The Best Ways to Get Iridium Ore in Stardew Valley

Iridium ore is the final ore in Stardew Valley that players need to fully upgrade their tools, craft farm equipment such as sprinklers, and construct new buildings

However, as the most valuable ore in the game, iridium is also exceptionally rare to find.

If players want to get their hands on this rare commodity, they’ll have to progress quite far into the game, all the way to the desert and the skull cavern.

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In this guide, I will explain how to get iridium in Stardew Valley and showcase how to unlock the desert and the skull cavern.

Table of Contents

1. How to Get Iridium Ore in Stardew Valley

2. The Best Way to Farm Iridium Ore in Stardew Valley

3. How to Unlock the Desert

4. Skull Cavern is the Best Place to Find Iridium Ore

   How to Get Iridium Ore in Stardew Valley

   

   
   

   There are many ways to obtain iridium ore, albeit some are significantly more effective than others. According to the game’s official wiki, here are all the possible ways of getting iridium ore in Stardew Valley:

   
   

   • Traveling Cart - Traveling merchant occasionally sells iridium ore at the price of 300-1,000 per ore.
   • The Mines - Can be gained via Magma and Omni Geodes, which are most common on levels 115-119.
   • Krobus/The Oasis - They sell Omni Geodes, which can be broken for a 5% chance of getting 1-11 iridium ore.
   • Fallen Meteorite - This is a random event that has a 1% chance of happening every night in the game. A meteorite falls to the farm and can be mined with a gold pickaxe or higher for 6 iridium ore, 6 stones, and 2 geodes.
   • Super Cucumber Fish Pond - After reaching population 9, the pond can produce 1-3 iridium ore.
   • Statue of Perfection - After getting four candles at Grandpa’s Evaluation, this statue will award 2-8 iridium ore daily.
   • Purple Slimes - Found in the skull cavern, purple slimes have a small chance of dropping iridium ore.
   • Iridium Bats - Same as above, can drop up to 4 iridium ore.
   • Iridium Crabs - Same as above, can drop up to 3 iridium ore.
   • Skull Cavern Mining - This is the most efficient method. The chance to find iridium increases based on how deep the players get within the Skull Cavern’s floors. Use staircases or bombs to descend quickly for maximum profit.

The Best Way to Farm Iridium Ore in Stardew Valley

While there are many methods, the only guaranteed one that is available fairly early is accessing the Skull Cavern. Everything else is based on luck and, even then, awards only small amounts of iridium ore.

With the best method settled, let’s examine how to unlock the Desert biome, which is where the Skull Cavern is located.

How to Unlock the Desert

To unlock the Calico Desert in Stardew Valley, players will need to either complete the Community Center Vault Bundles or purchase the ‘Bus Repair’ for 40,000 coins from the Joja Community Development Form.

The Vault Bundles can be unlocked after completing four bundles and cost 42,500 coins to complete.

Other than unlocking the bus stop, the Vault Bundles offer the following rewards:

• Chocolate Cake x3
• Quality Fertilizer x30
• Lighting Rod x1
• Crystalarium x1

Doing either of those will result in unlocking the bus stop just above the player’s farm. Then, players are able to access the bus stop on any day between 10 am and 5 pm.

Keep in mind that bus tickets will cost 500 coins each, which includes the return trip.

With the desert now unlocked, let’s examine how to unlock and progress through the main attraction of the desert: the Skull Cavern.

Skull Cavern is the Best Place to Find Iridium Ore

For a showcase of how to efficiently move through the Skull Cavern, check this video by ezlilyy on YouTube.

One of the best parts of visiting the desert is finally unlocking the Skull Cavern. To unlock it, players will need to acquire the Skull Key first, which is gained after reaching floor 120 in The Mines.

The main characteristic of the Skull Cavern is that, unlike The Mines, it doesn’t have a floor limit. Players can go as deep as they can, but this resets every day. So, when first entering the Skull Cavern, players start at floor 1.

After exploring it for the whole day and reaching floor 30, they exit to end the day and refill their energy. However, on your next visit to the Skull Cavern, their progress will be reset to floor 1.

As for finding iridium ore, the chance of getting iridium rocks increases the further down players get into the cavern. In short, the goal is to get as deep as possible within one day to maximize iridium gains.

For this, it is highly recommended to utilize ladders and bombs to progress through the first floors quickly. In addition, luck plays a big role in finding the ladder to the next floor quickly.

If you’re looking specifically for iridium, aim to reach at least floor 70 and, ideally, floors 100-150. After 70, there can be around three iridium nodes per floor, while after 100, that number increases to five.

Wrapping up

To sum up, that’s everything you need to know on how to find iridium in Stardew Valley. Unlock the desert biome, progress through the skull cavern, and start mining stacks of iridium.

Also, if you’re looking for a new farming game, consider checking out our list of all Animal Crossing Games ranked by sales data.

How much iridium have you managed to gather so far? What are you hoping to craft next with it? Let us know in the comments below.