TruthScape.com  9  TruthScape Monster Secrets       9  TruthScape Monster Secrets - Giant Mole Exterminator’s Handbook

Giant Mole Exterminator’s Handbook - Description, Statistics, Attacks and Defence Giant Mole Exterminator’s Handbook - Challenges and Strategy

If you use the right technique, the giant mole can be easily killed with a rather low cost of supplies, and it has drops that range from decent to outstanding. This depends—as usual—on your luck more than anything else, but overall you won’t be disappointed with what you receive from this monster. (I’ve shown an example of a typical range of drops in Figure 376.) That said, the giant mole is not something I’d recommend strictly as a way to make money, because you can’t kill too many of them in a given period of time.

In the subsections that follow, I will list for you the giant mole’s common, uncommon and rare drops, to show you what you could possibly get from it. I will also explain the special drops of mole claws and mole skin, tell you what you do with them, and describe the typical extra rewards you get from trading them in. I will conclude with an analysis that compares costs to drop values to show roughly how much you can make, on average, from mole extermination.

Note that I categorize drops roughly as follows:

• Very Common: The monster drops the item often, and you are almost guaranteed to see it at least once if you kill it 20 times or more.
  
  
• Common: The monster usually drops the item at least once every 20 or so kills.
  
  
• Uncommon: The monster drops the item perhaps 1 in 50 times.
  
  
• Rare: The drop comes about 1 in 100 kills.
  
  
• Very Rare: This designates a drop that is seen only after killing hundreds of monsters, or one I’ve never gotten but others have claimed to seen on rare occasions.

My drop tables are listed roughly in order of increasing value. These value figures are approximations based roughly on current market prices, or alch values for items that a high-level player normally wouldn’t bother to sell.

The giant mole has three 100% drops: big bones, one mole claw, and 1 to 3 mole skins. There seems to be about an equal chance of getting 1, 2 or 3 skins; I usually average just under 2. See the section “Trading Mole Claws and Skins and Typical Rewards” below for details on what to do with these items.

In Table 83 I have listed the very common and common drops of the giant mole. I have added comments where appropriate.

Table 84 lists some of the less common and truly rare drops of the giant mole. As with the previous table, it is sorted roughly in increasing value order.

Note that some of the items shown are based on reports from other players or websites, and represent drops I have not obtained myself. They are noted accordingly; if you can tell me definitively that you have had any of the rare drops that I am unsure about, please let me know.

The giant mole will always drop one mole claw and 1, 2 or 3 mole skins when it dies. These should be saved and traded to Wyson the gardener—remember, the guy who wanted you to kill the mole for him? To show his gratitude, he will give you one bird’s nest for each claw or skin. You will average roughly two skins per kill, so that means each kill yields about three nests, in addition to whatever “ordinary” drop the mole gives. You can see a simple animation showing me trading in some claws and skins in Figure 377.

The nests themselves are the same as those you get from woodcutting or the Miscellania Kingdom minigame, but their contents are different. Each nest can contain the following:

• Allotment Seeds: Most nests contain allotment seeds, in the following quantities: 14 potato; 11 onion; 9 cabbage; 6 tomato; 3 sweetcorn; 3 strawberry; or 2 watermelon.
  
  
• Limpwurt Seeds: Two limpwurt seeds is a fairly common reward from these nests.
  
  
• An Herb Seed: The only herb seed I’ve ever obtained is a single ranarr seed; this is a good but rare reward.
  
  
• A Tree Seed: Unfortunately, these are only a rare reward from these nests, and they are usually the lesser seeds. I don’t believe all tree seeds are possible from these nests; the only ones I have received before are acorns, willows, maples, yews and a magic seed one time. I am told that it is also possible to get a spirit seed, though I’ve never received one myself.
  
  
• A Ring: One plain gold, sapphire, emerald, ruby or diamond ring (just like regular bird’s nests.)
  
  
• Nothing: About 5-10% of the nests are empty.

Of course, the better seeds and rings are less common than the junky ones. J

In preparing this guide I killed a lot of moles, and on two occasions saved up the skins and claws from 100 drops and then turned them all in at once to show you the typical average rewards. I’ve shown these in Figure 379.

