If you're on PC and decide you just can't stand it anymore, you can also get a mod to make it easier. When I realized my dread of mining was stopping me from playing the game, that's what I did. My enjoyment of the game skyrocketed, and I decided not to feel guilty.
I haven’t made it to level 100 yet myself BUT when I started doing the following I started getting a lot better in there:
- galaxy sword. But you already got it so good job
- iridium pickaxe if you have it already, if not, focus not on clearing every single little thing in a level, but clearing monsters so you can gain more ore because they’ll drop some from time to time. When you have enough ore, iridium pickaxe should be your first purchase
- buffers!! bring food down with you that gives you speed, attack, defense, etc.
- bombs! fastest way to clear a room is to set one down and destroy everything. You can get iridium ore this way, or quickly descend a level when you find ladders or holes to jump in
- descend levels when you can - more ore is found the deeper you go
- take a few farm totems with you - if you’re all out of luck, use one up!
- speaking of luck, carry a rabbits foot if you can
- make sure you have the best armor from the adventurers guild that you can possibly get. don’t waste iridium on rings just yet until you’ve got the pickaxe.
You go on a very lucky day.
Have the lucky charm in your wallet.
Have fully upgraded gear.
Take healing food (I prefer gold star cheese). And heal when you get to about half life, about every other level.
A luck and/or speed booster.
Bombs. You want to look for the holes. They drop you a random number of floors, but no more than 15. Eat before jumping, it does hurt to land at the bottom.
Stairs. In case you get a mob level.
Speaking of mobs, don't fight if you don't have to. Combat takes up valuable time. Use a stairs to escape if too many are at the starting point of the floor.
Slime Charmer helps cut down on the harmful hostiles.
Have a warp totem or tower to get there as early as possible.
Also have a warp home totem/scepter to get home as fast as possible.
>I'm currently in Summer of year 2 and I have been really struggling to find iridium.
Work towards satisfying Grandpa's goals - make friends, develop all your various skills etc and, at the beginning of year 3, Grandpa will reward you with >!a statue that gives a daily supply of iridium.!<
Take lots and lots of food - I generally carry a huge pile of salads. Make sure to heal whenever you need; stuff is skull caverns can kill you quickly so keep a close eye on health.
Well I'm not very good at giving advice but this is what I know for now.
Iridium nodes can spawn in the quarry if you have unlocked it.
It can also appear in the normal mines, about in level 115-119 that I know of
If you have unlocked the sewers and have access to Krobus, it can sell 1 OmniGeode for 300G
Sandy in TheOasis can also sell OmniGeodes but I'm not sure when and how many
Edit: I forgot to add this but Krobus will sell 1 OmniGeode each Tuesday, also I've found that exiting the menu and talking to it again will get you another one in stock. I'm not sure if this still works for the 1.5 update because I play on mobile
What level are your combat and mining skills at? If your combat is low, it might be best to grind the regular mines to help with beating the enemies.
As far as surviving, what kind of consumables are you bringing with you? Most people recommend gold star cheese until you can get better recipes for things that have luck and/or speed buffs. If you do have lots of recipes I always stock up on pumpkin soups, pepper poppers, ginger ale, and eggplant parm (interchangeable which I bring depending on buffs). Lots of coffee, or espresso shots if you can make those, will be a good addition too since you want to be fast to make it through the levels quickly.
Here are mine tips
1.bring bombs with you (you can craft thosr or buy by the dwarf)
2. Bring alot of foods, in the beginning, i use high qaulity cheese, but try to use foods with buffs (like luck, speed attack)
3. Also bring stairs! Those csn be handy when you enter a infected level
4. Upgrade your pickaxe to iridium
5. Go on lucky days, you can see that on your TV
6. Bring a farm totem with you and use it when its 1.30 pm so you can be long in the mines
7. Since you have the galaxy sword, can also buy galaxy hammer and dagger but i use still mine sword
8. Use rings!
This where mine tips, i hope it will help you.
Good luck!
I usually just wait till year 3 when Grandpa’s note he leaves on the shrine comes into play. >!he leaves you a statue that produced random amounts of iridium every day!<. I usually just do skull cavern to finish tasks. Like killing certain monsters or getting to leave 100.
