Iron nuggets are one of the most valuable items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. They can be used to make some of the most premium tools and furniture. But when you start playing, you might not know how to obtain this precious resource. Have no fear because we’re here to help you.
In this article, we’ll tell you all about finding and mining iron nuggets as efficiently as possible.
How to Mine Iron Nuggets
Initially, iron nuggets are scarce, as you can’t access some parts of the islands containing nugget-bearing rocks. Obtaining nuggets will get easier as you unlock more features, such as a vaulting pole and a ladder. But you should be able to start your supply of nuggets fairly early.
Five of the six rocks on the starting island can be mined for ore. This ore will sometimes be iron nuggets, but it may also be other items, such as stone or clay, or even gold nuggets. All you need to do is hit the rock with a shovel or an ax to mine the ore.
The sixth rock on your island will always drop bells, so if you need iron nuggets, there’s no reason to mine that rock.
To mine iron nuggets efficiently, you must not consume any fruit before hitting the rock. If you have eaten the fruit, you’ll break the rock and wait for it to respawn the next day.
When you hit a rock to mine it, your character will instinctively move backward in recoil. This slows down your mining speed. To increase your mining speed, you can use a simple trick. While standing next to and turning towards a rock, use the shovel to dig two holes behind you. When you’re mining the rock, your character won’t recoil if there are holes or trees behind them, so including an obstacle means you can mine much faster.
When you hit a rock to mine it for the first time, a timer starts for that rock. Each rock can only give you resources until its timer runs out. For that reason, it would be best if you stuck to mining one rock at a time until it stops giving you resources.
You should mine all of your rocks every day to maximize the number of resources you get.
Traveling for Nuggets
Once you’ve done mining rocks on your island, you can purchase a Nook Miles Tickets from the Nook Stop. You can use this ticket to travel to another island and mine the rocks there. Traveling to other islands will also reward you with additional benefits, such as meeting new villagers and encountering different animals.
To purchase a Nook Miles Ticket, you need to pay 2,000 miles. You gain these miles by doing tasks on your island, but you also get a small number of miles for logging in to Animal Crossing: New Horizons daily. The daily reward increases if you’ve logged in for seven consecutive days, so make sure you don’t miss a day to increase your miles.
You also get two free Nook Mile Tickets by playing the game. The first one you get when you upgrade Tom Nook’s house from a tent. The second ticket is obtained when the Resident Services building upgrades from a tent.
Make sure you use Nook Mile Tickets wisely, and never miss an opportunity to get more iron nuggets when you step foot on another island.
Getting Iron Nuggets for Free
When you get a quest to build the Nook’s Cranny from Timmy, you’ll need 30 iron nuggets in addition to other materials. Villagers on the island will help you by providing you with free iron nuggets while this quest is in progress. Make sure to go to each villager and get your free iron nuggets, as this is a one-time quest and can’t be repeated later.
While this isn’t a way to get iron nuggets continuously, every bit helps when you’re starting out.
Cheaty Method
If you want to cheat the game a bit, you can move the date forward on your Nintendo Switch. This will force Animal Crossings to update its time accordingly. As a result, it will reset all your rocks on the island. This isn’t the most trustworthy or the most useful method, as having your switch on an artificially inflated date might cause issues down the line. Also, this method doesn’t introduce new nuggets but just borrows them from the future.
Overall, the most efficient method of getting nuggets without using a time-traveling cheat is to mine your rocks and travel to other islands to mine their rocks too.
Ironed Out
Now you know how to get iron nuggets quickly, and use them to craft your best items and progress further into the game. Animal Crossing: New Horizons requires a lot of work each day, but it’s plenty of fun in the meantime, so make sure you go back daily and get your dose of mining.
What did you use your first Iron Nuggets on? How many islands have you traveled to? Let us know in the comments section below.
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