Updated 07/30/15 - Updated images to the new UI and fixed outdated information.
Updated 08/01/15 - Added link to Crafting guide.

First off, if you're looking for crafting information, take a look at my newer guide covering crafting basics:
http://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=491284007
At the time of writing, I'm pretty new to the game and decided to start taking notes as I learn things. Thus this guide. Resource gathering professions can be a stable way of creating income so you can get to the cool stuff like buying a racer for faster travels or place your own home in a valuable area you frequent. But you have to understand how to do it first, naturally!

Let's start with some resource gathering basics. Before you gather anything, you're going to need the right tools for the job. A mining drill for mining, a saw for cutting trees, etc. The basic tools are readily available from NPCs in the buildings that have crafting stations or General Supply NPCs. Once you have your gathering tools, equip what you're interested in, grab a weapon, and start exploring. Take note that your tool and your weapon do NOT occupy the same slot so you are free to use both at the same time. If you do not have one equipped when you begin extracting a resource, it will be equipped automatically.

If you're in a town still, leave and enter the wilderness! The map can help you find the exit. You can use M or Shift+M to open a map. I find Shift+M more valuable since it lists areas by name, can zoom out and be scrolled, and also bugs out less.

Press J to open your Surveying menu and begin tracking resources in the area. By default, it will look for Ores and Minerals at a "Normal" scan speed. Particularly when starting out, I suggest keeping the speed to Meticulous (10 second scan) to help you better track resources, since Normal can overlook nearby nodes. Each scan will get you a little more information, eventually leading up to distance and direction (so you can find it). You'll also level your profession while scanning!


It's important to distinguish between the two sections "Harvestable" and "Harvester," since Harvester Resources will require you own a harvester (which you probably don't have the money for if this is new information to you). You will be able to gather the Harvestable by hand as long as you have the right tool.

After scanning with your Survey tool, which will eventually tell you what is around you, what direction a resource is in, and how far away it is, it's time to harvest!

Right-click on a harvestable resource and a box will pop up with buttons to "Enhance Node" "Enrich Region" and "Finish." So let's review what this box is:











Enrich: How far the region is from being upgraded by Enhance Region button (see below)
Grade: The average grade of the node. They can be above or below this rating (ratings to be discussed in the next section, don't worry) but will mostly fall around this value.
Time: How long before the region refreshes (deleting any progress from Enriching)
Profession (ie: Logging): How skills you are with your job and thus your potential to increase the quality of the node beyond its current level.
Resource (ie: Morgun): Same as the Profession bar but relating to how talented you are with the specific resource.
Node Grade: The grade of the individual node (the thing you're harvesting).
Time Remaining: How long it'll take you to collect the resource (a few seconds)
Enhance Node: Attempt to enhance the individual node, success depending on your skills with your profession and how familiar your character is with the particular resource. You risk nothing by trying but will spend more time collecting resources. No bonus xp given for enhancing.
Enhance Region: Improve the average grade of the region. Progress is wiped when the region is refreshed at the end of the "Time." It takes a lot of enriching to enhance so it is only suggested for larger groups.
Finish: Collect yo' rewards!

A word on enhancing: It can fail at any time so you have no guarantee of success. Your ability to increase the quality is also hard-capped meaning you can only increase TO a certain degree not BY a certain degree. Using an arbitrary scale as an example, if you collect a 1 to might be able to increase it by 4 to a 5. However, if you collect a 5, you're done and cannot enhance it to a 9. More of this later.

An important thing to know about resources is they come with a quality rating to determine how good they are. Also, this rating can be adjusted by your skills if you are collecting by hand. Resources are given a grade F through A (Like school, E is skipped), with F naturally being the worst. There are 10 ranks inside of each letter quality, 0 - 9. So F0 is the worst grade and A9 is the best. If you want to improve an F0 to a D, you must first increase the resource from F0 to F9 before it becomes D0.

Keep in mind your skills will allow you a chance to increase the node to a certain level but you have a hard cap. Like I discussed in the last section, you might notice the bars are full when you get a D5 node but runs out at C5. So if you start with a C5 resource, you'll be unlikely to increase the node at all. Nodes cannot be enhanced to an A quality. Also, enhancing can fail at any time so you can't expect to always increase a node to your maximum skill level.

