Is there any shortcut on the skull cavern?

[Kayderim]

I can't get past level 30 without running out of time and getting teleported to bed, do i have to go down in 1 day? I didn't saw any elevators there

[zemzero]

No elevators. Build staircases, but you'll need a lot of stones. Alternatively, The Desert Trader will trade staircases for one Jade each on Sundays.

If you have a Crystalarium or two, cloning Jades can give infinite staircases.

*Edit
There's also a mod that puts an elevator in the skull cavern, but that's real close to cheating imo.

[Suzaku]

Luck (the actual stat) also plays a part in the frequency of finding holes to drop down several levels. And you can use bombs to clear groups of rocks to find stairs/holes more quickly.

[nanami]

build up a stack of about 100 staircases before you go down so you start on floor 100 to find lots of iridium. better to wait for a good luck day and food buff with luck would be great to with plenty of coffee or trippleshot. i heard about a mod that lets you use a tractor to smash threw everything if you like using mods

[A Pikachu]

Bombs and luck buffs are the big thing for descending "normally", farming Jade and spamming staircases is the "meta" strat.

[Kayderim]

Yeah, that's kinda brutal, i went there with full luck day and reached 45 before dying at 22:00, still had to spend a good chunk of time trying to find the holes / staircase. Guess i'm better off just farming jade / stones then

[red255]

Originally posted by Kayderim:

Yeah, that's kinda brutal, i went there with full luck day and reached 45 before dying at 22:00, still had to spend a good chunk of time trying to find the holes / staircase. Guess i'm better off just farming jade / stones then

yesn't you build crystallariums and and use those to get staircases, I generally do 300 floor runs. for the chests at floor 100, 200 and 300. (looking for autopetters)

if you just want irridium, i went in with 70 staircases and ended up with ~175-200

[Thain]

At the start of the day, ignore all your animals and crops. Ignore all farm and town daily routine. Teleport totem to desert and start descending.

Ignore every single ore jewels boxes. Your mining should only start after lvl 100 onwards.

Focus on using big bombs to uncover the stairs or holes.

Use bomb generously even if there is only 5 rocks.

Bring at least 280 stones to craft stairs if encounter monster level and spiral layout level.

Eat Spicy Eel. Drink Coffee.

If the first level does not look favorable, exit and enter again.

[red255]

Originally posted by Thain:

At the start of the day, ignore all your animals and crops. Ignore all farm daily chores. Teleport to desert and start descending.

Ignore every single ore jewels boxes. Your mining should only start after lvl 100 onwards.

Focus on using big bombs to uncover the stairs or holes.

Use bomb generously even if there is only 5 rocks.

Bring at least 280 stones to craft stairs if encounter monster level.

Eat Spicy Eel. Drink Coffee.

If the first level does not look favorable, exit and enter again.

thats a bit extreme. I mean if your goal is to make 30 sheds and fill them with crystallariums by all means go crazy, but

[trinceleste]

stock up on bombs (at least 1 per level, but i prefer more) and ladders (although if you make it to the bottom without ladders, the wizard says something special lol). ! I like to grab a desert totem the day before i plan on going into cavern, and then teleporting super early in the morning that way i have enough time to make it to lvl 100 :)

[Revalopod]

Originally posted by Thain:

Eat Spicy Eel. Drink Coffee.

I prefer Lucky Lunch, but it usually takes a lot longer to unlock; either the end of Spring in Y2 or getting 100 walnuts to get the cookbook. I have a sea cucumber fish pond set up just for cooking.
My ultimate lucky strat is Lucky Lunch (with QI Seasoning if you can spare the gems) + 2 luck rings + lucky charm on a very lucky day with a luck bonus from the statue of blessings. Bonus luckiness if you have Magic Rock Candy :P

Then turning all the Iridium into bars and selling it with the Blacksmith profession is probably the best way to actively make money. Selling all the cloth you get from mummies, and also radioactive bars if in the dangerous mines, is another big chunk of cash.

[ULTRA]

The number of crystalariums you need isn't that extreme - if you get ahead of it and really focus on filling one big shed with crystalariums full of jade then that's over 600 free staircases per week (approximate frequency of very happy spirit days) via desert trader. There's no way you need to go down to level 600 for decent amounts of iridium and you won't want to anyway.

My process is similar to red255's:

1. Wake up
2. Check luck on TV, if very happy then proceed
3. Touch Dwarf King/Blessings statues (this will make sense later), choose ores or bomb immunity preferentially
4. Equip with mining gear: weapon, pickaxe, mega bombs, stairs, high quality food item, luck rings, spicy eel, triple shot espresso, magic rock candy, ginger ale, totems
5. Teleport to desert immediately using desert totem purchased from desert trader (omni geodes)
6. Eat spicy eel purchased from desert trader (rubies)
7. Drink triple shot espresso I've brewed from purchased coffee
8. Beeline the mines with stairs out, slam stairs down every single level and go through ASAP until I'm at level 300
9. In the level 300 chest room, eat magic rock candy and ginger ale and descend stairs
10. Continue slamming stairs down and descending, only stopping for rubies or groups of four iridium nodes within reasonable mega bomb distance, unless you have some side objective (solar essence and radioactive ore?). ONLY use bombs, don't waste time pickaxing, you're just carrying it for backup.
11. If you have a farm totem, use it around 12-1 AM, throw your ores in the furnaces and go to bed, otherwise exit around 11 PM and take the bus home
12. On Sundays, turn all your crystalarium jade into the desert trader for stairs. Around 300 stairs per week will probably do it, which means 300 jade per week, which is basically a big shed 2/3 full of crystalariums
13. On Thursdays, turn in 3 prismatic shards to the desert trader for magic rock candy, and you may as well turn in omni geodes for desert totems at this time also, and rubies for spicy eel
14. You can just buy mega bombs from the dwarf with the absurd profits you gain from selling hundreds of iridium ingots, uh, I guess

In my current game in spring of year 3 I'm typically able to get to level 400-500, 600-800 iridium ore and 10-20 prismatic shards without really thinking, using this method.

[red255]

from my experience the dwarf king shrine +1 ores does not stack with +1 ores from mining perk. as I still seem to get a minimum +2 ore from a node?

regardless not sure the need to go below floor 300, so a full shed of jade crystallariums seems excessive, I just filled a cubby in my house with 44 of them. I go down roughly every time I finish processing the ore to floor 300. with my 5 big smelters.

but again my first time I have 6 and got to floor 70 and got 170 iridium. which was used to make the dwarf statue and then the rest finished some iridium sprinklers then went into more crystallariums.

you could probably get away with 20.