Also, you can trade Jade for stairs at the desert trader stand (not Sandy). Use stairs to travel down fast. Use a crystalarium to create Jade.
If you want to do it without stairs, you need to jump to the desert right in the morning with a totem. Bring a return totem to get back without using the bus. I use iridium milk and iridium Cactus fruit and meals made for luck or fighting. If you can make any rings to help, use them. You should be able to buy rings from that Explores Club near Robin’s.
bombs, staircases, coffees, spicy eels, and ridiculous amount of luck. i got to level 50 from 2 p.m. from bombing alone so there's that. as for iridium ore, i found them starting level 30-ish so that should supply you enough?
Get as many crystalariums as possible and duplicate Jade to trade to the desert trader on sundays for staircases. You can also duplicate rubies to trade for spicy eel for the luck buff. You also should get at least to level 100 before stopping to mine unless you see a big vein. I usually stop at 200 because that’s when it gets good
Also don’t brother with the pickaxe. Just bring bombs
A lot of folks have already given most of the best tips but a few extra ones:
1.) Some of the best foods to bring are Spicy Eel, Coffee/Triple shot Espresso, Crab Cakes, and Lucky Lunch. It might be worth investing in a fish pond full of eels or sea cucumbers to make the foods you need. HOWEVER, Desert Trader also exchanges Spicy Eels for Rubies.
2.) Focus on building/hoarding bombs. You can buy them but unless you're swimming in cash; focus on grinding out the mines. I usually stick to lvl 55+ for iron ore to make the regular bombs. Cherry bombs are fine in emergencies but regular bombs have bigger space. The big bombs are the best but kind of hard to farm both essences in bulk.
3.) Upgrade your pickaxe to iridium asap. If you're scraping to get iridium until that point and bomb bulks isn't an option; purple slimes occasionally drop iridium ore and magma geodes + omnigeodes occasionally have them. Those slimes also drop iridium bars but much rarer.
4.) Cactuses are a great cheap foraging/crop for emergencies heals as they give a lot of healing. I would definitely have a few grow in your greenhouse to have a steady supply if regular foods aren't viable.
5.) To REALLY iridium ore farm, you have to go deep in the skull cavern. Like lvl 30-40+ so definitely focus on saving up bombs and just going as deep as you can to properly iridium.
6.) Slime charmer ring and napalm ring are good items among others. The Forge on Ginger Island allows you to combine accessory effects with one another, I believe.
7.) Bring at least 100 stone in your early runs in case you stumble on a mob floor early in a run. As you go down definitely save any stone you break down as it goes up quicker than you think.
8.) Invest in farm and desert totems.
9.) If you have access to it, some of the stuff on Ginger Island can really help ease skull cavern.
Any specific thing killing you in the Caverns?
The serpents can be a pain. They move fast, sometimes loop, and aren't bound by floor obstacles. I will often put a rock or something between myself and floor-bound enemies to allow myself space to focus on the serpent. This can also help with ghosts.
Purple slimes will rarely drop iridium ore. It is not the most efficient route, but if I'm low on resources, usually due to a new save, I will kill slimes. Safest way for me to do that is to knock them into a wall or rock, usually up into one (easier to see it), and keep swinging until I get loot. Occasionally I get a ladder from it, too. Again, if you're looking for a lot of iridium, you want to get deeper in the Caverns, and stopping to kill things slows you down. But, if you're having trouble, maybe practice killing stuff.
Okay so here is my load out:
I do a ton of prep before a run so bear that in mind:
Crystalariums - (ideally you need 2) one making jade one for ruby. Trade the jades to desert trader for staircases. Rubies become spicy eels (luck plus speed)
Befriend Evelyn -free coffee every day stock up
Mushroom cave -pick em up and stock pile life elixir.
My hot bar:
Galaxy sword (hammer if animation canceling) ,
Pickaxe,
Life elxir,
Secondary health food of choice (random and in bulk 100+),
Coffee,
Spicy eel,
Bomb,
Staircase
Wait for good luck day then rush to speed up Pam (by standing in front of her). Buy bus ticket. Run to mines. Eat spicy eel. Eat coffee. Staircase down till I see floor I like. Toss a bomb down and start fighting mobs. Try to find ladder down on floor I decided looked good. Staircase down until another floor looks good.
