Skull cavern dives and loot

[Pangaearocks]

It's winter and a max luck day, so figured it was a grand time to finally go back to the Skull Cavern. Not been back since getting to floor 104 for the quest. Decided to take half the stack of of stairs with me, which was 190. Sadly I did some chores on the farm first, and the hours fly fast, so didn't get to the cavern until 09:30. Did manage to click on a hole that spawned right next to my feet, and other times several stairs got spawned for some reason (wasting 1-2). With a handful of treasure rooms and a few pre-generated stairs I managed to spot and take before making my own, descent was quick and I got to level 201 when I was out (2 left).

Time to look around more properly. Sooooo much iridium. Not on all floors, some were naked really, but mostly a ton of stuff, and I didn't even go for all of it. Still kept going down when I spotted stairs or holes, unless several nodes were nearby. Am going to go out on a limb here and say I was lucky

That is 8 (!) Prismatic shards and almost 400 iridium ore, plus one bar. Holy smokes!! Also a third (!) blue cowboy hat. At this rate, I can equip the whole town with 'em.
Got to level 264 as you see, so not all that much more descending since I got to floor 200 around 2PM.

Also, I think this is what you call almost making it back to bed

Yep, I fell asleep there, about 2 pixels from the centre of the bed. Grrr. So close. Not that it matters, but still.

Anywho... what is a fairly normal haul from a deep dive like this?

Ofc I can't do this without a lot more jade/stairs production (only 4 jade crystalariums), but I must admit it was a lot of fun =)

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Honestly I wouldn’t know, all I do for fun deep dives is 1000+ and even my no staircase runs are usually numbered in the 400s.
My average is about a stack of ore and 12-13 shards usually minimum.
I like to keep all the cosmetics though haven’t done a good run in months.

 

[Hill Myna]

Happy to hear that you had fun! I'm personally a very big fan of Skull Cavern (to the point where I wrote an 11,000-long word guide about the place), and I love seeing people's hauls. I think I might like this thread...

On my most endgame farm I only have about 20-ish Jade-filled Crystalariums; we (this was a Splitscreen farm with my Mum all the way through to Perfection) were just really diligent at collecting the Jades from them! I have dozens of other Crystalariums in the same Shed, but filled with Diamonds, and I have hundreds (thousands?) I could craft if needed.

I also currently have about 14 million G, with hundreds of Ancient Fruit on the Island unharvested.

So, let's just say that execution (and the fact that I play on Switch) were the only issues for me...

This is from my most recent run (I haven't played on this save since then! :D) that I did back in April. Full story in this thread.

Long story short, this was my first time using Magic Rock Candy, and I'm quite happy with how it turned out!

––––––

My thought process upon reading your post:

• I think that you were indeed quite lucky to get that ratio of Shards to Iridium; here's some math:

Spoiler: Beware of the Math...

I got 15 Shards from Nodes, and 964 Iridium. That works out to be one Shard for every 64 ore.
You got 8 Shards, and I'm gonna assume those were all from nodes, plus 395 Iridium. That means you got one Shard for every 49 ore.

I thought I was pretty lucky, so unless you aren't a Miner (the profession) like me, we will know whom Qi's Fortune favours! ;)

• Different floors definitely do have completely different levels of Iridium in them, that's for sure. That's why I like to bring loads of Staircases with me, so I can just skip da bad 'uns!
• Do you have any other food? I'm using Salads here, Gold-star Cheese is also a nice option. It saves a lot of IRL time.
• You'd better inform Mayor Lewis about your every-villager-wearing-Stardew's-best-hat schemes if you start frequenting Skull Caver, because you sure will have the supply! Now, if only there was demand...
• The Slime Egg in your inventory reminded me that you've said you're not keen on having a Slime Hutch on your farm. But I'll let you in on a little secret: once you've built it, even if you destroy it, every Slime will have a 1% chance of dropping their respective colour of Slime Egg, which are a) collectable, there are 5 different types (green, blue, red, purple, and tiger) b) sell for a lot (1K, 1.75K, 2.5K, 5K, and 8K, respectively) and c) can look nice as decoration.
• You made it further to bed than I typically do! Congratz on that!

