Meteors & Meteorites
Things fall out of the sky on Ancients — and they're worth chasing. There are three related sky events, all tied to mining: meteors (big ore mounds on a timer), heroic meteors (rarer, with a guarded treasure chest), and meteorites (small, frequent single-block ore deposits, sometimes arriving in showers).
Meteors
Roughly every 30 minutes, a meteor streaks toward the main prison world. Chat announces it twice — once when it's incoming and once when it lands — with the coordinates and the nearest mine ("METEOR incoming near Iron Mine — …"). A naturally falling meteor takes about 3 minutes to land from the announcement, so you have time to get there. Players using the optional client mod also see a beacon beam marking the landing spot.
Don't stand at ground zero: the impact damages and knocks back anyone too close.
The crash site is a mound of ore blocks — a mix of tiers biased around one ore type (coal up through emerald, depending on how far the season's level cap has advanced). Mining meteor blocks pays out:
- The ores themselves, at their usual ore values
- Mining XP and Ancient Energy
- Mining shards
- A small chance of finding Contraband
Work fast — a landed meteor despawns after 10 minutes.
Heroic meteors
Every fourth meteor arrives as a heroic meteor, with its own louder announcement and beam. Instead of raw ore, the mound is made of refined blocks (iron blocks, diamond blocks, and so on — they mine like their ore equivalents). At the center sits a chest sealed inside a cube of obsidian.
Each obsidian block takes 100 hits to crack. Break through, and the first player to open the chest claims the entire prize — the claim is broadcast to the whole server, so bring a fast pickaxe and beat the crowd to it. The chest holds a rich pool of rewards, including chunks of Ancient Energy, high-tier Contraband, enchant supplies, booster boxes, more flares, and rarer special items.
Heroic meteors also despawn after 10 minutes, so don't dawdle.
Meteorites
Meteorites are the small cousins: glowing single blocks that fall frequently near active players in the main prison world, and also inside the Pit. Each one is a packed ore deposit — hit it repeatedly and every hit pays out a bundle of ore plus Ancient Energy at a generous rate. The deposit holds a limited pool of ore and disappears when it's emptied; ignored meteorites slowly decay away on their own.
What a meteorite pays depends on your level — higher-level miners pull higher-tier ore from the same rock:
| Ore | Level needed |
|---|---|
| Coal | 1 |
| Iron | 10 |
| Lapis | 30 |
| Redstone | 50 |
| Gold | 70 |
| Diamond | 90 |
| Emerald | 100 (shower meteorites in the overworld, or any meteorite in the Pit) |
| Ancient Debris | 102, in the Pit, with a netherite pickaxe |
About half of shower meteorites land refined — these pay out the processed resource (ingots, gems, netherite scrap) instead of raw ore.
If you use the optional client mod, a floating label over each meteorite shows the ore tier and how many ores are left inside.
Meteorite showers
Periodically (and from a Meteorite Shower Flare), a meteorite shower drops a cluster of meteorites — 4–8 of them within a 10-block radius, about half refined. Showers are announced in chat with the landing coordinates.
Flares
Three flare items let you call sky events on demand. They're loot from events like KOTH, heroic meteors, and Rift caches — see Special Items for the full set.
- Meteor Flare — right-click to call a meteor down on that spot; it lands in 60 seconds with the usual bold announcements.
- Meteorite Shower Flare — right-click to start a meteorite shower at your location.
- Heroic Meteor Flare — the rare one: calls down a full heroic meteor.