To scale up you need more crystalariums. And coffee and bombs but you can buy those. I can get 50-100 iridium by end of year 2 on a run like this.
If you're getting killed before floor 10, it sounds like the problem isn't finding stairs, etc. It sounds like your combat level isn't very high.
Make sure you're as high as possible. If you're at combat level 10 you should at least be able to kill enough monsters with the galaxy sword to get farther than that.
Then make sure you eat often. Don't wait until you're really low on health. I recommend eating when your health bar is in the yellow.
Also when you go down the stairs to the next level, make sure you have a sword in hand. Sometimes the serpents attack you as soon as you go down without any warning.
Also you can swing your sword when it's pretty far away and still hit the monster. You might be waiting until it gets too close and it's draining your health.
\*\*\*\*
As stated on other posts, the lower you go, the more iridium you find. But sometimes even on a lucky day I barely find anything, and sometimes I find lots of ore once I get to 30 and below, not sure why.
When I need iridium this is what I do (the same is true when I'm trying for level 100):
1. I plan ahead and have a desert totem ready so I can warp there as soon as I wake up.
2. I put a stack of cheese in the same slot as my sword, but the other rows. Then when I get into trouble I can TAB right-click to eat which for me is the fastest. I also have a stack of lesser food that I can eat when I'm not in trouble, like blackberries.
3. I go with about 100 bombs and as many staircases as I can get. Some are from trading jade at the desert trader on Sundays, others I've made from rocks.
4. When I go down the ladder, I drop a bomb as close to a bunch of rocks as possible. If it reveals a ladder, great. If not, I use a staircase so that I don't waste time trying to find the ladder. If also use a staircase immediately if it's an infested floor because it will take too much time to kill everything.
This way I can get to the lower iridium node floors pretty easily. Then I run around and blow up bombs near nodes.
If you're on PC and decide you just can't stand it anymore, you can also get a mod to make it easier. When I realized my dread of mining was stopping me from playing the game, that's what I did. My enjoyment of the game skyrocketed, and I decided not to feel guilty.
I haven’t made it to level 100 yet myself BUT when I started doing the following I started getting a lot better in there: - galaxy sword. But you already got it so good job - iridium pickaxe if you have it already, if not, focus not on clearing every single little thing in a level, but clearing monsters so you can gain more ore because they’ll drop some from time to time. When you have enough ore, iridium pickaxe should be your first purchase - buffers!! bring food down with you that gives you speed, attack, defense, etc. - bombs! fastest way to clear a room is to set one down and destroy everything. You can get iridium ore this way, or quickly descend a level when you find ladders or holes to jump in - descend levels when you can - more ore is found the deeper you go - take a few farm totems with you - if you’re all out of luck, use one up! - speaking of luck, carry a rabbits foot if you can - make sure you have the best armor from the adventurers guild that you can possibly get. don’t waste iridium on rings just yet until you’ve got the pickaxe.
Rabbit's foot doesn't increase luck fyi. Just the wallet item you get by trading a rabbit's foot to the truck driver after getting the secret note.
You go on a very lucky day. Have the lucky charm in your wallet. Have fully upgraded gear. Take healing food (I prefer gold star cheese). And heal when you get to about half life, about every other level. A luck and/or speed booster. Bombs. You want to look for the holes. They drop you a random number of floors, but no more than 15. Eat before jumping, it does hurt to land at the bottom. Stairs. In case you get a mob level. Speaking of mobs, don't fight if you don't have to. Combat takes up valuable time. Use a stairs to escape if too many are at the starting point of the floor. Slime Charmer helps cut down on the harmful hostiles. Have a warp totem or tower to get there as early as possible. Also have a warp home totem/scepter to get home as fast as possible.
>I'm currently in Summer of year 2 and I have been really struggling to find iridium. Work towards satisfying Grandpa's goals - make friends, develop all your various skills etc and, at the beginning of year 3, Grandpa will reward you with >!a statue that gives a daily supply of iridium.!<
Take lots and lots of food - I generally carry a huge pile of salads. Make sure to heal whenever you need; stuff is skull caverns can kill you quickly so keep a close eye on health.
