Thank you very much @ShneekeyTheLost for all this great info. It's past pepper growing season but I can stick a plant in my greenhouse. I used up what I had on hand and they do indeed make me much faster! I REALLY wish I had read this before I harvested my mushroom trees on the 17th. *arg* Ah well. It's mid fall so they will go dormant soon. I will reset the tappers on Spring 1 as the wiki says. I'm shocked at myself for missing that. I read the wiki on just about everything. When I first planted my ancient seeds in the greenhouse, I only had two I think. So I planted them in a group of other seeds around my quality sprinklers. I've been waiting for them to die so my OCD self can plant eight of one thing around the sprinkler. Might actually have to cut down an ancient plant or two to get symmetrical. *cries* I am slowly filling my greenhouse with ancient fruit, starfruit and sweet gem berries. I am putting fruit trees around the edge. Then I plant my seasonal crops outside. It seems to be working pretty well for me. NEXT QUESTION: I had no idea my dead grandpa was going to come back from the great beyond to evaluate my performance. I got two candles lit. I have read about the second evaluation and am very close to putting that diamond in the shrine. One question about the wiki. In the section that talks about total earnings, in a week or so, I will hit 1 million. In the chart for that, it has a column for "points earned" and "cumulative points earned". So I don't understand how many points I will get for my income.
So am I, honestly. Then again, I remembered the bit about resetting tappers, so maybe I did read that page and forgot? At 50,000 total earnings, you get 1 point, which is 1 point total. At 100,000, you get 1 more point, so that if you have 100,000-200,000 total earnings, you will get 1+1=2 points (cumulatively). And so on. So at 1 million earnings, you will get 1+1+1+1+1+2 = 7 points.
Oh my goodness! That gives me 16 points then. Woo hoo! Come out out Grandpa and see how I'm doing NOW!
Once you get all 4 candles lit you'll get the Statue of Perfection, which will gift you anywhere from 2-8 iridium ore a day. Makes it easier to get those iridium-fused tools! I tend to avoid the skull cavern because even though it's a great spot for iridium the monsters there can be BRUTAL (7 serpents surrounding me was *I got away with 1 HP left...UGH) so if you aren't skull cavern diving this is the best way to get iridium, far and away.
I'm not sure if even the wiki is right about mushroom trees. People have tried to recreate what it says about mushroom tappers, and have had inconsistent results
I dipped my toe into the first level of the skull cavern and thought "noooo way". At least not at my level and equipment. I'm a lousy fighter anyway (in any game) so the statue which I got will have to be it. Sidenote: grandpa was so proud. EDIT TO ADD my first two days of having the statue, I got EIGHT iridium EACH day. Thanks Grandpa! Interesting you said that @One More Day. Next harvest I did on 20th and got red mushrooms. THE NEXT DAY, I had purple ones. I got real busy the next day or two and I think I missed checking them but they were red. Then winter hit. I'll be paying more attention in spring. NEXT QUESTION: What is your favorite food to make for using in the mine? The cheese worked great to get me to the bottom and help me get that last dwarf scroll I needed. I was just curious with the pretty extensive cooking system, what your favorite might be.
