Need advice with Skull Cavern, please.

[Dron]

My main goal of going to the Skull Cavern is useful loot and treasure rooms. So I go on lucky days and make sure to consume pumpkin soup or star dish for the extra luck.

Problem is a lot of time I can barely get to 20th floor before running out of time. I managed to get to about 50th floor once because I jumped into a few holes in the floor and used a few crafted staircases. I got a treasure room twice, and just to get a mega bomb and sprinklers, not the most useful loot for me (I am on Year 4)
Am I doing something wrong?

So far the Skull cavern just feels frustrating and I wonder if I should just move on and start exploring Ginger Island now.
Ideally I want to get decent loot out of the skull cavern, especially from treasure rooms. And maybe even do the challenge to reach the 100th floor sometime.

[Linkedwulf]

Personally I think there is a huge difference between going for the floor 100 quest and going for treasure rooms/loot.

However a few general tips that applies to both:
-I do like to dedicate a few crystalariums for plain quartz to trade for bombs. I tend to put around 5+ in a line from my bed to my door. that way whenever i wake up and go to bed i can easily collect them. Later you'll most likely swim in money and just buy them anyway, but to start out it adds up nicely as a passive way of gaining bombs.

-Food. Take neutral food with you for healing that doesn't mess with your buffs. Great choices are gold/iridium cactus fruits, cheese or pineapples. They heal for a lot and are easily to amass/replenish

-Time is one of your most important resource in the caverns. you can easily heal through most damage if you bring enough food with you but you cannot restock your time. So start early in the day and as The Collector and others have said learn to prioritize.


Now I think If you're "just" going for the floor 100 quest:
-You really don't need as many staircases take a few with you for monster rooms or circular rooms, But don't stress out to much.

-For buffs go for speed. Spicy eel or Crab Cakes for food and coffee for drink.

-I know it's an unpopular opinion but i think can almost ignore daily luck. the effect it has on stairs/holes appearing is so small it does barely matter. the most important thing here is to prioritize your actions. I can't stress this enough but It really is the most important thing.

-For the most part "ignore" enemies and loot on this run. I know it can be hard but fighting and collecting takes up so much time. Avoid it as much as you can.



On the other Hand if you're going for treasure rooms and/or loot:
-Now luck is really important compared to stairs/holes it plays a big role in the chance for treasure rooms. Go on a lucky day and have the charm for sure.

-Change your buffs to luck. Preferably seasoned Lucky Lunch for food and seasoned Ginger Ale for drink. You could go Magic Rock Candy for food, but it's a high price for a small difference.

-Take a lot of stairs with you. Preferably at least 100+. You want to use a lot of them if you don't find any holes/stairs near your entry point even on "normal" floors.

-At least for the first 50 floors again just ignore enemies and loot as much as you can. Starting from floor 50 you can go for iridium nodes if you want to but starting floor 100 your chances for ore nodes to spawn will be a lot higher.
So depending if you're on the hunt for iridium ore/prismatic shards or treasure rooms with rare loot judge for yourself when to start going for what.

[Asha Man]

Skull Cavern made easy -

SASHIMI - put a dozen crab pots in the small pond next to your house and collect them every day. This gives you an endless supply of sashimi and with some recycling machines also crafting mats. Sashimi does not effect other food buffs, so every time your health drops below 50% start munching.

Early Game:
Space Boots, Galaxy sword, Iridium band, Ruby Ring, Fighter/Brute skills, any food that increases speed and luck, barring that eggplant parm is good. Drink buffs stack w food buffs. Use bombs and staircases for problem areas.

Late Game:
Cinderclown shoes or Mermaid boots.
Infinity sword w forged attack and crusader
Combined rings....Iridium band / Luck.....Napalm / Luck.
You can get the luck rings by panning in the river around the dig site on Ginger Island.
Lucky lunch and espresso or ginger ale
Raise Sea Cucumber in a fish pond and grow Corn and Blue Jazz.
About 20 stairs. You only need them when you get to an infested area or are overwhelmed. Make them first, they stack now.
Bombs are optional w the Napalm ring, but they still come in handy.

If you do the Qi challenge quests make sure you make some squid ink ravioli. They will keep you from getting any debuffs, and stack with the luck buff from lucky lunch if you eat them first.

[Linkedwulf]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Asha Man:

Early Game:
Napalm Ring

You do know how you get that ring, right? XD

[Talilover]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dron:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Talilover:

Bombs, simple as.

See big cluster of rocks? Boom. But what about mats for bombs? Fret not, you just so happen to be in the best place to gather mats for making bombs, and you can gather said mats by using bombs. what a world

I don't find as much coal in Skull cavern unfortunately, partly due to the fact I did not choose the relevant perk in mining skill. So far the most efficient method for me is to go to the mines between floors 40-60 and look for those little black bouncy monsters, they also make a squeeling noise. With burglar ring, they reliably drop coal.

Its true that I am probably not making the most of bombs, partly out of habit of being frugal with them, as in mines you could take your time and use the pick axe mostly. The other reason is to avoid damaging my character from explosions. Yesterday I realised I forgot about cherry bombs, which are worth bringing to the Skull mines when you are in a narrow passage and the rocks are all tightly together.

