Gothic 1 Remake Ore Nugget Locations: Fast Money Guide for Beginners
Ore Nuggets are the lifeblood of Gothic 1 Remake’s early economy. These purple stones function as your money inside the Colony, letting you level up, pay trainers for new skills, and purchase everything from ingredients and magic scrolls to weapons, armor, and more. The catch? At the beginning of the game, they’re frustratingly hard to locate—especially when you’re starting out as a greenblood. Below are several of the most reliable ways to build up Nuggets early.
Checklists
- Pick Up Everything to Sell Later
- Food Is Valuable
- Cooked Food Is Even More Valuable!
- Stealing Is An Option…
- Sell The Essence of Spirit
- How to Sell High-Value Items
- What to Do With All Those Nuggets
- Work in the Old Mine
- How to Find the Old Mine
- How to Make Money in the Old Mine
- Sell Swampweed in the New Camp
- How to Sell High-Value Items
- What to Do With All Those Nuggets
- How to Find the Old Mine
- How to Make Money in the Old Mine
Pick Up Everything to Sell Later
You end up with so many inventory spaces that carrying capacity usually stops being a major concern. Use that to your advantage: collect everything you spot. That includes berries and herbs lying around, loot from free chests, goods from defeated enemies, and even random trash stashed in camp corners. Some of it won’t be sellable, but a lot of it will be—so grabbing it on sight is a safe habit. If the item label appears in beige text, it’s yours for the taking.
Food Is Valuable
Fresh food is difficult to come by inside the dome, so any meat, fruit, or vegetables you stumble across can translate into a decent stack of Nuggets. You might still want to keep some provisions for yourself, since eating can help you recover after fights. Still, if your priority is maximizing income, save up what you find and sell it to traders in Old Camp to earn some quick cash—or, well, Nuggets.
Because you’ll be collecting Nuggets and other valuable items, you’ll need a secure place to keep them safe. Otherwise, you risk losing them to theft later on. A good early step is speaking with Guy behind the Arena and making use of the free Hut he provides. More details are available in the guide about getting a free Hut and bed in Old Camp.
Cooked Food Is Even More Valuable!
If you’ve collected meat from Molerats or Scavengers you’ve taken down, put it to work at the next cooking setup you find. Old Camp has several cooking fires and pans in different spots. One is just outside the Hut Guy gives you, and another sits near where Diego hangs out by the front entrance. Cooking fresh meat you’re carrying turns it into prepared food that restores you for more when eaten, or sells for more when you’re ready to trade it off. It’s worth doing whenever you can.
Stealing Is An Option…
Normal beige-labeled items are free to take, no matter what. Red-labeled items, however, belong to someone—picking them up counts as theft. If you enter a hut in Old Camp and the owner notices, you’re in trouble. If you take something from the hut and they decide to investigate, they’ll demand you return the stolen items. If you don’t drop what you stole within about ten to fifteen seconds, they’ll start a fight. Should they knock you out, they won’t just take back what you stole—they’ll also strip off every item you’ve stolen from your body and any Nuggets you’re carrying, plus even high-value belongings like Magic Runes if you have them.
When my Firebolt Rune was taken, I considered knocking out the attacker to get it back. It turns out that throwing the first punch doesn’t just target the person you’re hitting—nearby campers get angry too. And if you end up losing your health again, instead of being knocked out, they’ll kill you. So if you’re thinking about a life of crime, remember: it’s a dangerous gamble.
Sell The Essence of Spirit
You can grab a very valuable potion early on. Leave Old Camp through the South Gate and look at the rock wall; you should see a cave slightly to the right of where you exit.
Move further to the right of that cave, away from the Molerats, and you’ll reach a small alcove. Inside is a bottled Essence of Spirit.
This potion is useful in more ways than one. Drinking it boosts your Mana pool by 2. While “2” may not sound huge, your Mana begins at 5, meaning at the start of the game this is effectively a 40% increase. On top of that, because it’s so strong, it sells for about ~150 Nuggets (depending on who you sell to). Whether you use it or trade it away is your call, but selling is one of the fastest ways to solve early money problems.
How to Sell High-Value Items
Unfortunately, the vendors in Old Camp don’t have enough money on hand to pay out the full 150 Nuggets. The workaround is to use the potion in a way that doesn’t waste its value: buy other items during the same deal so you don’t effectively “lose” the purchase power. Fisk and Torrez are traders with valuable equipment that can make use of that kind of budget. Fisk and Dexter also tend to be the merchants in town who carry the most Nuggets available for your sales. The suggested approach is to purchase a portion of what you need and then keep the remaining value from the potion as change, so you can spend it elsewhere or put it toward learning skills.
What to Do With All Those Nuggets
With 50+ Nuggets, you unlock a bunch of options. You can speak with Scatty at the Arena and request one-handed combat training—as long as you have the required LP for leveling, and the Nuggets to pay. Alternatively, you can buy ingredients for quests that demand particular items, including The Price of Magic and The Forgotten Recipe. You can also use your first purchase to trade for a bow and arrows from Fisk. Getting a ranged option early can make fights far more manageable.
