Starting Out

I'm assuming that you have just entered dwarven mines, but you can skip to any part. (Also I'm assuming your not ironman, but you can grind for the stuff if you want). Get glacite armor and diamond pickaxe. Do daily commissions, until you are HOTM 3. Once you are able to enter the crystal hollows, buy an armadillo pet and a jungle pickaxe.

Getting HOTM 7

List of Commissions and strategies for them:

• Mine 1000 hard stone - self explanatory
• X Gemstone collector (1000 of x gemstone) - Use armadillo for this, make sure you are holding a pickaxe when using armadillo.
• Chest looter (open 3 chests) - Find a structure.
• X mob slayer (Kill 13 of x mob, or 5 thysts.) - Automaton spawns in precursor remnants. Sludge spawns in jungle. Team treasurite members spawn in mithril deposits. Goblins spawn in goblin holdout. Thysts spawn from mining amethyst gems ( use armadillo).
• Boss corleone slayer (kill corleone) - Go from lobby to lobby asking for coords, this one is pretty annoying to get.

Just do commissions until you are HOTM 7. Obviously do dailies, but you can still do commissions even without daily bonus. Your stats don't really matter, but you want 1500 mining speed to insta mine hardstone. For gemstone commissions (obtain 1000 x gemstone) use your armadillo. If your rich, get a black cat and wither cloak for jungle temple. Save up any jaderald you get from nucleus.

Obtaining powder

Once you are HOTM 7, reset your HOTM tree and get these perks:

• Mining Speed
• Mining Fortune
• Daily Powder
• Efficient Miner
• Peak of the Mountain
• Mole
• Powder Buff
• Fortunate
• Great Explorer

None of the other perks really matter, but you can put tokens in anything else. Level up Great Explorer FIRST as high as you can, and get mole around level 50. You can also put powder into powder buff. You still only need 1500 mining speed, as you will only be mining hardstone. You also want to max out daily powder. In order to start efficiently mining gemstones, you want around 4m of each powder. The great explorer perk gives bonus chance to spawn chests from hardstone, and the chests contain powder. There are 2 places where you should powder mine, the precursor remnants and the jungle. If you are mining in the jungle, use the jungle pickaxe. This part of mining is the most boring, and is going to take a while.

Gear

For all the gear you buy, make sure you buy it with gemstone slots unlocked.
Yog Armor -> Sorrow Armor -> Divan Armor
Gemstone Gauntlet -> Titanium Drill 655 -> Divan's Drill
Bal -> Scatha (possibly)
For armor above Yog (Sorrow and Divan) put Jaded (jaderald). Reforge doesn't matter on Yog armor.
For pickaxe/drill you want the auspicious reforge (Rock Gemstone).

Pristine

Pristine is something you want to optimize since its the only reason why gemstones are broken. You want pristine 5 on your pickaxe, perfect topaz on your armour and drill. You can use the bal pet to buff your pristine by 15% in the magma fields.

Mining HOTM Tree

Perks:

• Mining Speed
• Mining Fortune
• Titanium Insanium
• Mining Speed Boost
• Luck of the Cave
• Mining Madness
• Goblin Killer
• Lonesome Miner
• Professional
• Mole
• Fortunate
• Great Explorer
• Mining Fortune 2
• Mining Speed 2
• Seasoned Mineman
• Powder Buff

Max out Fortunate, then put the rest of your mithril powder into Mining Speed and Mining Fortune. Try to level them evenly, but prioritize Mining Fortune over Mining Speed. Get around lvl 50 mole (optional but highly recommended), and put as much as you can into Mining Fortune 2 and Mining Speed 2. Put the rest into Professional.

Gemstone Mining

You can either mine jade in Mines of Divan (scatha) or ruby/topaz in magma fields (bal). You can find public ruby coords somewhere online. Once you get the coords, make waypoints to the spots and clear out the areas around the gems. Once you unlock gemstone gauntlet. You want to craft the gemstones into fine and npc sell them.