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Shards in Prospecting are the game’s mid-tier crafting currency, and the fastest way to get them is to run mid-to-deep layer geodes with the best pickaxe you can already afford — a Tier 2 pickaxe roughly triples your shard income compared with the starter tool, and a Tier 3 roughly doubles it again. Spend your first 30 shards on a pickaxe upgrade rather than saving for a Tier 3 or trading, because tool tier is the only thing that permanently raises your shards-per-hour. Trading is the right move only for shard types you genuinely cannot farm at your current depth.
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What Shards Are and Where They Come From
A shard is a crafting material that drops from ore nodes, geodes, and quest rewards, and is consumed when you craft or upgrade prospecting gear. Shards are separate from coins: coins buy consumables and repairs, while shards gate the tool and gear tiers that actually change how fast you can mine.
Exact drop rates shift with each patch, so the figures below are the ranges players most commonly report and are consistent with what the in-game crafting menu implies about tool tiers. Treat them as planning numbers, not fixed values, and confirm current rates in the game’s official patch notes before committing to a long grind.
| Source | Typical shards per hour | What it requires | Best used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Surface nodes (top layer) | 1–2 | Starter pickaxe | Your first 20–30 shards only |
| Mid-layer geodes | 5–7 | Tier 2 pickaxe | The main grind for most players |
| Deep-layer geodes | 10–13 | Tier 3 pickaxe plus a light source | Funding Tier 4 gear |
| Daily quests | 5–10 per day | None | The best shards-per-minute in the game |
| Boss or rare spawn | 15–40 per kill | A group and a long cooldown | Burst income, not a steady farm |
| Player trading | Varies | Something another player wants | Rare shard types you cannot farm |
How to Farm Shards: Step by Step
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Each step below includes why it matters, because the order you do these in is worth more than the raw hours you put in.
- Do your daily quests before anything else. Five to ten shards for a few minutes of work is a better rate than any node in the game, and the quests reset on a fixed timer whether or not you log in.
- Check your pickaxe tier in the inventory panel. Shard drop rates scale with tool tier, not player level, so a high-level character with a starter pickaxe farms at starter rates.
- Mine at the deepest layer your pickaxe can handle. Drop tables are layer-gated. Farming above your tier wastes time; farming below it wastes stamina and risks death.
- Bring light and stamina consumables on every deep run. Darkness and stamina drain are what kill most runs, and dying typically costs you a share of the shards you are carrying.
- Prioritize geodes over exposed ore veins. Geodes have a higher shard-per-block rate, so on a fixed timer you want the slower, denser targets rather than the easy surface ore.
- Bank your shards at the surface vault before boss runs and before logging off. Anything in your inventory is at risk; anything banked is not.
- Only start trading after your tool is upgraded. Trading shards away before you have a Tier 2 pickaxe trades away your future income.
Cost Per Shard: A Worked Calculation
This is the calculation that decides whether you should save straight for a big upgrade or buy a cheaper one first. Assume a starter pickaxe yields 2 shards/hour, a Tier 2 pickaxe costs 30 shards and yields 6 shards/hour, and a Tier 3 pickaxe costs 140 shards and yields 12 shards/hour.
- Path A — save straight for Tier 3: 140 shards at 2/hour = 70 hours.
- Path B — buy Tier 2 first: 30 shards at 2/hour = 15 hours, then 140 shards at 6/hour = 23.3 hours, for a total of 38.3 hours.
Buying the cheaper tool first saves about 32 hours of grinding. In cost-per-shard terms, you are paying roughly 30 minutes of farming per shard on a starter pickaxe, about 10 minutes per shard at Tier 2, and about 5 minutes per shard at Tier 3 — which is why every upgrade you can afford is almost always worth taking immediately.
Crafting vs Trading: Which to Do With Your Shards
Crafting is cheaper per shard and always available; trading is faster but costs you something else of value. As a general rule, craft anything that appears in your own crafting menu, and trade only for shard types that drop from layers you cannot yet reach.
Player-market values for shards move around with each patch and with server population, so treat any trade rate you see as a range rather than a fixed price. A common pattern is that surplus mid-tier ores trade for roughly 20–40 shards’ worth of value, while the rare shard types people actually want are usually not for sale at all — the players who have them need them for their own Tier 4 crafts.
| Your situation | Best use of shards | Why |
|---|---|---|
| First hour of play | Save everything; do not trade | You have nothing worth trading and no rate worth protecting |
| Starter pickaxe, 30+ shards banked | Buy the Tier 2 pickaxe | Triples your hourly rate and pays for itself in about 7 hours |
| Tier 2 pickaxe, playing solo | 70% tool upgrades, 30% gear | Gear keeps you alive in deeper layers; upgrades raise income |
| Tier 3 pickaxe | Save for the Tier 4 tool | At this point the tool is the only meaningful bottleneck |
| Playing in a regular group | Boss and rare spawns | Burst income that solo players cannot match |
| Very limited playtime | Daily quests, then trading | Quests are fixed-value; trading converts time into shards |
Common Mistakes That Cost Shards
- Buying cosmetics first. Cosmetic shard sinks look cheap individually and add up to a tool upgrade you could have had.
- Trading shards for coins. Coins are farmable at almost any depth; shards are gated behind tool tiers. Converting the scarce resource into the abundant one is the single most expensive mistake new players make.
- Farming above your tier. Sitting in the mid layer with a Tier 3 pickaxe costs you more than half your potential hourly rate.
- Carrying shards into boss fights. Bank first. The risk is not worth the extra trip.
- Crafting duplicates. Check whether an item is already in your inventory before spending shards on it; the crafting menu does not always warn you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the fastest way to get shards in Prospecting?
Do the daily quests first, then farm geodes at the deepest layer your pickaxe can handle. Daily quests give a fixed 5–10 shards for a few minutes of work, which no node can match, and deep-layer geodes give roughly twice the hourly rate of mid-layer ones. Group boss runs beat both on a per-hour basis, but only if you have a regular group and the cooldown is up.
Should I save for a Tier 3 pickaxe or buy Tier 2 first?
Buy Tier 2 first in almost every case. At the rates above, saving straight for Tier 3 takes around 70 hours, while buying the Tier 2 tool first gets you there in roughly 38 hours. The only reason to skip the intermediate tool is if a patch has made the Tier 2 upgrade unusually expensive relative to its drop-rate gain.
Can you lose shards when you die?
Yes — in most builds, dying costs you a portion of the shards you are carrying rather than the ones you have banked. That is why the standard advice is to bank at the surface before boss runs, before deep dives, and before logging off. Verify the current death penalty in the official patch notes, since it has been adjusted between updates.
Are shards worth trading for coins?
Usually no. Coins are farmable at any depth and with any tool, while shards are limited by your tool tier, so trading shards for coins trades a scarce resource for an abundant one. The exception is a short-term coin emergency — a repair or a consumable you need to finish a run — where a small trade is defensible.
Is crafting or trading better for rare shards?
Crafting is better whenever the shard type appears in your own crafting menu, because it costs you time rather than trade value. Trade only for the shard types that drop from layers you cannot reach yet, and expect those to be expensive or unavailable, since the players who own them are usually saving for their own high-tier crafts.
Do shards reset or carry over between sessions?
Banked shards persist; unbanked shards stay in your inventory until you die or trade them. Drop-rate and quest values do change between patches, so if your hourly rate suddenly looks wrong, check the official patch notes before assuming you are farming the wrong layer.