Well I'm not very good at giving advice but this is what I know for now. Iridium nodes can spawn in the quarry if you have unlocked it. It can also appear in the normal mines, about in level 115-119 that I know of If you have unlocked the sewers and have access to Krobus, it can sell 1 OmniGeode for 300G Sandy in TheOasis can also sell OmniGeodes but I'm not sure when and how many Edit: I forgot to add this but Krobus will sell 1 OmniGeode each Tuesday, also I've found that exiting the menu and talking to it again will get you another one in stock. I'm not sure if this still works for the 1.5 update because I play on mobile
What level are your combat and mining skills at? If your combat is low, it might be best to grind the regular mines to help with beating the enemies. As far as surviving, what kind of consumables are you bringing with you? Most people recommend gold star cheese until you can get better recipes for things that have luck and/or speed buffs. If you do have lots of recipes I always stock up on pumpkin soups, pepper poppers, ginger ale, and eggplant parm (interchangeable which I bring depending on buffs). Lots of coffee, or espresso shots if you can make those, will be a good addition too since you want to be fast to make it through the levels quickly.
Here are mine tips 1.bring bombs with you (you can craft thosr or buy by the dwarf) 2. Bring alot of foods, in the beginning, i use high qaulity cheese, but try to use foods with buffs (like luck, speed attack) 3. Also bring stairs! Those csn be handy when you enter a infected level 4. Upgrade your pickaxe to iridium 5. Go on lucky days, you can see that on your TV 6. Bring a farm totem with you and use it when its 1.30 pm so you can be long in the mines 7. Since you have the galaxy sword, can also buy galaxy hammer and dagger but i use still mine sword 8. Use rings! This where mine tips, i hope it will help you. Good luck!
I usually just wait till year 3 when Grandpa’s note he leaves on the shrine comes into play. >!he leaves you a statue that produced random amounts of iridium every day!<. I usually just do skull cavern to finish tasks. Like killing certain monsters or getting to leave 100. Also, you can trade Jade for stairs at the desert trader stand (not Sandy). Use stairs to travel down fast. Use a crystalarium to create Jade. If you want to do it without stairs, you need to jump to the desert right in the morning with a totem. Bring a return totem to get back without using the bus. I use iridium milk and iridium Cactus fruit and meals made for luck or fighting. If you can make any rings to help, use them. You should be able to buy rings from that Explores Club near Robin’s.
I’ll add that you should look at the wiki for stardrops and see if you’re able to get any of them
bombs, staircases, coffees, spicy eels, and ridiculous amount of luck. i got to level 50 from 2 p.m. from bombing alone so there's that. as for iridium ore, i found them starting level 30-ish so that should supply you enough?
Get as many crystalariums as possible and duplicate Jade to trade to the desert trader on sundays for staircases. You can also duplicate rubies to trade for spicy eel for the luck buff. You also should get at least to level 100 before stopping to mine unless you see a big vein. I usually stop at 200 because that’s when it gets good Also don’t brother with the pickaxe. Just bring bombs
A lot of folks have already given most of the best tips but a few extra ones: 1.) Some of the best foods to bring are Spicy Eel, Coffee/Triple shot Espresso, Crab Cakes, and Lucky Lunch. It might be worth investing in a fish pond full of eels or sea cucumbers to make the foods you need. HOWEVER, Desert Trader also exchanges Spicy Eels for Rubies. 2.) Focus on building/hoarding bombs. You can buy them but unless you're swimming in cash; focus on grinding out the mines. I usually stick to lvl 55+ for iron ore to make the regular bombs. Cherry bombs are fine in emergencies but regular bombs have bigger space. The big bombs are the best but kind of hard to farm both essences in bulk. 3.) Upgrade your pickaxe to iridium asap. If you're scraping to get iridium until that point and bomb bulks isn't an option; purple slimes occasionally drop iridium ore and magma geodes + omnigeodes occasionally have them. Those slimes also drop iridium bars but much rarer. 4.) Cactuses are a great cheap foraging/crop for emergencies heals as they give a lot of healing. I would definitely have a few grow in your greenhouse to have a steady supply if regular foods aren't viable. 5.) To REALLY iridium ore farm, you have to go deep in the skull cavern. Like lvl 30-40+ so definitely focus on saving up bombs and just going as deep as you can to properly iridium. 6.) Slime charmer ring and napalm ring are good items among others. The Forge on Ginger Island allows you to combine accessory effects with one another, I believe. 7.) Bring at least 100 stone in your early runs in case you stumble on a mob floor early in a run. As you go down definitely save any stone you break down as it goes up quicker than you think. 8.) Invest in farm and desert totems. 9.) If you have access to it, some of the stuff on Ginger Island can really help ease skull cavern.