Once you’ve got your early start in Old Camp, keep going by checking the guide focused on the Best Things to Do First—especially if you want to build favor to get into the castle. Starting with The Vanished Warder or Whistler’s Sword quests is a strong move. Still, there are even more ways to earn money if you want to keep stacking Nuggets.
Work in the Old Mine
After you’ve leveled up a couple of times, it may be time to head to the Old Mine—the location where Old Camp draws most of its Ore Nuggets. You’ll be sent to the Old Mine as part of Diego’s Test Of Faith quest, but you can also go on your own. Here’s how to reach it from Old Camp.
How to Find the Old Mine
The route is packed with dangerous enemies like Bloodflies and Scavengers. For the best odds, only attempt the trip after you’ve gained some levels for extra health, obtained a ranged weapon such as a Bow, or trained in One-Handed Weapons by working with Scatty at the Old Camp Arena.
If you still want to push the journey early, you can try sprinting past enemies, or travel alongside well-armed NPCs who are also headed toward the Mine, letting them handle threats for you.
Starting from the North Gate entrance to Old Camp, go straight along the main path until you cross the stone bridge. Then take an immediate left to follow the path that runs beside the river.
Expect Bloodflies, Molerats, and Scavengers ahead, so save your game as soon as you spot any nearby enemies—just in case you get overwhelmed.
Bloodfly attacks have plenty of reach, since many strikes involve thrusting a stinger toward you. To dodge effectively, sidestepping is usually better than backing away. I personally used arrows to take out most of them, but some will close distance, so have your melee weapon ready.
Keep going along the path. When you pass a broken-down cart, look for a small cluster of Molerats. If they burrow underground, dodge right as they pop back up to avoid getting hit. Molerats are easier than Scavengers or Bloodflies because most attacks stun them and they don’t have much health—just be patient and don’t let their surprise moments catch you off guard.
You should spot Scavengers off to your right in the forest near the path. If you stay on the left side, you can often avoid being detected. Continue following the path alongside the water, and when it turns right into the forest, keep following. As the road curves, you’ll see a small group of Goblins off the path to the left. Try not to trigger them either, since they’ll all become hostile if one of them spots you.
The road keeps moving forward, with a few side routes branching off as indicated by signposts. You may draw attention from a Scavenger near one of those posts. It’s stronger than a Juvenile, but not by much, and you can deal with it similarly.
Ignore the branching detours and continue on the main road. Eventually the path slopes upward and curves to the right. After a bit, you’ll arrive at the working yard outside a large cave entrance. This is the Old Mine. Go inside and start producing Nuggets.
How to Make Money in the Old Mine
The Old Mine is huge. Some zones aren’t worth exploring until you’re stronger (those areas will be called out later), but the main central shaft is safe enough to move around. You can gather plenty of freebies to sell to vendors, mine Ore Nuggets yourself with a Pickaxe, and also find stray Nuggets scattered on the ground.
If you don’t currently have a Pickaxe, check about halfway down the central shaft. There you’ll find Ian talking with Alberto. Next to the table where they’re speaking is a holder for Pickaxes, with one tool available to take.
The walls glowing purple are Ore deposits. Most of them are already being worked on by Diggers, but if you spot a deposit with no one standing at it, equip your Pickaxe and go for it.
For most deposits, you should pull 3 Nuggets from the first four mining attempts. On the fifth attempt, the yield drops to 1 Nugget per activation for the next three times. In total, each healthy deposit should produce 15 Nuggets.
Along the walkways—especially near Ore deposits and particularly near the bottom of the central shaft where ore processing equipment sits—keep an eye out for loose Ore Nuggets on the floor. If the item label isn’t red, it’s free to grab, and almost everything here seems to belong to no one else. There are dozens of tiny Nuggets scattered throughout, and the “loose change” adds up fast.
The side paths close to the mine entrance are safe enough to loot, but as you move deeper, the branching tunnels begin to house dangerous creatures known as Minecrawlers.
My level 4 character barely reduced their health when attacked, so they’re best avoided. If you manage to aggro a Minecrawler, retreat from where you are and sprint toward the closest Guard or Templar. They’re stationed outside the entrances to most Minecrawler mineshafts, and they can help shred the creatures for you.
Sell Swampweed in the New Camp
If you want a change of scenery and fresh quest options, travel to the different camps. The New Camp sits to the West of Old Camp, and there’s plenty to do there. One of the tasks available is called Canvassing Customers, where Baal Kagan asks you to deliver Swampweed on his behalf.
Handing out the Swampweed rewards you with Ore Nuggets, and you can also collect 100 Ore Nuggets directly from Baal Kagan after completing the quest. It’s quick and low risk—worth it if you’re trying to add Nuggets to your stash fast. The quest is referenced with more details in a link in the original guide.
- Canvassing Customers
If you want more opportunities to obtain items for sale through less-than-legal methods, check out a Lockpicking Guide to learn how to access locked chests and doors throughout the Colony.
Up Next: How to Put Away Your Torch
Top Guide Sections
- 16 Things to Do First in Gothic 1 Remake
- Walkthrough
- How to Travel to New Camp
- How to Travel to Swamp Camp
