Skull Cavern: stairs or bombs?

[Shark Wahlberg]

So I know the main strategy for getting super deep into the skull cavern is by using bombs. But why do people so heavily rely on bombs rather than stairs? Sure bombs are fantastic for clearing large areas and gaining more resources, but 100 stairs only costs around 200,000g if you buy all the stones from Robin. That may sound like a lot to some but I got the greenhouse so I'm making swag cash.

Now the only place you can buy gold ore to make mega bombs is from Clint, who is a thieving bastard and prices his gold ores at 400g each. That is criminal. I'd rather buy 50 Return Scepters only to throw them all away rather than pay for that trash.

So mining for gold takes a while and I usually end up getting maybe 30-70 ores in one day of mining. I don't feel like farming for gold and would rather spend money to buy stairs from Robin.
HOWEVER, I do understand why people use bombs on levels 100+ because there is a ton of iridium so you mine as well use bombs to get it all quickly.

So my stragedy is:
1. buy enough stone from Robin to make 100-150 stairs
2. once I reach the beautiful iridium-filled levels I will nuke the place and collect all of it
3. profit

But then again I've only been in the skull cavern a few times, so I may just be an idiot and have no idea what I am talking about. But actually, is everyone else just slaving away in the mines creating bombs or doing something simular to my plan?

[Pixel Peeper]

I mean... sure, if you have the money and don't care about blowing 200,000g, Staircases are an option.

But no, it's not normal at all to do it this way. Here's why:

Normally, you'd go for Iridium right after unlocking the Desert area. Unlocking the Desert area is done with gold, so you wouldn't have much gold left at that point. Bombs (regular Bombs, you don't need Mega Bombs) are quite effective because they reveal Shafts (which drop you down 3 to 15 levels), and they're dirt-cheap because they only cost Iron Ore and Coal, which are both free and plentiful in the Mines (a single trip gets you 40+ Bombs, easy).

Personally, I went into Skull Caverns with 80 Bombs and hundreds of Salmonberries (the berries stop time and protect you from your own Bombs), casually bombed my way to level 133 and came back with loads of Iridium and two Prismatic Shards. Not to mention a rather obscene number of Omni-Geodes from blowing up so many rocks.

I only used Staircases to skip floors that couldn't be passed easily with Bombs; infested floors, spiral floors, that sort of thing.

And that was it. Between that Iridium and Krobus, that was the only trip to Skull Caverns that I ever needed. By the time I eventually had amassed 200,000g, I had long, long ago lost any need for Iridium.

Being rich enough to blow 200,000g on Staircases doesn't make you an idiot, it's just a sign that you're really, really late to the party at club Iridium.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by red255:

No. If I was poor I'd just kill purple slimes for like 50 iridium a day.

you can make a million in summer of the first year. You don't need that much iridium unless you want to make a barn full of crystallariums and if you want to do that you are going to need a hell of alot of battery packs. which means you'd need a hell of alot of rain totems.

where was I?

Bombs V Staircases.

bombs are alot easier to stock as they only require you to carry 1 stack, whereas you gotta clear off alot of inventory for stone for stone.

Cost is moot. if you are having money problems its cuz you don't know how to get money I guess.

but if you figure you are going to NEED 1 million gold, you can have your million gold before the end of summer. or Fall if you aren't in a hurry.

AND ITS NOT SUPER LATE TO THE PARTY.

But the question is what do you need iridium for? you got maybe 50 battery packs in the first year. so 50 bars for that, 20 bars to upgrade your gear. not that hard to get that killing purple slimes.

Well there you go, OP. Two more options to add to our two previous ones:

1. Mid to late summer. Unlock Skull Caverns. Kill 200 Purple Slimes, obtain about 20 Iridium Ore and 2 Iridium Bars.

2. Mid to late summer. Have done a ton of extra work earlier in the game so you have 200,000g extra gold. Blow all that gold on Stones so you can make Staircases. Get a few Bombs anyway because Staircases alone are garbage. Staircase your wait to Floor 100 and then Bomb away. You won't come anywhere close to recuperating even half the cost of your expedition, but you'll get more Iridium than you'll ever need.

Those options both sound incredibly wasteful to me, but heh. They're options.

[NotThatHarkness]

I used stairs the last time I plumbed the depths of the skull cavern and got far deeper in the mines than I ever did with bombs. I don't think I reached level 100 though; I kept seeing iridium nodes on the map and finally decided to go after them at around level 85 or so. I got 149 iridium ore (IIRC) before getting killed by a mummy. Lost a ton of stone, but kept everything important. That ore was plenty for my needs at the time. I was maybe a month or two away from grandpa's evaluation anyways, so it didn't really matter how much I iridium ore got.

The problem with bombs is that you are dependent on RNG for shafts to show up. That has never really worked out for me. If you can afford it stairs are the way to go (IMO).

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by TreyNutz:

I used stairs the last time I plumbed the depths of the skull cavern and got far deeper in the mines than I ever did with bombs. I don't think I reached level 100 though; I kept seeing iridium nodes on the map and finally decided to go after them at around level 85 or so. I got 149 iridium ore (IIRC) before getting killed by a mummy. Lost a ton of stone, but kept everything important. That ore was plenty for my needs at the time. I was maybe a month or two away from grandpa's evaluation anyways, so it didn't really matter how much I iridium ore got.

The problem with bombs is that you are dependent on RNG for shafts to show up. That has never really worked out for me. If you can afford it stairs are the way to go (IMO).

