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11 Overview
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44 Copper Caves are resource-gated cave POIs in the Coastal Jungle biome. The cave system contains copper ore veins and hidden chambers behind destructible rock walls. Copper Caves are marked on the map with a Pickaxe icon and are the player's primary source of Copper Ore before deeper biomes unlock.
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66 How to Find
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88 Look for the Pickaxe icon on the map.The entrance is a crack in a stone wall; press E to enter.The most reliable starting Copper Cave is on the starting island, near the initial camp.
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1010 What to Bring
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1212 ItemWhyRecipeStone PickaxeRequired to break copper nodes3x Wood, 3x Stone at the WorkbenchOil LampCaves are pitch black, especially at nightSee Oil Lamp articleLight food buffSlow swings and heavy loads drain stamina fastSee Cooking Recipes
1313 Inside the Cave
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1515 Smash visible copper-veined rock on the entry walls.Break through plain grey boulders; they hide passages to deeper chambers.Clear the hidden passages to reach dense ore chambers.Clean runs can yield 400+ Copper Ore in a single trip per community guides.
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1717 Yields and Respawn
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1919 A fully cleared Copper Cave is the fastest early Copper Ore source in the game. The nodes inside are not one-time pickups: the deposits restock on the world loot cycle, so the same cave can be farmed repeatedly across sessions. Exact respawn timing has shifted across patches, so treat any cave as restocked after a couple of in-game days rather than relying on a fixed hour count.
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2121 DetailValueBiomeCoastal JunglePrimary yieldCopper OreMap markerPickaxe iconTool requiredStone Pickaxe or betterTypical clean-run haul400+ Copper OreRestockDeposits respawn on the loot cycle; revisit after a few in-game days
2222 Smelt the ore into Copper Ingot at the Smelting Furnace, then spend ingots on upgraded tools such as the Copper Pickaxe and eventually the Iron Pickaxe to mine harder nodes in deeper biomes.
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2424 Tips
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2626 Empty your inventory except for pickaxe, lamp, and food before entering. Carry weight is the real limiter.Drop a Fast Travel Bell near the entrance; respawn cycles keep the cave productive.Upgrade to Copper Pickaxe or Iron Pickaxe once you have enough ingots.
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2828 See Also
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3030 Copper OreCopper IngotFoothills Iron OreSmelting FurnacePoints of Interest
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3232 Cave Torch Fallback if You Forgot a Light Source
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3434 Caves are pitch-black inside, and the standard preparation list calls for an Oil Lamp or a carried Torch before entering. Players still arrive at the entrance unprepared often enough that a fallback worth memorizing exists: the build menu functions inside the cave, and a placed torch costs only a few units of wood.
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3636 Open build, drop a torch, keep mining. Stand inside the dark chamber, open the build menu, select the Torch from the lighting category, and place it against a wall or at the mouth of a side passage. The placed torch stays lit indefinitely, so a single drop usually lights an entire chamber for the rest of the visit. Place a second torch deeper in if a Waste Rock clear opens a previously unseen branch.
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3838 Why this matters for full-cave clears. The classic mistake on a cave run is sweeping only the visible front-room veins because the deeper passages look like dead ends in the dark. With placed torches at each junction, the grey boulders along side walls become visible from a distance, and the player is far more likely to clear the cave for the full 400+ ore haul rather than walk out with a partial stack. Always carry an extra five or six wood on a mining trip specifically as torch fuel; the inventory cost is negligible and the lighting upside is the difference between a good run and a great one.
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4040 Permanence note. Placed torches persist between visits as long as the cave area is not destroyed by an event. Clearing all the Waste Rocks on the first deep run and lighting the chamber leaves a friendly, navigable space for every respawn cycle afterward. Players who treat a starting-island Copper Cave as a permanent base mining stop benefit twice from the placed-torch habit: first on the initial clear, and again every three in-game days when the deposits respawn and the lit chamber removes the lamp prep entirely.