It's worth mentioning that the mega bombs require solar and dark essence instead of coal if you're really hurting for it (solar and dark essence really don't do much else in the game unlike coal)

I understand being frugal with bombs because I used to be the same way but they're really not that valuable outside of this particular scenario (where they are the most essential part imo) lol

[Sto]

For the desert mine, I have put around 30 chrystalarium to reproduce jades. they exchange the sunday for a stair in the desert trader. then when i Go into the mine I don't have to worry about the stairs then my pattern is :

nothing you want in sight -> stair
lots of rocks -> bomb then stair if no hole/stair
else loot :)

[*******]

It really depends on where you are in the game that determines how you progress through skull cavern. If you have gold to spare, mega bombs can get you to lvl 100 by 4pm if you are able to take a desert totem or obelisk as early as possible to the desert. You generally need 1-2 well placed mega bombs per floor and with the possibility of holes taking you down 3-15 levels, you shouldn't have much trouble getting down before 2am. My strategy was bring spicy eel/triple shot espresso for speed/luck, using bombs whenever I found a large cluster of rocks and going down staircases as fast as possible. I only bring 5-10 staircases at a time if I have stone lying around for the infested floors since they can really hang you up if you don't have strong weapons. *edit: you also get a ton of stone from the rocks you blow up for staircases while you're in the cavern, so it pays off to bring some extra bombs for that reason as well.* If you managed to get any magic rock candy, save it until as late as possible (around 4pm) to get the most value of it's luck. You won't encounter much iridium nodes early on so saving the best buffs for as late as possible will typically pay out better.

TL:DR bring bombs (60-100), staircases (5-10),gold star cheese (10-15), spicy eel/magic rock candy/lucky lunch (start w/ spicy eel, then at 4pm magic rock candy), triple shot espresso (6 should cover the entire day)

[denelibar]

Put Jade in your Chrystalariums and you can trade 1x Jade for 1x staircase from the desert trader on Sundays. Wear as much protective clothing as possible. Bomb everything. Eat/drink lucky foods and speed boosts. Keep practising, I still keep dying :)

[McJiggy]

People actually die in this game? By the time you can do all that stuff for skull cavern you should already have some big supply of food like sashimi or blackberry cobblers on you for health.

[Dron]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von dbarton70:

Put Jade in your Chrystalariums and you can trade 1x Jade for 1x staircase from the desert trader on Sundays. Wear as much protective clothing as possible. Bomb everything. Eat/drink lucky foods and speed boosts. Keep practising, I still keep dying :)

What protective clothing is there apart from shoes and the Crab ring?

[Queen Droxxanna]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dron:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von dbarton70:

Put Jade in your Chrystalariums and you can trade 1x Jade for 1x staircase from the desert trader on Sundays. Wear as much protective clothing as possible. Bomb everything. Eat/drink lucky foods and speed boosts. Keep practising, I still keep dying :)

What protective clothing is there apart from shoes and the Crab ring?

The Adventures gild sells armour later on made from iridium that offers 7 defence.

[Dron]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von soaringfreedom:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dron:

What protective clothing is there apart from shoes and the Crab ring?

The Adventures gild sells armour later on made from iridium that offers 7 defence.

No mention of it in wiki. There is a knights helmet, but no mention of it being more than a cosmetic hot.

[Queen Droxxanna]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dron:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von soaringfreedom:

The Adventures gild sells armour later on made from iridium that offers 7 defence.

No mention of it in wiki. There is a knights helmet, but no mention of it being more than a cosmetic hot.

It may be from one of my mods for from the expansion pack, but i saw the recipe for the iron/gold and iridium shirts in the wiki on the the sewing page. I wasn't able to make them at the sewing machine, but i can now purchase them from the Adventurers Gild.
the iridium shirt armour provided 7 added defence. I'm wearing it now.

[Dron]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von soaringfreedom:

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Dron:

No mention of it in wiki. There is a knights helmet, but no mention of it being more than a cosmetic hot.

It may be from one of my mods for from the expansion pack, but i saw the recipe for the iron/gold and iridium shirts in the wiki on the the sewing page. I wasn't able to make them at the sewing machine, but i can now purchase them from the Adventurers Gild.
the iridium shirt armour provided 7 added defence. I'm wearing it now.

I found the items you are talking about in wiki, they are iron, copper, gold and iridium breast plates, but no mention of any bonuses from them. Must be a mod thing. From what I seen in Stardew Valley, all clothing items are just cosmetic, except for boots of course.

[Queen Droxxanna]

When i tried to make them at the sewing machine, i got a message to see the adventures guild. They become available after you complete most of the mob killing quests or reaching a higher combat level. , and they do provide defense bonus. I'm sure I remember seeing them BEFORE i started to add mods to my game.

[Dron]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von soaringfreedom:

When i tried to make them at the sewing machine, i got a message to see the adventures guild. They become available after you complete most of the mob killing quests or reaching a higher combat level. , and they do provide defense bonus. I'm sure I remember seeing them BEFORE i started to add mods to my game.

Could not find any info about this so far on the internet.