Minerals

This is the primary economic resource. You need Workers to mine this in order to make anything in the game. You want two Workers per Mineral Field.

Overview
Minerals are the primary economic resource in KoL. They're used to purchase units, structures, and upgrades. Lower tier objects tend to cost more Minerals and less Vespene Gas. This means that the early game is based mostly on Mineral income, while the late game is gated by both Mineral and Gas income.

Each player starts with 50 Minerals, which is the cost of a Worker. Usually, the starting stock is spent in training a new Worker. Though it is not universal, a typical base consists of eight Mineral deposits with 1500 units of Minerals each. Mineral Fields grow smaller as workers mine from them, eventually vanishing entirely. Up to three Workers may mine from a Mineral Field at a time. When a Worker is assigned to harvest from an occupied Mineral Field, the Worker automatically moves to an unoccupied Field and mines there. If there are no unoccupied Mineral Fields, the Worker will wait until one becomes unoccupied and begins mining there. When a base is entirely exhausted, the Workers cease mining and remain scattered at the former site of the Mineral Fields until given new orders.

Workers collect 5 minerals per trip, and the optimal amount of Workers mining per Mineral Field is two. Any more and the Workers begin to jostle and bump each other from Field to Field, giving the player diminishing returns for workers 17-24. More than 24 Workers per base yields no more gain than 24.

Rich Minerals


Rich Minerals, previously known as high yield minerals, may be mined faster than regular Minerals, and provide 7 minerals per trip. Bases with Rich Minerals only have 6 Mineral Fields rather than the usual 8. They always contain the same amount of Minerals as a regular Mineral Field; hence, they are mined faster for the same yield.