[iliketrains]

While being more realistic than other games, I'd say it is not realistic enough to simulate real open-pit mining. You would not recommend to plan real mining operations based on the results from the game.

For example, the way how terrain collapses during mining is balanced to make a fun game rather than trying to be super realistic. We don't take into account weather effects (esp. rain). Also, in reality, hard rock needs to be blasted, but we don't have this feature (yet). Refilling of vehicles is mostly automatic, given that they have fuel available somewhere reachable. Etc...

On the other had, similar to other sim games, you will certainly need to think and plan your mine/factory well in order to be successful.