Cheese is good, as are iridium-quality salmonberries/blackberries once you hit foraging level 10, if you take the Botanist perk. (The salmonberries, in particular, are so cheap that they're pretty much not worth selling anyways.) That's mostly what I use in the regular mines, along with foraged food, cave carrots from crates, and whatever other random stuff I pick up. Specifically in Skull Cavern, you're most likely going to need a whole lot of food, so if you go there often enough to run out of cheese/berries/whatever, buying salads from Gus is probably your best bet. They're fairly cheap, good energy, and you can get as many as you have money for. I also suggest bringing a food that gives speed, luck, or defense (prioritized in that order). Spicy eels (1 speed + 1 luck) are my favorite. The number you can actually cook is limited by how much time you want to spend fishing in spring/fall rain (plus you need George at 7 hearts just for the recipe), but at least eels are fairly common. They also have an 6% chance of dropping from flying serpents. Other options: Crab cakes (1 speed + 1 defense) have a 50% chance of dropping from iridium crabs, so if you get to levels 30+ you'll probably get a decent number of them. You can also buy as many as you want for ~4 days after Willy's 6 heart cutscene. Pumpkin soup (2 defense + 2 luck) is fairly easy to make although it takes a while to get the recipe. Lucky lunch (3 luck) is... fine, I guess? I've never used it much because the ingredients are a pain to get. Miner's treat (3 mining, +32 magnetism (same as a small magnet ring)) is an option if you don't have any of the above, I guess? Fairly easy to make and you can buy them from the Dwarf too. Also note that when you eat food with a buff, it cancels any current buffs, so make sure whatever you're eating for health (e.g. salads) doesn't have any buffs. However, coffee doesn't cancel out buffs (I guess because it's a drink and not food?) so in addition to the above, bringing a bunch of coffee for speed is also very useful. (For Skull Cavern I recommend also bringing lots of bombs. Also, now that you're gotten to the bottom of the mines, enemies have a 0.05% chance of dropping a prismatic shard, which you can use to get the best sword in the game.)
Thank you Elenna! Especially for mentioning that best sword in game. I actually have a prismatic shard that must have dropped from something (I'm a bit of a hoarder and would be a MULTI millionaire if I sold all this stuff). I did read the "clue" on what to do with it and I know where that special place is. EDIT: *arg* I had donated that prismatic shard to the museum. Looks like I need another one. *back to the mines* I did pop into the Skull Cavern yesterday and died there. Good heavens. How does anyone survive there! Hopefully that new sword will let me last longer than 45 seconds. Since I have about a million coffee beans from planting 8 plants in the spring, looks like I'll be carrying some coffee with me along with whatever else. Eggplant Parm has +3 Defense. I have tons of cheese and a gazillion Iridium salmonberries. All that might give me a standing chance. I have just started using bombs. Hopefully that will make things a big easier.
You really need the Lava Katana at minimum to survive the Skull Caverns (spendy at 25k but it's one of the best if you can't get the prismatic sword), the monsters are just too hard otherwise. A few you can get away with lesser weapons but if you get a bunch of serpents surrounding you, it's "I'm screwed, aren't I?" Given that you NEED bombs to finish off the mummies, either have a good supply of them or a good supply of crafting to make the bombs. Another thing to consider is how badly do you need to delve into the Skull caverns. Without mods it's tough to get down very far without help (things like "stop time while indoors", "make an elevator in the Skull Caverns" would be very useful!) but maybe it's worth it if you need something from it. If the main thing is "I'm going to get to the 100th level to get Mr Qi's reward!!" um...how worth it is to you? Keep in mind I've never gotten past level 21 so I might not be the best to judge, but without mods it's just too hard for me.
I've seen people go into Skull Caverns with the Obsidian Edge, but I can't do it. (At least not yet, I've only tried a couple times.) The key appears to be lots of dodging. Also, explosive ammo in the slingshot makes for great bombs, and can be used to knock enemies back if you (unlike me) have good aim/reflexes. You can buy explosive ammo from the Adventurer's Guild for 100g each, but only if you have the slingshot on you. Or just don't kill the mummies. They're fairly easily dodgable. That being said, bombs are super useful to find ladders quickly.
I've never spent much time in the caverns myself. It's not that it is too hard. (It is very hard) -but more that I'm not playing SDV for a dungeon crawler. I'm playing it for a sim life / sim farm/ sim economics game. The only reason I do the regular mine at all is because the money just doesn't pan out for me <yet> without going to get the mines for the gold to make sprinklers. And, the CC bundles things that are there. I can get iridium sprinklers from some-where else. And if I play long enough I can get iridium from somewhere else. The caverns just aren't why I moved to SDV and took up farming. But that is my choice, others' mileage obviously varies.