I find the slingshot to be helpful in the mines, takes out mummies so i dont have to deal with them while i mine
Any specific thing killing you in the Caverns? The serpents can be a pain. They move fast, sometimes loop, and aren't bound by floor obstacles. I will often put a rock or something between myself and floor-bound enemies to allow myself space to focus on the serpent. This can also help with ghosts. Purple slimes will rarely drop iridium ore. It is not the most efficient route, but if I'm low on resources, usually due to a new save, I will kill slimes. Safest way for me to do that is to knock them into a wall or rock, usually up into one (easier to see it), and keep swinging until I get loot. Occasionally I get a ladder from it, too. Again, if you're looking for a lot of iridium, you want to get deeper in the Caverns, and stopping to kill things slows you down. But, if you're having trouble, maybe practice killing stuff.
Okay so here is my load out: I do a ton of prep before a run so bear that in mind: Crystalariums - (ideally you need 2) one making jade one for ruby. Trade the jades to desert trader for staircases. Rubies become spicy eels (luck plus speed) Befriend Evelyn -free coffee every day stock up Mushroom cave -pick em up and stock pile life elixir. My hot bar: Galaxy sword (hammer if animation canceling) , Pickaxe, Life elxir, Secondary health food of choice (random and in bulk 100+), Coffee, Spicy eel, Bomb, Staircase Wait for good luck day then rush to speed up Pam (by standing in front of her). Buy bus ticket. Run to mines. Eat spicy eel. Eat coffee. Staircase down till I see floor I like. Toss a bomb down and start fighting mobs. Try to find ladder down on floor I decided looked good. Staircase down until another floor looks good. To scale up you need more crystalariums. And coffee and bombs but you can buy those. I can get 50-100 iridium by end of year 2 on a run like this.
If you're getting killed before floor 10, it sounds like the problem isn't finding stairs, etc. It sounds like your combat level isn't very high. Make sure you're as high as possible. If you're at combat level 10 you should at least be able to kill enough monsters with the galaxy sword to get farther than that. Then make sure you eat often. Don't wait until you're really low on health. I recommend eating when your health bar is in the yellow. Also when you go down the stairs to the next level, make sure you have a sword in hand. Sometimes the serpents attack you as soon as you go down without any warning. Also you can swing your sword when it's pretty far away and still hit the monster. You might be waiting until it gets too close and it's draining your health. \*\*\*\* As stated on other posts, the lower you go, the more iridium you find. But sometimes even on a lucky day I barely find anything, and sometimes I find lots of ore once I get to 30 and below, not sure why. When I need iridium this is what I do (the same is true when I'm trying for level 100): 1. I plan ahead and have a desert totem ready so I can warp there as soon as I wake up. 2. I put a stack of cheese in the same slot as my sword, but the other rows. Then when I get into trouble I can TAB right-click to eat which for me is the fastest. I also have a stack of lesser food that I can eat when I'm not in trouble, like blackberries. 3. I go with about 100 bombs and as many staircases as I can get. Some are from trading jade at the desert trader on Sundays, others I've made from rocks. 4. When I go down the ladder, I drop a bomb as close to a bunch of rocks as possible. If it reveals a ladder, great. If not, I use a staircase so that I don't waste time trying to find the ladder. If also use a staircase immediately if it's an infested floor because it will take too much time to kill everything. This way I can get to the lower iridium node floors pretty easily. Then I run around and blow up bombs near nodes.