How To SOLO- or Party-Mine [EPIC]

In this article we are covering how to SOLO and PARTY Mine EPIC CASH (EPIC) on Icemining.ca — The Cool Pool

Preamble:
Pool Mining is like a Group Lottery, each Share is a ticket and you will be rewarded proportional to the amount of Tickets you had.
But if you had a Huge number of Tickets — why would you share your potential rewards? This is why you might want to start SOLO- or Party-Mining.

SOLO Mining is like mining on your own private Pool.
You receive all rewards (minus poolfees) from the Blocks you found, but you will not receive any Blockrewards of others.
As the name Implies, you are actually Mining on your own, without the help of others so this is only recommended with really Big Hashrate!

Party Mining is similar to the ususal DPPLNS Mining, but you share your tickets with a choosen group of other Miners. Basically you are SOLO mining but just with a choosen group of miners which group together, so you will only get rewards if your Group actually finds a Block and the reward will be proportional to the amount of tickets you shared with the Group.
This is optimal for smaller Miners who wish to reduce their variance by mining with similar power level miners.

What mode to Mine should you choose?
This is a common Question, it boils down to the following:

DPPLNS Pool Mining:
Miners with a small Hashrate who want to earn a steady income

Party Mining:
The Party will want to ensure each miner is capable of solving at least 1 Block or more a Day in order to be most profitable. This way they will contibute meaningfully to the group keeping it running with peak profitability. If you accept miners with too little power they will just suck out profits and the group would have to be running much longer to average out.

You can see how many Blocks you solved on your miner dashboard under “Last Block found” by looking at your 7 day numbers.

Parties will not want to invite just anyone due to efficiency, only join with similar Power Level Miners capable of solving Blocks!

SOLO Mining:
You should only SOLO Mine with a considerable Amount of Hashpower to ensure you find enough Blocks. This is usually best for Farms or Nicehash Miners if they don’t want to Party-up.

Create an Account on Icemining
If you didn’t mine on Icemining yet, create an Account and set it’s password as explained in the “How To Mine [EPIC] and Withdraw to any http-Listener” Guide linked on the Pool Site.

1. Replace your Username and Password in your Miners Batchfile and start to mine as this will create your Account.
   Choose a strong Password this will be your Account Password forever and cannot be changed!
2. Make sure your Account exists under the URL https://icemining.ca/?address=<username>

Start Solo Mining

1. Once your Account was created, replace the Password in your Batchfile to m=solo
(You need to do this for all workers which should Mine Solo, If you got 3 Rigs and all should be Solo, replace the passwords on all of them)
2. When you connect to the Pool using the password m=soloyou will get 98% of the rewards if you find a Block, but only if your ticket finds the Block ;)
3. You can Doublecheck if your Miners are in Solo Mode by checking the Workers Page of your Wallet. The Miners should be listed as “[SOLO]”

Start Party Mining

Make sure you have the “Party password” of your party, to create a new Party choose any password and share it with Friends!

1. Once your Account was created, replace the Password in your Batchfile to m=party.%partypassword%
(You need to do this for all workers which should Mine in the Party, If you got 3 Rigs and all should be in the Party, replace the passwords on all of them)
2. When you connect to the Pool using the password m=party.%partypassword%you will get proportional rewards to your Shares compared to the Total Party Shares as soon as your Party finds a Block.
3. You can Doublecheck if your Miners are in Party Mode by checking the Workers Page of your Wallet. The Miners should be listed as “[Party]”

Furthermore you can see how other Party Members are doing in terms of Hashrate contribution and found Blocks by checking their anonymized Values in the “Parties” Area right above your Miner stats:

Switching back to Pool mining
To switch back to pool mining simply choose another password and start mining again!

1. Setting any other password than m=soloor m=party.%partypassword% will get you back into DPPLNS Pool Mining

Don’t use your withdrawal Password to Mine after Seting up your Account!

F.E choose “X” — This is highly recommended for security reasons.

Did I get a Reward?

You will see Rewards on your Wallet Page Listed with a blue “SOLO” in the Status section YAY!

You will see Rewards on your Wallet Page Listed with a red “PARTY” in the Status section YAY!

FAQ:

Q: Why did the Pool find Blocks but I didn’t receive a reward?

A: Most likely the Block found was found in another Mining Mode.
So if you were DPPLNS Pool mining it’s likely it was a SOLO or PARTY Block where you don’t receive Rewards.
You can imagine it like multiple pools in one, where you only receive the rewards of your “Pool” (of your Mode/Party)

Q: Why didn’t I receive a reward in a long time?

A: If your Miner is showing up in the GUI and has no Errors it’s quite likely it’s the same reason as above. Your Mode probably just didn’t find any Blocks in this time.

A Work in Progress Guide by MrT with many thanks to InfiniteImp and the whole Icemining Comunity for the constructive Feedback!
Happy 🧊⛏️ Everyone =)