P.S. You might be interested in this thread, it's of a similar topic.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Thank you, those threads look like great reading material. Especially the motherload guide

I got 15 Shards from Nodes, and 964 Iridium. That works out to be one Shard for every 64 ore.
You got 8 Shards, and I'm gonna assume those were all from nodes, plus 395 Iridium. That means you got one Shard for every 49 ore.

1 or 2 actually dropped from enemies, which is probably even more lucky because the drop chance is supersmall I think. The start was kinda good you might say. I was stairing down, and there was an iridium node next to my feet in the early levels somewhere (30-50). I decide to crack it, and boom, out comes a prismatic shard. First rock I bust!

How are you able to get 1000-ish ores though? That seems amazing. Magic rock candy must help a whole ton, but it doesn't last the whole day. However, if you get that many on a somewhat regular basis, it would pay off to make the candies yourself.

I usually take some blue mushrooms with me, and iridium-star cactus fruit that I have picked up here and there. With just a few, it tends to run out, but I like to top up health with berries instead of the big boosts from better food. Then I use the better food when I'm low on health after a ton of enemies have swarmed me for example. Other times I try to run zig-zag away from serpents and mummies, and go for the nodes or stairs instead of wasting time fighting. Felt like I had a good run there, but it doesn't compare favourably to yours or @FilthyGorilla's, whether he/she means floor 400 or 400 ores on non-stairs runs. Both are incredible feats in my view.

Thankfully the hats have been put to good use so far. Me, my horse, and now my daughter. Our son is too young, but maybe we'll sort something out in the meantime These are the only hats I've found down there. However, now I recall that one treasure room actually had a prismatic shard in it, so that accounts for one of the 8.

 

[Pangaearocks]

This was a very casual run on a slight luck day, but I had nothing much else to do, and Robin wanted some stone, so...

Took with 10 stairs and used only used 3 I see. Didn't bomb a huge amount either, but a fair bit more towards the end. Especially on a floor with 10-ish iridium nodes. That looked surreal. Forgot to check what floor I was on when going back up, but reckon it must have been 140-150. Quite pleased with that for such a low input run on a whim. Finally got an Auto-Petter too!!! And 6 prismatic shards :) Oh, and one more luck ring. Not so sure I want to break up those I have, though.

Also, great news about the hats. I found a FOURTH blue cowboy hat in a chest somewhere (on the farm), so that's the whole family sorted out. Sadly Leah won't wear one, and probably not the cat, but the rest are topped up

Question for the code divers: Two times I found two manholes next to each other. Does it matter which one you jump into? Not that I'd know beforehand, but the mind wonders.

 

[Elenna101]

I think that you were indeed quite lucky to get that ratio of Shards to Iridium; here's some math:

Spoiler: Beware of the Math...

I got 15 Shards from Nodes, and 964 Iridium. That works out to be one Shard for every 64 ore.
You got 8 Shards, and I'm gonna assume those were all from nodes, plus 395 Iridium. That means you got one Shard for every 49 ore.

I thought I was pretty lucky, so unless you aren't a Miner (the profession) like me, we will know whom Qi's Fortune favours! ;)

I can't quite recall the average number of ores per node (@BlaDe knows I'm sure, and of course it depends on whether you have Miner) but let's say three. That implies Pangaearocks broke ~132 nodes (probably less in reality if some of that came from crabs or slimes). There's a 4% chance of a shard per node, so average 132*0.04 = 5.2 shards. So yes, 8 is definitely lucky!

Also, great news about the hats. I found a FOURTH blue cowboy hat in a chest somewhere (on the farm), so that's the whole family sorted out. Sadly Leah won't wear one, and probably not the cat, but the rest are topped up

Nice! You could always get some zombie rarecrows from the museum for display, if the villagers insist on being hat-less. And one for your horse, of course. :)

Question for the code divers: Two times I found two manholes next to each other. Does it matter which one you jump into? Not that I'd know beforehand, but the mind wonders.