Enhancing also does not increase your xp rewards so if you are only trying to level a trade and do not care about what you're getting, you'll be better off autoharvesting. Under Esc --> Game you'll find the option "Enable Auto-Harvesting" with the option to set the grade from a dropdown menu.




























The game will automatically harvest any resource at or above that level. If you know you can't increase beyond C5 you can set it at C5 so the game won't bother you with a pop up. Additionally, if you're simply trying to level a trade, set the cap down to F0 and you'll never see the pop up (faster leveling potential....but terrible resources).

Once you have your resource, you may not know what to do with it. You could press T to open the auction house and try to sell it to other players--drag the resource into the box next to "Search" and "Create" under the default Workorders tab and you can see if anyone is looking to buy. In my experience, it's rare to find someone with a work order out with what exactly you're buying, but it is possible. If one pops up, click on it and then press "Fulfill Order"

If you're willing to wait, you can also click the "Post" tab and post your own order for others to buy:

The options are largely self-explanatory and this is not a trading guide so I'll leave the information simply at this for you to figure out.

More likely than wanting to sell your resources, I suspect, you have a crafting profession you want to level with your new resources. Good news! If you Shift+Right-Click about anything in the game it'll come up with the database article on it. Try it with your new resource and you can see what it is used for! This will help you better manage your inventory so you can sell off what isn't used for your professions.
Based on the recipes listed, I suspect this Tungsten ore is useful in making Alloys. If you click on the Basic Alloy (or whatever recipe you're actually looking at in game), you will see the potential combinations and what they produce. In this case, I could combine Tungsten with Iron to make Refined Steel Bars:

This gives you some basic info on how to get into crafting, but again, this is a resource gathering guide so I won't go into more detail. If this gets good reception, I'll keep making these guides.

Now let's talk about harvesters. They gather automatically with no work required on your part to keep them going. The benefit is even while you're offline, they collect. And while they collect more slowly than doing it by hand, you can place multiple harvesters to really beef up your collection (to my knowledge there is no limit on harvesters beyond how many nodes you can actually locate). The downside is you do not learn anything about the ore in the process so they do not assist in increasing your ability to enhance a node (though you still might level the profession when you craft). Like your crafting tools, you can buy harvesters from the same vendor. You could also make them but they're pretty complicated and......just don't bother if you're new.

As discussed previously, use the Harvester section of your survey menu (J) to find nodes, or look for light blue dots on your map. Once you've approached a node, right-click on it in the world and a menu will pop up with 4 squares. The items in he window are:













Resource: The name of your resource provided by the node
Time Left: How long before the node expires. If your harvester is still on the node at this time, it will be mailed back to you but you will lose any resources it had gathered.
Grade: The grade of the resources you will gain--there is no way to alter this.
Quantity Left X / XXX: How many resources are left in the node. 50 / 250 would mean 50 are left out of its maximum 250.

You will have to explore to find nodes since the areas around towns are likely to be very competitive. Up to four players can extract from a node but only one harvester per nod per player is allowed. Double left click on your harvester or drag it into the box to begin extracting.

Use the Survey menu (J) to keep track of your harvesters and when they need your attention. Go to the Harvester tab and you can see what they're extracting, how quickly, how full they are, how much is left, and how long before the node expires. More importantly, if you left click on a harvester, you will receive the option to place waypoint to it so you can never lose them!

I wasn't sure where else to put this information in the guide so I'll shove it in here:
A quick note/tip that is critical to anyone using lumber: Do not craft with your lumber directly as a "Heat Source." Instead, go to a crafting station and look under your Logging profession (once you pick up the trade card from a vendor). You will see Softwood Lumber, Hardwood Lumber, and Specialty Lumber. Each wood is either a soft, hard, or specialty wood and the corresponding recipe needs to be used. If you are unsure of what your wood is, mouse over it. One of the products of this recipe is firewood that will yield 20 per run and can be used as a heat source. Yep, so using this you get 20 resources instead of the one you would have gotten using the wood directly! Furthermore, you will get planks that sell for a pretty penny to vendors if you don't need them.

Lastly, please let me know any thoughts you have on the guide. My hope is it will dampen the learning curve for some new players and at least give them a starting point. These take a good amount time to put together so I won't bother with additional guides if they aren't helpful. If you have any additional info I left out that you think is important, let me know. Also, I appreciate anyone letting me know if there are any inaccuracies.

Thanks and good luck,
-Shamshire