Next question: so I spent the entire winter in the mines looking for a Prismatic Shard to get the galaxy sword. I hung out at levels 100+ killing the monsters that have a chance to drop them. Didn't find a single one. Am I just that unlucky? Is there a better way to get that second Prismatic Shard (first one went to Gunther)? Note: I did process all the geodes I found and still nothing.
Prismatic Shards are the single most elusive item in the game, so not finding one isn't all that uncommon. Your best bet is the Skull Cavern. All monsters have a 0.05% chance to drop one once you get to the bottom of the mines though.
Pretty sure you're just that unlucky. Some options: In addition to the 0.05% chance that Shadow Brutes/Shamans have to drop one, as @Surenu said, all enemies have a 0.05% chance to drop one once you've reached level 120. Mind you, this means it takes an average of 2000 enemies killed to get one that way (where shadow brutes/shamans have two 0.05% chances and so basically count as two kills). And that's just the average, it could still take way more than that. (Or way less!) They can be found in omni geodes only. You probably aren't getting a lot of those in the regular mines. If you don't want to go to Skull Cavern, the other option is to buy them from Sandy in the desert for 1000g each on Wednesdays. It's definitely a lot of money but it's an option. The Stardew Predictor site https://mouseypounds.github.io/stardew-predictor can tell you how many geodes you need to break till you get a prismatic, if that doesn't feel cheaty to you. As @Surenu said, if you can do Skull Cavern (maybe with a lava katana, which you can buy for 25,000 g after reaching floor 120), that's probably your best option. Iridium nodes have a 4% chance of dropping prismatic shards, although this obviously requires you to get low enough to see a decent number of nodes (maybe levels 50+?) You'll also get a lot more omni geodes there, especially with bombs.
Thank you @Surenu and @Elenna101! I have gotten to level 120 of the mine. So what I believe you are saying is that I don't HAVE to kill only shadow brutes/shamans for that .05% chance of the shard. Any enemy has the same chance. Thanks for the tip on the lava sword. I hadn't thought of checking that out. I peeked inside the Skull Cavern and was immediately overwhelmed (no bombs with me and just the Obsidian sword). I'll give the first few levels another go. I WANT THAT GALAXY SWORD.
What you might want to do is farm the first few levels of the mines for stone exclusively for a season or so, then take your weapon, tools, food, bombs and stone to skull cavern and craft staircases as needed. Better to have a stack of stone than staircases since they don't stack, use shafts as they appear. Lucky Lunch is a godsend (jobasend?) here
Shadow brutes/shamans have a slightly larger chance since, if I'm understanding the wiki correctly, they actually roll that 0.05% chance twice (so that you could technically get two shards from them if you were stupidly lucky). On the other hand, shadow enemies take several swings of the sword to kill; you'll probably kill enemies faster on copper/ice levels, plus those levels can spawn large groups of grubs/dust sprites which will give you a lot more enemies to kill. Plus, if your playstyle is anything like mine, you'll need a lot more copper/iron than you will gold. Like I mentioned above, I prefer Spicy Eel for the speed boost, but both are good. And yes, you'll want to enter with at least a few hundred stone for ladders - if nothing else, monster floors are a giant waste of time and should be skipped. The more ladders you have, the further down you can likely get, and chances for iridium nodes increase every 10 floor or so.
Thank you both on that. I did peek in to Skull Cavern. First level no problem. Blew up some rocks, killed some flying green thing. Easy peesy with the lava sword. Then I saw a hole I could jump in. Went down 5 levels and died within 10 seconds (SIX green flying things). Guess I'd better take it a bit slower. Stone. Got it.
The good thing is that you can't really lose anything more than time and an investment in this game so you can always try again. The skull cavern can get really frustrating though.
If you don't mind throwing money at the problem, there's a relatively straightforward solution. On Wednesdays, Sandy in the Oasis will sell you an unlimited number of Omni-Geodes for 1k/ea. Buy up like 100 of them, and head to Clint's. Odds are good that you'll get at least one Prismatic shard. If not, rinse wash and repeat. No needing to ever go into the Skull Cave.