Doesn't matter. The depth depends only on your game seed, the date, and the floor you're on. So you can't manipulate it at all (apart from possibly not going into certain shafts if there's a specific floor you're trying to get to).
By the way, here's a spreadsheet that can calculate the drop shaft depth, if you're curious.

Unrelated, but if you're enjoying SC, have you considered the Blacksmith mining perk? Increasing iridium bar sell price from 1000 to 1500 can be quite a nice increase if you're selling a lot of them. (Plus you get the Miner level 5 perk which is great.)

 

[Pangaearocks]

Thanks, then it doesn't matter which hole you jump into when there are two present.

Have chosen Miner -> Prospector professions, to get more ores and coal. The latter being important as in previous games I always found it to be a bottleneck. Haven't sold any bars so far, besides 1 to qualify for shipping, and money is of no concern really. Therefore I'll stick with Prospector I think.

The horse has a hat already :) Just waiting for the second kid to grow up, so I can put that on him. Tried when he was crawling around, but no go :D
If I get yet another one, putting it on the alien is a good idea. Haven't bought that rarecrow yet actually.

What is the deal with animation skipping or what it was called? Read about it one of the threads @Hill Myna linked to earlier. Can't say I noticed any delay in floors loading. Though I suppose over 200 floors it does add up even if it's just a microsecond every time. Sounds like a lot of work though, and probably difficult to get the timing right.

 

[ThePerfectGarden]

Got to level 264

all I do for fun deep dives is 1000+ and even my no staircase runs are usually numbered in the 400s.

I'm personally a very big fan of Skull Cavern (to the point where I wrote an 11,000-long word guide about the place)

I think I shall first read through Hill Myrna's 11,000-long word guide, before I start screaming:

HOW DO YOU GUYS DO THAT????!!!!!!!

My farthest dive was to level 120 or so when I did the Qi Quest to level 100. That day I dropped everything on the farm and was in the Skull Cavern at 7.00 am (and out again around 12.00 pm). With 90+ staircases, lots of bombs and all.

 

[BlaDe]

I can't quite recall the average number of ores per node (@BlaDe knows I'm sure, and of course it depends on whether you have Miner) but let's say three. That implies Pangaearocks broke ~132 nodes (probably less in reality if some of that came from crabs or slimes). There's a 4% chance of a shard per node, so average 132*0.04 = 5.2 shards. So yes, 8 is definitely lucky!

Average is 2 (+1 for miner). You also get a MiningLevel% chance at +1, and a LuckLevel% chance at +1 (food/luck rings)

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Thank you, those threads look like great reading material. Especially the motherload guide

1 or 2 actually dropped from enemies, which is probably even more lucky because the drop chance is supersmall I think. The start was kinda good you might say. I was stairing down, and there was an iridium node next to my feet in the early levels somewhere (30-50). I decide to crack it, and boom, out comes a prismatic shard. First rock I bust!

How are you able to get 1000-ish ores though? That seems amazing. Magic rock candy must help a whole ton, but it doesn't last the whole day. However, if you get that many on a somewhat regular basis, it would pay off to make the candies yourself.

I usually take some blue mushrooms with me, and iridium-star cactus fruit that I have picked up here and there. With just a few, it tends to run out, but I like to top up health with berries instead of the big boosts from better food. Then I use the better food when I'm low on health after a ton of enemies have swarmed me for example. Other times I try to run zig-zag away from serpents and mummies, and go for the nodes or stairs instead of wasting time fighting. Felt like I had a good run there, but it doesn't compare favourably to yours or @FilthyGorilla's, whether he/she means floor 400 or 400 ores on non-stairs runs. Both are incredible feats in my view.

Thankfully the hats have been put to good use so far. Me, my horse, and now my daughter. Our son is too young, but maybe we'll sort something out in the meantime These are the only hats I've found down there. However, now I recall that one treasure room actually had a prismatic shard in it, so that accounts for one of the 8.

