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While the best tool quality inStardew Valleyis iridium, there’s a rarer form of ore in the game. It came with the 1.5 update, and it’s calledRadioactive Ore. Radioactive Ore is easily the hardest ore to get your hands on, and both the raw ore andRadioactive Barsare ingredients in some useful late-game items.
Unlike more common ores likecopper, iron, and even iridium, you can’t get Radioactive Ore from random rocks or geodes. There are only two places inStardew Valleywhere you can get this ore, and you have to get through most of the game to access them.
How to Access Radioactive Ore
On the western edge of Ginger Island, you’re able to find a door in a cliff with a golden walnut painted on the surface.Once you find 100 of the 130 golden walnuts on the island, you can open the door and reach Qi’s Walnut Room.
The board to the left of Mr. Qihas challenges you can performthat are all harder than the Special Orders back in Pelican Town. Two of them are worth checking out for players on the hunt for Radioactive Ore: “Danger in the Deep” and “Skull Cavern Invasion.” While these quests are active, the Mines or the Skull Cavern is repopulated with more dangerous versions of the normal monsters. This also rebalances the rewards you can find by mining the rocks and killing the monsters.
One such change is the appearance of Radioactive Nodes, which produce one to three Radioactive Ore when you mine them. These nodes can appear on any floor of the Dangerous Mines or the Dangerous Skull Cavern.
The Mines and the Skull Cavern will revert to their normal state once the Qi quest ends, but there’s another option for players who want to farm for Radioactive Ore without worrying about a quest reward. Once you reach floor 120 in the Mines during “Danger in the Deep,“something called the Shrine of Challenge will appear on that floor. Come back to this floor after the challenge ends and activate it, and the next day the Mines will switch to the Dangerous version. You can now farm for Radioactive Nodes, Galaxy Souls, and other rare drops that don’t appear in the normal Mines.
Something to watch out for is that leaving the Shrine of Challenge active while taking on the quest “Danger in the Deep” again will make the Mines even more difficult. More monsters will appear, and they’ll deal more damage, but the odds of finding Radioactive Nodes and other rare drops will also increase.
How to Make Radioactive Bars
you’re able to make Radioactive Bars the same way you make any other types of bars:combine five ores and a coal in a furnace. The furnace will need 9 hours and 20 minutes to create a Radioactive Bar. This is only a little longer than what an Iridium Bar requires.
Unlike Iridium Bars, there are no enemies that drop Radioactive Bars, and there are no other ways to get them. The only way to get Radioactive Ore is to mine the glowing nodes in the dangerous dungeons, and the only way to get Radioactive Bars is to smelt the ore in a furnace.
How to Use Radioactive Ore and Bars
Unlike Iridium Bars, there aren’t many items that call for Radioactive Ore or Bars. However, the items and merchants that do call for these materials can be extremely useful.
First,Qi sells four recipes in Qi’s Walnut Roomthat call for radioactive materials. Hyper Speed-Gro fertilizer and Magic Bait both need Radioactive Ore. Hyper Speed-Gro improves crop growth speed by 33 percent, which is better than the 25 percent of Delux Speed-Gro. Magic Bait lets you catch any fish that can appear in a given body of water, making it great for catching the last few fish on your Fish Collection list.
The recipes that need Radioactive Bars are the Heavy Tapper and the Hopper.Heavy Tappers work like normal Tappers, but they produce their materials in roughly half the time. Hoppers automatically load their contents into the machines in front of them. You still need to remove completed items from the machines to keep them running, but a Hopper lets you keep production going without having to keep items in your inventory or run around to several chests.
One more way to use Radioactive Bars is at the Island Trader. On the last day of each season, the trader offers Galaxy Souls for 10 bars each. If you collect three of them,you’re able to upgrade a Galaxy weapon into an Infinity weapon. The only other ways to get a Galaxy Soul are to buy one for 40 Qi Coins in the Walnut Room or to kill a lot of monsters in the Dangerous Mines or Dangerous Skull Cavern.
Finally,you can use Radioactive Ores and Bars in the sewing machineto create clothing items. A Radioactive Ore will create a Turtleneck Sweater, the same as most other types of ore, and a Radioactive Bar will give you the unique Radioactive Goggles.
