Mining

Mining is a skill associated with breaking rocks in Stardew Valley.

During the first few days, the mines are closed due to some accident by Joja Corporation. When it is open, mining becomes viable to the player. Each level adds +1 efficiency with the class tool (Pickaxe).

Mining skill

Mining experience is gained from a number of sources. The most common is breaking nodes or stones, but the experience depends on a number of factors such as the professions one has, the location of the stone or node, the type of stone or node, and whether a special items was spawned from the stone. It also might be possible to get mining experience from opening treasure chests in the mine (25 + mine level) and digging up Artifact Spots (25 exp), although those have not been confirmed in game.

Mining Skill is increased by using the pickaxe tool or bombs to break rocks. Each level adds +1 to pickaxe proficiency.

Level 1	Level 2	Level 3	Level 4	Level 5
Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Cooking Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Choose a Profession:
Cherry Bomb	Staircase	Miner's Treat	Glowstone Ring Transmute (Fe)	Miner +1 ore per vein.	Geologist Chance for gems to appear in pairs. (50% chance per mining node. Also applies to geodes spawned from breaking rocks.)
Level 6	Level 7	Level 8	Level 9	Level 10
Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Crafting Recipes:	Miner:	Geologist:
Bomb	Transmute (Au)	Mega Bomb	Crystalarium	Blacksmith Metal bars worth 50% more. (Applies to Copper, Iron, Gold, Iridium, & Radioactive Bars)	Excavator Chance to find geodes doubled. (Applies to all 4 types of geodes)
				Prospector Chance to find coal doubled.	Gemologist Gems worth 30% more. (applies to Minerals and Gems)

Tips & Tricks to efficient mining

Mining in the mines is often challenging due to the time and stamina cost required to break rocks. It's easy to forget how time passes in the mines due to not having any visual cues of the outside lighting. Things you should know however:

A) Going deeper yields more ore

B) Going deeper gives you better ore

The Mines in the Mountain

Knowing those above, you should know this pattern:

For every level you land on, quickly do a run around of the level to find obvious ores (Things like copper ore and quartz sticks out compared to other rocks).

Then, if you haven't found the stairwell yet, kill all enemies, as some of them will drop the ladder down (Killing enemies yield you with a stamina-free option, even if it takes some time, stamina tends to run out faster than in-game time during early game). If all enemies are dead and you're still looking for a ladder down, start breaking rocks around until you do. If you have a lot of stone in your inventory, it might be worth it to make staircases to reach the next Fifth floor if you are short on stamina.

Doing this, you can quickly achieve maximum yield for least effort/Stamina.

The axe, scythe or pickaxe can be used to kill monsters in lieu of the sword, but they are much weaker.

Alternately (If you want to skip all the fun) if you have tonnes of profit from farming, stone can be purchased from the Carpenter's Shop for 20g a stone, allowing you to skip all 120 levels for just under a quarter of a million gold. This does however cause you to miss out on tonnes of ore and other loot on the way down (unless you stop for that on each floor) meaning that its not the most efficient solution out there, but it's useful if you want to unlock all the levels in order to return to them at a later date.

The Skull Cavern

Bring a lot of supplies like potions (for life and energy restoration), cooking (for buffs like Luck, Mining, Speed and Defense), bombs and stones (for staircase crafting and ammo). Prepare the right charms, the slingshot and the weapon. Take the bus at 10:00 am punctually at the bus stop and quickly enter the mine as soon as possible if you want to grind as deep as possible.

Besides regular staircase appeared and created by players, there are shafts which occasionally occurs, which bring players down for 3-15 levels.

If there are way to escape to the next level, don't cling to your enemies, for there are better loots in deeper levels.

Skull Cavern mining is a race with time, with decent strategies player can descend to about 300 levels before the proper time to take bus or wrap home.

Mining Nodes

Mining is done by breaking apart rocks or nodes with your pickaxe; larger rocks in the outside area or higher tier rocks and nodes in The Mines, the Quarry, and Skull Cavern will take more hits or a stronger pickaxe to break.

Nodes

Note, the experience levels listed in this table will change depending on your mining professions.

Image	Name	Description	Location	Mining Experience
	Amethyst Node	Break apart to obtain Amethyst.		8
	Aquamarine Node	Break apart to obtain Aquamarine.		20
	Copper Node	Break apart to obtain Copper Ore.	Mine (any layer)	5
	Diamond Node	Break apart to obtain Diamonds.	Mine (Layer 50+)	100
	Emerald Node	Break apart to obtain Emeralds.		80
	Gem Node	Break apart to obtain various Gems.
	Gold Node	Break apart to obtain Gold Ore.	Mine (Layer 80+)	18
	Iridium Node	Break apart to obtain Iridium Ore, possibly including a Prismatic Shard.	Skull Cavern, Mine (lower layers)	50
	Iron Node	Break apart to obtain Iron Ore.	Mine (Layer 40+)	12
	Jade Node	Break apart to obtain Jade.		20
	Ruby Node	Break apart to obtain Rubies.		50
	Topaz Node	Break apart to obtain Topaz.		8
	Mystic Stone	Break apart to obtain variety of items, possibly including a Prismatic Shard, Gold Ore or Iridium Ore.		50

Diamonds begin appearing at level 50 in the mines, at approximately 1 in 500 chance of appearing in place of a stone. For every level after level 50, frequency increases by .000016 per level. This makes for a .0028 chance for diamond to appear in place of a stone at floor 100 (1.2 in 500 or 7 in 2500), and ultimately a .003104 chance for diamond to appear in place of a stone at floor 119 (1.552 in 500 or 194 in 62500).

History

• 1.0: Introduced.
• 1.1: The Blacksmith profession now increases the value of metal bars by 50%, up from 25%