View attachment 10944

No I mean floors lmao, my usual ore drop is 1k for casual runs with minimal stair casing and 2-3k if I pause buffer and try for ores and shards, could def go better though.

@Hill Myna does have great guides and ideas/suggestions in the topic so you are lucky they started to chat here.
I usually burn through a lot of cash each run though, probably in the area of 300k in supplies and stuff (mostly Ammo and bombs), probably more accounting for potential money in all the gems I spend on staircases.
Yeah just checked and it’s another 400k if I sold the jade with gemologist on deep dives.
Still, it’s fun, even if I just trash most of the stuff.

 

[Elenna101]

Have chosen Miner -> Prospector professions, to get more ores and coal. The latter being important as in previous games I always found it to be a bottleneck. Haven't sold any bars so far, besides 1 to qualify for shipping, and money is of no concern really. Therefore I'll stick with Prospector I think.

It's your game and of course you're welcome to do what you want, and if you're just hoarding all the iridium then of course you won't get any benefit from Blacksmith. That being said, just wanted to remind you that you can buy coal for 250 from Clint, so if money is of no concern then they should both be equally good. :)
And I don't have hard numbers but I strongly suspect that if you sold the iridium you got and put the extra money from Blacksmith into buying coal (i.e. 2 coal per bar) you'd get more coal than you're getting from Prospector.

Wait, I don't need hard numbers for this one. In your second screenshot you had 278 ore - i.e. 55 bars and a bit - and 46 coal. The extra money from selling your bars with Blacksmith could let you buy 110 coal, far more than what you got (especially since you would still get a lot of that 46 coal even without Prospector). Of course it depends on whether you're selling your bars or just hoarding them or crafting stuff with them, though.

What is the deal with animation skipping or what it was called? Read about it one of the threads @Hill Myna linked to earlier. Can't say I noticed any delay in floors loading. Though I suppose over 200 floors it does add up even if it's just a microsecond every time. Sounds like a lot of work though, and probably difficult to get the timing right.

Animation cancelling is different from what I think you're talking about. Animation cancelling basically means you cancel each tool use animation, so that you can use tools (e.g. swinging a pickaxe) faster than you would otherwise. Here's a video about it, and there are also tutorials on the Stardew leaderboard on speedrun.com. Ironically I'd say Skull Caverns is one of the places where animation cancel is less helpful since you're mostly using bombs/explosive ammo rather than pickaxe.

What you're referring to, which I guess we can call ladder pause buffering but I don't think it has a name really, is pausing as each floor loads. After the screen turns black, in-game time starts passing, but you can't do anything until the next floor loads in, so it's wasting a little bit of the in-game time, which you can avoid by pausing when the floor turns black. It does make a noticable difference once you start going several hundred floors, although I don't recall actual numbers right now. The timing is a little tricky but not too bad I think (although YMMV of course), you just need to pause once the screen goes completely black.

 

[Lew Zealand]

I tried the Ladder Pause Buffering thing a while back and seem to lack the dexterity to pull it off consistently. However I did my first kind-of dedicated Skull Cavern run as a side-effect of doing the Qi Challenge (no food/drink) and got down to Lvl 100 in about 3 hours (10am after minimal Farm maintenance) by banging down Staircases. I think I had to break rocks locking me in only twice. I wonder how much time people good at LPBing save vs. 3 hours with the technique as it seems that I could get to Level 200 or 300 with a lot of looting time left.

On that day I then just started Bombing and Looting until about 1:30am. Neutral Luck, Ginger Ale and Spicy Eel, got to Level 157 including a Shaft that dropped me 13 Levels (I didn't even know you could descend that far in one!). One question for the SCDivers here: What are you trying to get on these runs? Prismatic Shards? Autopetters? Iridium for Bars to sell? Or just having fun causing mayhem?

My stuffs after this casual-ish SC run:

The 4 Prizzies are nice and replace the 4 it took to Tailor these top-tier threads.

