Desert mine?

[HeikoFennec]

I can manage down about 30 levels before one thing or another ends my efforts, so how are people descending in it?

[Duchess Minty]

Lots and lots of bombs and stairs, they also go on max luck days.

[Smoishy]

What works for me is craft a bunch of stairs (spend like $300k at Robin's if you don't have any stones), craft about 50 big bombs, bring a Garlic Oil and Minor's Treat and drink both of those before going in on a good luck day.

The Gaic Oil wards off some slimes, the stairs let you drop thru lvls quick without losing all health, Minor's Treat hightens chance for more iridium and gems, bombs blow up so energy doesn't fall from pick axing which also allows time for more monsters.

[I Kinda Fail]

Daily luck means you're more likely to find stairs and holes. Check the TV for a lucky day, eat some luck-boosting food. You can get desert warp totems to enter the mine by 6:30, rather than waiting until 10:30. An extra 4 hours makes a huge difference. You're mainly looking for holes. If you see a cluster of like 10+ rocks, bomb it. Smaller clusters, explosive ammo with the slingshot, or use an iridium pickaxe. If you get a spiral floor, or another type that has very few rocks clustered together, drop a staircase and skip the floor.

Ignore enemies and ore/gems as best as you can. If you see a diamond on floor 10, don't spend :20 minutes running to get it, because that's potentially 10 floors you could've gone down in that time. The only ore you should get is from mining or blasting rocks while searching for stairs.

Bring a warp totem for your farm so you can stay in the mines as last as possible. I've had good luck days where I came fully prepared and I still struggled to reach floor 40. I've had mediocre luck days where I got to floor 140.

If you want to just get down there without any real strategy, get a few crystalariums and pump them full of jade. Alternatively, grind the iron/snowy mines for iron/coal/jade, to make bombs. You can trade the jade on... Thursday, maybe? Or Sunday? I forget, with the desert trader, with 1 jade = 1 staircase.

[pcdeltalink]

Max daily luck and bombs are the biggest key I think. I recently managed to reach floor 86 (without the stair tactic) and I think that if I had desert totem instead of having to wait for Pam to go to the bus I probably would have reached floor 100.

[Jonathan J. O'Neill]

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Max daily luck and bombs are the biggest key I think. I recently managed to reach floor 86 (without the stair tactic) and I think that if I had desert totem instead of having to wait for Pam to go to the bus I probably would have reached floor 100.

There's also the trick to get Pam there faster. Stand in front of her house and and block her until she pushes through and runs. She'll arrive about an hour sooner.

[pcdeltalink]

Originally posted by Jonathan J. O'Neill:

Originally posted by pcdeltalink:

Max daily luck and bombs are the biggest key I think. I recently managed to reach floor 86 (without the stair tactic) and I think that if I had desert totem instead of having to wait for Pam to go to the bus I probably would have reached floor 100.

There's also the trick to get Pam there faster. Stand in front of her house and and block her until she pushes through and runs. She'll arrive about an hour sooner.

I did that but still was far slower than if I had a totem.

[thelefthorse]

If you don't mind using mods, I have found this one to be particularly helpful:

https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/963

It adds an elevator to the desert/Skull cavern identical to the one in the first mine.