On the first set of kills, I got 100 claws and 199 skins, which I traded for 232 seed nests, 49 ring nests and 18 empty nests. Searching the nests yielded the following totals (shown on the left in Figure 379):

• Empty Nests: 299.
  
  
• Allotment Seeds: 868 potato, 275 onion, 189 cabbage, 156 tomato, 87 sweetcorn, 54 strawberry and 26 watermelon.
  
  
• Limpwurt Seeds: 40.
  
  
• Ranarr Seeds: 1.
  
  
• Tree Seeds: 7 acorns, 7 willows, 2 maples and 1 yew.
  
  
• Rings: 14 plain gold, 19 sapphire, 10 emerald, 4 ruby and 2 diamond.

My set of kills yielded 100 claws and 188 skins, which I traded for 217 seed nests, 52 ring nests and 19 empty nests. RuneScape’s infamous luck being what it is, however, I actually got better seeds from this run despite having fewer seed nests; here was my total take (see the right side of Figure 379):

• Empty Nests: 288.
  
  
• Allotment Seeds: 616 potato, 319 onion, 144 cabbage, 132 tomato, 99 sweetcorn, 60 strawberry and 42 watermelon.
  
  
• Limpwurt Seeds: 28.
  
  
• Ranarr Seeds: 3.
  
  
• Tree Seeds: 8 acorns, 3 willows, 1 maples and 1 yew.
  
  
• Rings: 13 plain gold, 23 sapphire, 7 emerald, 6 ruby and 1 diamond.

The cost of killing the giant mole depends on the technique used. As we’ll see when we explore the actual combat techniques, there are different expenses for melee and ranged, and there are also trade-offs among speed of killing, the cost of food and the cost of prayer potions.

I believe firmly that time is money: kill the mole faster and you get drops faster, so it is worth using a quicker method even if it costs a bit more. Based on this position, I estimate average supplies costs for the three methods as follows:

• Veracs: One super attack (3), one regular strength (3), one prayer pot mix (2), 8 energy pots (4), 13 lobsters and 5 emerald (e) bolts for six kills, plus a nominal amount of Barrows repairs. Approximate total cost: 18k, or about 3k per kill.
  
  
• Dharoks: One super attack (3), one regular strength (3), one prayer pot (4), 10 energy pots (4) and 11 lobsters for six kills, plus a nominal amount of Barrows repairs. Approximate total cost: 21k, or about 3.5k per kill.
  
  
• Ranging: One ranging potion (4), one prayer pot (1), 8 energy pots (4) and 30 emerald (e) bolts for six kills. Approximate total cost: 21k, or around 3.5k per kill.

As you can see, the kill costs are all roughly equal—I wouldn’t bother writing about any methods that were grossly inefficient. They are also very much lower than the value of the mole’s drops, even the worse ones.

The mole’s drops consists of course of its main drop and the rewards you get from the mole claws and skins. The average value of the regular drop is pretty much dependent entirely on your luck—my experience has been that I usually get a regular drop worth around 1,000 to 3,000, and occasionally one worth 10,000 or more. So I’d make a ballpark estimate of the average drop value at around 4,500 to 5,000 gold per kill.

As for the nests, I can calculate an approximate average value by looking at the 200 kills’ worth of claws and skins I traded in. Using current market price approximations, the value of the seeds and rings in my first trip is around 601k, and using a conservative value of 1,500 each for the nests, that adds another 448k, for a total of about 1,049k, or roughly 10.5k per kill. The same calculations for the second trip yields around 672k of seeds and 432k worth of nests, for about 11k per kill.

Adding the regular and seed/nest drops yields an average of about 15.5k per kill; subtracting the 3k to 3.5k cost yields a profit of 12k to 12.5k each. You can kill 12 to 16 of these per hour, so it’s decent money—about 150k up to 200k per hour—though nothing to get excited about strictly on a monetary basis (unless you get really lucky). For people who actually want to use all those seeds and nests, though, it is very exciting indeed!

Giant Mole Exterminator’s Handbook - Description, Statistics, Attacks and Defence Giant Mole Exterminator’s Handbook - Challenges and Strategy