 

[Pangaearocks]

No I mean floors lmao, my usual ore drop is 1k for casual runs with minimal stair casing and 2-3k if I pause buffer and try for ores and shards, could def go better though.

This sounds completely nuts, especially when referred to as "casual" How is that even possible?

On what I would call casual runs, where I don't use many ladders nor bombs, I may not even get to floor 100, which also means the loot isn't all that great. It's still fun, mind you, and having the Napalm ring helps so I don't have to pick at every rock in existence. Sometimes it's a bit nuts, I'm left running around looking for rocks, because none would result in a ladder, and I'm wondering if there are like 2 random rocks left in a nook somewhere.

The ladder pause buffering sounds intriguing. Wonder how much time I could save if it was possible to master the technique. Frustrating that the game works like this though, and time is running when the floor isn't even loaded yet. Kinda similar to how I find it frustrating that fishing food time is running when I'm trying to haul in the fish. The game world time isn't running then (NPCs stop for example), but for some reason the food timer is. Strange.

got to Level 157 including a Shaft that dropped me 13 Levels (I didn't even know you could descend that far in one!). One question for the SCDivers here: What are you trying to get on these runs? Prismatic Shards? Autopetters? Iridium for Bars to sell? Or just having fun causing mayhem?

Very nice return there, with 4 prismatic shards and heaps of ore. I believe manholes as I like to call them, can drop you between 3 and 15 floors. I usually get 3-5, but very cool when you get 12-15.

About your question, at this point for me it's mainly about the challenge and the fun. Due to previous hauls and especially the Grampa statue, I don't need the iridium. Not even the prismatic shards any more (have 18 left, and have enchanted most tools). I would love to get another auto-petter, and eventually it's bound to land. Wish I took better advantage of going there during winter (had maybe 2 or 3 visits), because now during spring, it's back to the chaotic and stressful farmer's life.

 

[Pangaearocks]

There may be better videos out there that explain it better, but this is the one I found. Quite useful. For example, I had no idea that loot kept getting sucked in during pauses.

 

[Elenna101]

I tried the Ladder Pause Buffering thing a while back and seem to lack the dexterity to pull it off consistently. However I did my first kind-of dedicated Skull Cavern run as a side-effect of doing the Qi Challenge (no food/drink) and got down to Lvl 100 in about 3 hours (10am after minimal Farm maintenance) by banging down Staircases. I think I had to break rocks locking me in only twice. I wonder how much time people good at LPBing save vs. 3 hours with the technique as it seems that I could get to Level 200 or 300 with a lot of looting time left.

On that day I then just started Bombing and Looting until about 1:30am. Neutral Luck, Ginger Ale and Spicy Eel, got to Level 157 including a Shaft that dropped me 13 Levels (I didn't even know you could descend that far in one!). One question for the SCDivers here: What are you trying to get on these runs? Prismatic Shards? Autopetters? Iridium for Bars to sell? Or just having fun causing mayhem?

This is an extreme example, but it's possible to go 70+ floors in one 10-minute interval with really, really good pause buffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkBpk2kqd1w
(One slight nitpick with that video, Waligug says a 10-minute tick is 7 IRL seconds, that's true outside Skull Caverns, but inside Skull Caverns in singleplayer it's 9 seconds.)

Yep, shafts are 3-15 floors. The game randomly picks a number from 3 to 8, and then there's a 10% chance to double that number minus 1 (which incidentally means 10, 12, and 14-floor shafts are impossible, unless you're ending on floor 100).

I do some skull cavern runs for autopetters and money but mostly it's just for fun (and Qi quests).

 

[FilthyGorilla]

I tried the Ladder Pause Buffering thing a while back and seem to lack the dexterity to pull it off consistently. However I did my first kind-of dedicated Skull Cavern run as a side-effect of doing the Qi Challenge (no food/drink) and got down to Lvl 100 in about 3 hours (10am after minimal Farm maintenance) by banging down Staircases. I think I had to break rocks locking me in only twice. I wonder how much time people good at LPBing save vs. 3 hours with the technique as it seems that I could get to Level 200 or 300 with a lot of looting time left.

