tick.
Ore Journey