tl;dr: read bold, if you must. Also remember, food is a 1:1 ratio of cost to energy given.
So after a little thought running around in my head about the theory of gem rates vs node spawn timers, I decided to put together a very small experiment. I wanted to see wither it was more profitable to mass farm only dullite ore for more chances at gems, or to just farm by priority of beryl>sparkly>dullite. But before we get to the numbers, lets take a look at why (you don't have to read this paragraph if you don't want to).
Since there are no real rates of gems per node farmed, I just went off observation. What I found was that all nodes seem to have the same chance at which gems are found, yet I haven't found out what gems are restriced to what nodes (can a diamond be found via dullite, or only sparkly?). With this information (as loose as it may be), I figured dullite, being so plentiful, would be the best contender to farm gems from. Since no one likes to mine dullite, you have much less competition per node, thus more node to farm. And while having a higher level of mining, you get much more dullite per node, which I thought to be a higher gross income due to mass cheap items and some gems Vs few expensive items and little to no gems. Well, lets head to the numbers.
First, I took some numbers (a small sample) of priority mining w/ help when found, and came up with this.
Profit from ore found (no gems :sadface:): 2232$
-food consumed while mining, repairing, and capping off to near 70% max energy: 464 (8 kabobs at 58$ each)
-meditation used: 70 energy
Net profit: 1838$; [2232-(464-70)] = 1838
***Why the -70 to 464? Well the game only sees energy as energy, and nothing as free energy. 464 energy is only the energy I gained by having to pay for it, while the 70 is the floating energy in between each energy I had to pay for, therefore making it free energy and adding +70$ to the net profit. :)
Now for the dullite farming (soloing only) section.
Total nodes "hit": 58
-ore obtained: 468
-gems obtained: 1 (160$)
Pick wear: start:166, end:50, cost to repair to max:156 energy (156$ worth of food)
Total energy cost: 736 energy (10 energy per "hit", 58 hits total, 580 energy; +156 in pick cost)
-meditation used: 260 energy
Profit: 1404$ (ore) + 160$ (orange gem) = 1564$
Net profit: 1088$; [1564-(736-260)] = 1088
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So from what my numbers are telling me, it is far more profitable to farm with the priority of Beryl>sparkly>dullite, than to try and just farm mass dullite with hopes of finding gems by about 750$ overall. But by 750$ what? Minutes, days, hours, months? Well...TO THE MATH VAN!
**read shotty math work at own risk**
Dullite node's $/s/m math
Level 2 mining farms nodes at 13 sec a node. If I was getting 1088$ net, after farming 58 "hits", that took me 754 seconds. Now, simple conversions and that comes to about 1.44$/s, or 86.6$/m. Now if that rate cost me 736 energy total, then how to get the priority mining numbers? Well, here comes the shotty math.
Priority node's $/s/m math
Simplified! A pick has 200 "life". If my pick started at 166, and ended at 50, then I spent 116 of it's "life". But it's life goes down 2 per node "hit", and each node takes 10 energy to "hit". If it cost me 156 energy to repair a pick that went down 116 "life". That means 1 swing of my axe will cost me 10 energy + 2.7 energy for that 1 swing's repair (156/116=cost of repair per hit [2.7]); totaling 12.7 energy per node hit. Now, lets put that into the numbers I had. 464/12.7=~37. 37 is how many nodes I hit total. Now my net profit was 1838$, and with what I know (I hope) about how much time I used to hit those 37 nodes (481 seconds), then my $/s should be 3.82$/s, or for minutes, 229.3$/m.
Now, I know bare with me, priority mining compared to the dullite node math, you're making a profit of 142.7$/m by farming only priority nodes, over dullite. And that's not including your luck with gems.
If you have any questions or concerns with my math (if you want to even enter that dimension of pain), then feel free to ask or question it. It's always good to question any and everything you see. As far as math on other professions, I'm pretty much sticking to mining for the moment. If you have any more info on data about mining, please feel free to drop a line. Data always helps with future rates and time out of your life.
PS: I really don't know why I like doing this math stuff. Am I crazy?
PPS: Messed up math ( I think?), revised the priority node math's $/s and $/m.