Venting about Fossil Collection [Ginger Island Spoilers inside] [Nintendo Switch]

[Phate4569]

If you'd have told me two weeks ago I'd need to take a break from Stardew because the frustration would ruin my day I would have laughed.

Previously the only thing I hated about Stardew was Shane, but now I'm trying to get the Mummified Bat and Ribs and I can't.

I've spent months in game clearing the dig site, beach/cove, and the volcano. I've filled an entire chest with 999 stacks of stone, sold some, and still left more laying around or trashed them to keep inventory space.

Usually I play a few in-game days before work on weekdays, but I just can't anymore. Grinding for these have become very frustrating.

I know the bat is a Switch bug, and the Ribs only have 3-4 spawn chances per week (I have gotten a ton of snake heads) but can't Professor Snail have an option to Rebuild a missing item from 300 bone shards? This is maddening. I just want the Perfection Completion and the Ostrich Incubator.

 

[Kreeate]

The below quotes are from some other threads... hopefully you can find some help from it.

For the ribs at the Dig Site... make sure to "pickaxe" over any hoed ground afterwards to ensure that respawns will happen as quickly as possible... ie: not waiting for hoed ground to reset.

You can also have a look at the fossil guide. Not sure if it pertains to the Switch, but it may help.

I feel your frustration. Been there, even on PC.

Have played through two seasons and haven’t found one. I’m playing on Switch.

Edit: I finally got one! I ate spicy eel, ginger ale, used monster musk, and wore a burglar ring. It came from one of the lava lurkers (the monsters swimming in the lava). It took a full in game year! Good luck!

I saw on reddit someone was saying that doing the Qi's crop quest somehow changes the bat drop rate, so I tried it. Did the quest and then got the bat on the first try (started this game on 1.5, two lucky rings, spicy eel, pickaxe/no bombs, found on level 1).

Just wanted to report my own Switch success. Someone on reddit claimed the bug was fixed when I asked about it there, but they didn't link any changelogs and I couldn't be bothered looking.

My strategy was waiting for a max luck day (Good Fortune blah blah blah) in the middle of the Qi's Crop quest (apparently this works because it forces the loot tables to readjust), donning a Lucky Ring forged with a Burglar's Ring, eating Lucky Lunch, drinking Ginger Ale (luck buffs from those stack), and donning Monster Musk. I also had the Lucky Charm from an earlier sidequest.

The Burglar's Ring and Monster Musk were because I was prepping for a Lava Lurk genocide since someone earlier in this thread said that worked, but those ended up being unnecessary because I found that dang bat in a rock, on floor three within minutes of entering on my first go. In fact I found two; the extra is chilling on my nightstand. So either half a dozen luck buffs paid off or that redditor was telling the truth.

I will also post my success story as I just found 3 today after many unsuccessful runs. I went on a good luck day (not best luck). The thing I changed from my previous runs was that I ate a spicy eel and drank a ginger ale. Also had a lucky ring for total +3 luck. I got to floor 3 and I found 3 mummified bats on that floor. A common theme I'm seeing is that many people are finding it on floor 3, not really sure why but that's just the way it seems to be working out. I went with bombs and just bombed the heck out of the whole place. I did also have the burglar ring on in case I could get it from a lava lurk but no luck there, mine ended up coming from breaking rocks. I had activated Qi's crop quest in the past but never actually did it and the quest was not active when I got the drop. Hope this helps everyone out there.

 

[Phate4569]

Yeah, I've been trying the luck route (though going every day).

I do Ginger ale and Spicy Eel with a Luck ring bonus. I can step it up with 2 luck rings and Lucky Lunches (or rock candy) though, maybe that will tip it over. I'm willing to be surprised I guess, I'd think an additional +3 run for months should be sufficient to get one though....

I'd not heard the Qi Crop thing though. I'll keep an eye on that. I've honestly ignored Qi and been intensely focused on this bat. I'll need to check it out.

EDIT: Yeah, I strip and manually reset the hoed ground, just to be safe.

 

[Kreeate]

Hope you can get lucky with those fossils... wait...

Good luck, I hope you get them soon!

 

[Elenna101]

I know the bat is a Switch bug, and the Ribs only have 3-4 spawn chances per week (I have gotten a ton of snake heads) but can't Professor Snail have an option to Rebuild a missing item from 300 bone shards? This is maddening. I just want the Perfection Completion and the Ostrich Incubator.

Just checking, are you breaking the bone nodes at the dig site? For whatever reason, the wiki page for the fossilized ribs only says they can be found in artifact spots, but the Island Field Office page says they can be found in bone nodes as well. I'm pretty sure I got mine from a bone node.
Plus I figure you should probably be breaking all the rocks/cutting down the trees anyways, if you aren't already doing so, because that will create more open area for artifact spots to spawn.

I've never heard that luck affects artifact spots but it can't hurt, I guess.

One thing that you can also do is to check all the artifact spots first thing in the morning, and if/when you don't find it, reset the day and play through it without hoeing the spots. The next day, there's a good chance the artifact spots will still be there, but what's in them will have changed. Check them again, reset if you don't find it, rinse and repeat.
(Some people consider this cheating, IMO cheating is hard to define in a single-player game and it's better than getting frustrated and giving up on the game. But YMMV.)

Unfortunately I don't have any advice for the bat, besides maybe leaving it for a bit if you're super frustrated and working on other stuff like the Qi quests while waiting for a bugfix (easier said than done, I know). Sorry, that bug sucks.

 

[LRangerR]

The parrots strike again!

 

[Phate4569]

I finally got mummified bat....

Took another 7 days (non-consecutive) in game.

Day 1-3: 2 Luck rings (merged w/ Iridium & Burgler), Ginger Ale, Lucky Lunch. Made it to floor 8 or 9 each day before porting home.

Day 4-7: 2 Luck rings (merged w/ Iridium & Burgler), Ginger Ale, Rock Candy.
Made it to floors 8 or 9 on Days 4-6, on Day 7 I got the bat halfway through Floor 7.

Now for the ribs...I'm not as frustrated about them as they don't waste an entire day grinding and I can get back to actually playing.

 

[Odin]

Glad you finally got it! It does sound like there will be a patch at some point to address the difficulty of getting this item: https://twitter.com/ConcernedApe/status/1364293109622874113
I can understand not wanting to wait for that though.