Stardew Valley is an excellent game that allows its player’s many different ways to play. Ultimately players set their own goals with the most common one being to make a lot of money. Here is where many wonder if they should pick Stardew excavator or gemologist. These terms refer to the perks associated with the mining skill.
The simplest and most straightforward way to earn money in the game is through farming. Because of this and the high level of optimization players often neglect other forms of making money. Mining is one of the best and most active ways to make money in the game. The best part is that it breaks the monotony of the usual gameplay loop. Mining is made even better once you level up the skill and get all of its perks.
Why is Mining so Good?
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To mine players simply need to head over to the mines and break rocks and ores. This will yield experience in the mining skill and most importantly valuable materials. If you don’t have the best pickaxe yet or wish to speed up the process you can use bombs. Bombs are the fastest way to clear out levels in the mines, and the best part is you will still get the experience points. As you level up you will get many skills that will slightly benefit your profit margins and mining speed. Furthermore, you will also get important item recipes as you level up. The items and recipes you get from the mining skill levels are:
- Level 1: Cherry Bomb
- Level 2: Staircase
- Level 3: Miner’s Treat
- Level 4: Glowstone Ring and Transmute for Iron
- Level 6: Bomb
- Level 7: Transmute for Gold
- Level 8: Mega Bomb
- Level 9: Crystalarium
Note that the recipes get more exciting the further on you go just like the skills. Ultimately you are aiming to reach level 10 and get the ability to select a profession. Each profession in the game grants you a very powerful perk that drastically improves your corresponding skill. These professions are the best way to increase your profits. The two professions for mining that players can choose are the Stardew excavator or gemologist.
Excavator Career in Stardew Valley
Excavator is one of the two professions players can choose under the mining skill and is seemingly the worse one. At first glance, many players undervalue the perk because they don’t know how to best utilize and farm geodes. In essence, geodes contain one of many different materials and minerals, as well as important items for the museum. If anything the perk is worth it just to fill up the museum quickly. While you crack open the geodes you will notice that you get many valuable materials you can sell. This is how most of the money from geodes is made.
But geodes have another important use, as currency for the Desert Trader. Here players can trade geodes for rare and valuable items. All of these items can help players by speeding up traveling each day. This is especially important if you are working on reaching floor 100 of the Skull Cavern.
Gemologist Career in Stardew Valley
The Gemologist profession is the second option players can choose once they max out mining. This perk immediately catches the eye of many players because of the immediate payout and 30% increase in sold gems. If you have done a lot of mining you should have a stockpile of gems. Simply choosing this perk gives you an amazing boost in revenue, one that is further emphasized even later on in the game. For most players that reach the endgame, this perk covers the biggest brunt of their revenue.
This is because one of the best ways to make money, later on, is through the Crystalarium. The Crystalarium can produce copies of gems and other valuables, this includes Diamonds. Diamonds are usually sold for 750 gold, increased to 1000 gold with the perk. As the Crystalarium produces one diamond every five days it is quite important to have this perk.
Excavator or Gemologist – Who’s better?
In conclusion, there really is no right or wrong answer between the two professions. Overall which one is better is very subjective and depends on which stage in the game you are at. We would recommend players start off with the excavator perk. Through this perk, you can quickly finish up your museum and collect a bunch of ore, gems, and other valuables. All of the gems collected should be kept and not sold up until you swap your profession.
To swap from excavator to geologist you simply need to gain access to the sewers. Here you will see a big dog statue that you can interact with whenever. The dog will offer you a professional change but at a price of 10,000 gold.
Once you swap to gemologist you can immediately sell all of your saved-up gems for a much higher price. If you have saved enough gems it isn’t unlikely that the price difference will cover up the cost of swapping professions. You can also min-max this process if you often explore the mines and skull cavern. To do this simply hold out on selling your gems until you have loads to sell with the geologist profession. While you are exploring simply utilize excavation to double the number of geodes and potential gems gained from them.