149 Ore without even reaching level 100 is very impressive! You usually don't see all that many Iridium nodes before level 100, and taking the time to mine them manually usually eats up too much time.

You should go on a lucky day so you get Shafts often. If you want to, you can just eat a berry after dropping a Bomb and it'll take virtually no time to reveal a Shaft.

Still... waiting a year and a half before going for Iridium? Sure, that gives you the budget to use Staircases, but it also means you go without Iridium for a long, long, long time. That's what I meant by "late to the party". Usually you'll want Iridium after 3 months, not a year and a half.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by red255:

what for? why would you need iridium at that point? aside from upgrading your tools in the winter. which is only a couple bars.

Yes. Right. Of course.

A couple bars of Iridium will let you upgrade multiple tools and make a half-dozen Iridium Sprinklers.

[Killroy]

Correct me if I am wrong. But stairs do not stack in your inventory, so you have to carry so much stone, that also would not fit in inventory.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by Killroy:

Correct me if I am wrong. But stairs do not stack in your inventory, so you have to carry so much stone, that also would not fit in inventory.

100 Staircases would require 9,900 Stones, no? At 999 per stack, it would only take ten stacks.

[goldenleaf6]

BOTH
Go when it's a lucky day. Use stairs for the first 25 levels. Use bombs to try to find holes to jump down. If it's a lucky day there will be plenty of those. When you can't find holes, use stairs.Be quick until you get to level 70+. Then you can relax a bit more :)

[nike276]

Originally posted by goldenleaf6:

BOTH
Go when it's a lucky day. Use stairs for the first 25 levels. Use bombs to try to find holes to jump down. If it's a lucky day there will be plenty of those. When you can't find holes, use stairs.Be quick until you get to level 70+. Then you can relax a bit more :)

This. You can use a bomb to uncover a big cluster of rocks, if there isn't a ladder or a shaft then use a staircase. Rinse, repeat.

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

You should go on a lucky day so you get Shafts often. If you want to, you can just eat a berry after dropping a Bomb and it'll take virtually no time to reveal a Shaft.

Still... waiting a year and a half before going for Iridium? Sure, that gives you the budget to use Staircases, but it also means you go without Iridium for a long, long, long time. That's what I meant by "late to the party". Usually you'll want Iridium after 3 months, not a year and a half.

It was a lucky day, and I was eating the eel dish that increases luck. And downing coffee. In previous games going on a lucky day and using bombs only ever got me to level 40 max. I used stairs this last time because I wanted to go lower.

I waited until late fall year 2 because I didn't 'need' iridium earlier. Plus I'd been buying iridium sprinklers from Krobus and actually had a few too many. And I had also obtained enough iridium from the ♥♥♥♥♥, omni geodes, and doing Mr. Qi's quest (purple slimes!) to upgrade one of my tools. I don't remember which one, probably the pickaxe. I don't consider getting large amounts of iridium in year 2 or year 3 'late to the party'.

I didn't make that run for the iridium, actually. I just wanted to try the stairs strategy and see how far I could go. I'm usually quite content to purchase from Krobus and wait until I get the Statue of Perfection to fulfill my iridium needs. I doubt that I'll bother with the skull cavern again in future games. It's kind of overkill and crafting and placing the stairs was tedious.

[Pixel Peeper]

149 Ore without reaching Floor 100, but only Floor 40 while using Bombs... talk about RNG extremes.

For me it's the opposite. When I got the Statue, I was disgusted with it; it had been a long time since I had needed any more Iridium, so that useless item was a major letdown as a reward for "winning the game".

I expect that every single one of my future playthroughs will end before the evaluation.

[Shark Wahlberg]

Ok, all of yall are true. But I haven't even reached level 25 in the skull cavern and I'm in fall of year 3. That's pathetic. I already got the Statue of Perfection, so I'm doing ok on iridium.

But really I have over 1,300,000g with me right now. I could spend it on those giant warp things that the Wizard sells but that's boring. I mainly want to reach a super low level in the skull cavern because I was late to getting a ton of iridium and I'm bored so why not?

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by MooshroomJockey:

But really I have over 1,300,000g with me right now. I could spend it on those giant warp things that the Wizard sells but that's boring. I mainly want to reach a super low level in the skull cavern because I was late to getting a ton of iridium and I'm bored so why not?

Well, if money is no object and you just want to reach super deep... 33 Stacks of Stones, one weapon, one stack of berries, one stack of Bombs? You could theoretically make 333 staircases and then blow everything up. You could possibly make it past floor 400.

Never tried something like that. I wouldn't know.

[Shark Wahlberg]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Originally posted by MooshroomJockey:

But really I have over 1,300,000g with me right now. I could spend it on those giant warp things that the Wizard sells but that's boring. I mainly want to reach a super low level in the skull cavern because I was late to getting a ton of iridium and I'm bored so why not?

Well, if money is no object and you just want to reach super deep... 33 Stacks of Stones, one weapon, one stack of berries, one stack of Bombs? You could theoretically make 333 staircases and then blow everything up. You could possibly make it past floor 400.

Never tried something like that. I wouldn't know.

Might try something like that. But instead of berries I'll make maybe 10 pink cakes or so. But i don't see myself having too much trouble with monsters if I'm going down levels fast enough.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by MooshroomJockey:

Might try something like that. But instead of berries I'll make maybe 10 pink cakes or so. But i don't see myself having too much trouble with monsters if I'm going down levels fast enough.

The berries are mainly to stop time while your Bombs are counting down. Time is the limiting factor here, after all.