How to Get Iridium Ore in Stardew Valley: Skull Cavern, Meteorites and Every Other Source

Iridium is the purple metal that separates a comfortable Stardew Valley farm from a fully automated one. It powers the best tool upgrades, the Iridium Sprinkler and a long list of late-game crafts. Almost all of it comes from one dangerous place in the desert, with a few slower side sources to top up your supply.

This guide is current for version 1.6.15, the latest patch. A 1.7 update has been announced, but it has no release date yet, so everything below still applies.

Quick answer

Requirements

• The Skull Key. It's in the reward chest on floor 120 of the Mines, the very bottom.
• Access to the Calico Desert. The bus to the desert has to be repaired, either by finishing the Community Center Vault bundles (42,500g in total) or through the Joja Community Development form.
• A strong weapon and plenty of food. Skull Cavern monsters hit much harder than anything in the Mines.
• Stone, bombs and a Furnace with Coal to dig fast and turn your haul into bars.

Step 1: Unlock the Skull Cavern

1. Clear the Mines down to floor 120 and open the chest there for the Skull Key. It goes straight to your wallet, so you can't lose it.
2. Repair the bus. Complete the Vault room at the Community Center, or buy the repair from Joja if you're on that route.
3. Take the bus from the Bus Stop east of your farm to the Calico Desert.
4. Head to the north-west corner of the desert. The Skull Cavern entrance sits there, near the desert pond, while Sandy's Oasis shop is down in the south-west.

Step 2: Prepare for a deep run

The Skull Cavern resets every day and has no elevator. Each visit starts on floor 1, so depth comes down to how fast you can drop.

1. Check the TV fortune. Lucky days raise your odds of finding treasure rooms, and they're the best days for a long dive.
2. Pack luck food. Lucky Lunch and Spicy Eel both give a Luck buff. Eat only one buff food at a time, because a new one replaces the old buff.
3. Craft Staircases. Each one costs 99 Stone and takes you straight down one floor. Bring as many as you can afford.
4. Bring bombs. Bombs and Mega Bombs clear rock far faster than a pickaxe and help uncover ladders and holes.
5. Bring a lot of healing food. Pack more than you think you need, because there's no checkpoint to fall back on.

Step 3: Dive deep and mine the nodes

1. Go down as fast as you can. On floors with no visible ladder, use a Staircase rather than hunting through every rock.
2. Use holes. Dropping through a hole skips several floors but costs health, so don't jump when you're low.
3. Bomb Iridium Node clusters. Once nodes start showing up in groups, one bomb can crack several at once.
4. Fight the iridium monsters. Iridium Bats and Iridium Crabs are worth killing for their ore drops. Purple Slimes are a bonus.
5. Push for floor 100 and beyond. Iridium starts appearing early, but past floor 100 the nodes become plentiful. That's where runs really pay off.
6. Leave before you collapse. Passing out in the cavern costs you gold and can cost items. When food or time runs low, use your last Staircases and head home.

Step 4: Smelt it into bars

Put 5 Iridium Ore and 1 Coal into a Furnace to get 1 Iridium Bar after 8 in-game hours. Most recipes ask for bars, not raw ore, so build a few extra Furnaces before a big run.

Other ways to get Iridium Ore

The Skull Cavern is the only place that gives you stacks of the stuff, but these sources add up over a season:

• Meteorites. A meteorite can crash onto your farm overnight. Mine it for a stack of ore, along with stone and geodes.
• Statue of Perfection. Get all four candles lit at Grandpa's evaluation and the reward statue gives 2–8 ore every day. It's free, passive iridium for the rest of your save.
• Super Cucumber Fish Pond. Grow the pond to 9 Super Cucumbers and it can produce 1–3 ore.
• Mystic Stones and other nodes. Mystic Stones appear from floor 100 of the Mines and in the Quarry, Skull Cavern and Volcano Dungeon. The Quarry and the Volcano Dungeon also have Iridium Nodes.
• Omni Geodes. Krobus sells one on Tuesdays and the Oasis sells them on Wednesdays. The ore chance is small, so treat it as a bonus. The Geologist and Excavator professions make geodes more common while mining.
• Fishing and panning. Fishing treasure chests and panning spots both have a rare chance to give ore.
• Traveling Cart. It occasionally lists ore for 300–1,000g. Expensive, but handy when you're one or two short.

What iridium is used for

• Iridium tools. Clint upgrades a tool for 25,000g and 5 Iridium Bars. The tool is gone for about two days, so plan around it.
• Iridium Sprinkler. Learned at Farming level 9. It costs 1 Iridium Bar, 1 Gold Bar and 1 Battery Pack, and waters the 24 tiles around it.
• Raw ore crafts. The Deluxe Scarecrow needs 1 ore, and a Warp Totem: Desert needs 4, which makes return trips to the Skull Cavern much quicker.

Tips

• Save the deep runs for lucky days. On unlucky days, mine the top floors for stone and craft Staircases instead.
• Craft Staircases in bulk between runs, so you're never stuck digging for a ladder on a deep floor.
• Bomb downed Mummies. They get back up after being knocked out unless you blow them up.

Common mistakes

• Mining every rock on the early floors. Iridium is rare near the top. Your time is better spent getting deeper.
• Jumping down holes at low health. The fall damage stacks with the number of floors you skip.
• Stacking buff foods. Eating a second buff food wipes out your luck buff.