On that day I then just started Bombing and Looting until about 1:30am. Neutral Luck, Ginger Ale and Spicy Eel, got to Level 157 including a Shaft that dropped me 13 Levels (I didn't even know you could descend that far in one!). One question for the SCDivers here: What are you trying to get on these runs? Prismatic Shards? Autopetters? Iridium for Bars to sell? Or just having fun causing mayhem?

My stuffs after this casual-ish SC run:

View attachment 11001

The 4 Prizzies are nice and replace the 4 it took to Tailor these top-tier threads.

Yeah like if I try hard way too badly I can get to lvl 100 at 6:30, this is accounting for food buff eating and travel times.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Obviously @FilthyGorilla is in a totally different stratosphere when it comes to this. I'm not that dedicated, but it's fun the few times I do go to the Skull Cavern. This too was what I'd call a fairly casual run. Took with stairs and bombs, and used a decent amount of bombs when I came deep (100+), but only a handful of stairs. Found a bunch of treasure rooms, but poor return in terms of prismatic shards. Nice amount of iridium ore, though, so in that sense it was worth the trip. Got there early (for my standards) because I had prepared a chest in the bedroom, with the few desert totems I've found plus food. When I saw it was a max luck day, equipment was exchanged to the chest and I used the totem. Sadly had forgotten about espresso, so had to run back and forth a little bit to make that first. But got started in the mine at 6:30 or possibly 6:40. Did try to use the pause buffering technique. Don't know if it actually worked, but it's hard to remember it for each time you go down. Probably more useful when using stairs all the time anyway.

Anyway, this was the haul. I left a little early to swap tools and get back to bed, at floor 148 I believe (or maybe a little after). It was a crappy circular floor anyway.

Some floors are just nuts, and by that I mean enemies. At one point I had ~8 iridium bats chasing after me, and I'm trying to zig-zag between them to get away from the massive section of sand (stairs don't work) to get away. And ofc in moments like that, I keep trying to put down stairs but the marker is always "red". Gah!! Relief when I get to the next floor and can heal in peace.

 

[Pangaearocks]

Tried a bit harder this time. Took with some 200 stairs and pretty much only stopped for treasure rooms. Tried the pause buffering thing again, but I find it hard to tell if or how well it worked. Got into the mine around 06:30, and arrived at floor 201 at 12:10.

A darn shame to fall asleep near three nice bombable nodes, but what are you gonna to. Time doesn't stop for anybody. Floor 317 is a new record for me, but nothing to write home about for the experts. Should have brought more stairs I suppose, had to make them from stones at some point, so naturally didn't have many.

The idea wasn't to fall asleep in the mine because I left the horse whistle above, but shinies are hard to pass up on!

This was the total haul. Rather pleased with 14 prismatic shards :D
(one was from a treasure room)

Finally got a second auto-petter too. Which I amusingly don't really need for the coop, as they are probably all topped up long ago. Still nice :P

Don't forget that sap and slime either, that's a sweet haul!!

At one point I was going to eat a sashimi while waiting for a bomb, but ended up jumping down a hole instead. Seem to recall seeing a prismatic on the left side of the room, but at least a bunch of iridium ore. Bit annoying when things like that happen, but at least I didn't leave the mine. That has happened too...

 

[Lew Zealand]

There may be better videos out there that explain it better, but this is the one I found. Quite useful. For example, I had no idea that loot kept getting sucked in during pauses.

I watched this and some of the original video he refers to and I will try this. I didn't understand the finger/key technique to pause when first encountering this technique but I think I understand it now. Seems simple enough once you get the timing. Thanks for posting this!

 

[Pangaearocks]

This is an extreme example, but it's possible to go 70+ floors in one 10-minute interval with really, really good pause buffering.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkBpk2kqd1w

Funny you should write that (above), because I just watched a good bulk of this video. Holy shmoke!!

Have to respectfully disagree with him that he is bad at the game, though
Things are going so fast I'm not even sure what is going on. Totally nuts.