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Whether it’s a survival game like Minecraft or a cozy, life-sim one like Fields of Mistria, mining is often a pretty important mechanic, andLuma Islandputs its own spin on it. You’ll be delving deep into old caves located around the island in search of useful metals and valuable gems, and you may even find some treasure too.
Besides the resources, spiders make their home in the caves, and they’re all too eager to take a bite out of any unprepared explorers looking for resources. A rock might drop onto your head, and even the darkness itself seems out to get you.
Updated December 30th, 2024 by Haven Smith:We’ve updated this article to include new information on all the Jungle ores and gems, all Blacksmith and Jewelrycrafter recipes, and their updated Luma Energy costs.
How To Locate The Caves
While you’re able to find small amounts ofore nodes in specific mountainous locationsor afterunlocking certain temple rooms, themain place you’ll get ore, and theonly place you can mine for gems, is in thebiome-specific caves.
Some areas, such as the Forest, alsohave minor cavesthat contain Charcoal and different Ores, but thesedon’t have gems or enemies, are much smaller, andcan’t be resetonce you’ve mined all the resources found in them.
Many of theminor caves can help you access new areas or give you a shortcutcloser to the entrance of an area, so they’re still worth exploring.
You’ll also begin findingunfinished campsites outside a major caveonce you reach the Forest. They’ll have all the basic crafting stations, like aSawmill, Kiln, Ore Smelter, and Simple Workbench, and you canfinish their constructionwith theregional material equivalent.
How To Explore The Caves
When you first go down into a cave, you’llstart in a well-lit areawith a few trees and bushes, while therest of the area is in complete darknessexcept forglowing gemsin the distance if they’ve spawned close enough.
You’ll need touse one of three torch typesto light the areaaround you as you explore tokeep the darkness from consuming youand sending you back to the entrance. Each area has its ownResin and Torch typethat differs in light color and effectiveness:
Large
Eight In-game Days
Torches will go out after a certain amount of in-game time passes, but you canreignite them by running over them.
Charcoal and thearea’s ore type can be found throughoutthe cave, but thegems are always located farther outaccording to their rarity, with thelowest raritylocated closer to thecave entrance, and therarest onenear theedge of the cave’s interior.
Each cave, save for the Abandoned Farm Cave, also introduces a rare,dangerous variant of its regional stonethat cankill you and send you back to the entranceif you don’t avoid it.
While exploring, you’ll alsofind Old Barrels and Cratesyou canbreak with your Whip, and these mostly contain cave-related items, such asTorches and Flares, and occasionally a small amount of Ore and Charcoal.
Flares are great forrevealing a wide radius around you briefly and can save you from dyingif you run out of torches.
Rocks will alsooccasionally fall from the ceilingand create a new boulder that canblock a pathyou’ve made, but they often fall on top of other boulders instead, and it’srare for them to hit yousince theyspawn on the outskirts of where you’re standing.
How To Deal With Spiders
Thelonger you stayinside a cave, themore likelyit is that aSpider enemy will spawnnear your location, and these serve as yourmain threatwhile in a cave.
A Spider will startwandering around the caveonce they’ve spawned, and if you or theyget close to them, they’ll initiate a chase andbegin hunting youdown unless yourun far away enoughto lose its attention.
You can tell if a Spider is spawning as they alwaysproduce a flash of colored light at their locationwhile spawning, and they make aloud hissing noise.
Besides those that spawn over time,mining a gemof any type also produces aloud noise that attracts Spidersand each hitdrastically increases the chance of a Spider spawningnear you.
If a Spidercomes after you, or you don’t want to be bothered by it,use your Whipto fight them off. Eachhit with your Whip will stun themfor a few moments, and you can time it so youstun themeach time they try to moveuntil they’re dead, or it can just give you a chance toescape or avoid them.
You canfarm Spiders for their rare drops, like Webbed Gems or regional Ambers, to sell by hitting a gem long enough to make them spawnnear you, but not breaking it, then repeating the process.
Each type of cave has a Spider variant, with adifferent appearanceandspawning light color, but they all do thesame amount of damage, and themain differencebetween them ishow fast they go.
In mid-to-late game caves such as the Frozen Mountain Cave,multiple Spiders can spawn at once, either naturally or by attracting them via striking a gem.
How To Reset A Cave’s Interior
Eventually, acave can run out of resources, and if this happens, you’ll need tolocate the Cave Reset Beaconand use it tospawn new resources.
Each cavehas one, and they’realways locatedsomewhere along thevery edge of the cave’s interior, so they require quite a bit of exploring and torches to reach them. They sit in awell-lit area like the cave’s entrance, so you cansee them from afarif you’ve gone deep enough.
When you find the beacon, all you have to do isinteract with itand a countdown will start. You’llhave 90 secondsto mine any last resources andexit the cave, or else it will collapse on you and send you back to the entrance.
Next time you go back inside, theentire layout will be reset, allowing you to get more resources. Thereisn’t a limit to how many times you can reseta cave, but you willhave to find the beacon againeach time.
All Mining Resources And Their Uses
Most cave resources areimportant for upgrading your tools, but ores and gems also provide themain materials neededfor theBlacksmithing and Jewelrycrafter Professions, and you’ll need metal bars tomakemagnets if you’re a Treasure Hunter.
Diamond
All Blacksmith Profession Recipes
For the Blacksmithing Profession, you’ll usethree different crafters: theBlacksmith’s Forge, the Ore Smelter, and the Rubble Refinery.
The Jewelrycrafter is a good pairing for the Blacksmith as a second Profession, as theyboth share the Ore Smelter and Rubble Refineriesas some of their main crafters and use many of the same materials.
Fabric x4
Fiber x2
100,000 Gold
All Jewelrycrafter Profession Recipes
Like the Blacksmith, the Jewelrycrafter alsomakes use of the Rubble Refineryand theOre Smelter, while thejewelry recipes themselvesare made at theJewelrycrafter’s Workbench.
Kyanite x4
Kyanite x2
Pyrite x4
Bismuth x3
Bismuth x2
Pyrite x2
Crocoite x4
Crocoite x2
Fluorite x4
Azurite x4
Fluorite x3
Azurite x2
Uvarovite x4
Fluorite x2
Uvarovite x2
Ruby x4
Ruby x3
Diamond x4
Ruby x20
Diamond x20
