How to Farm Gold in Don’t Starve

Last Updated: January 31, 2023

While Gold Nuggets are not a currency in Don’t Starve, it is a vital resource that allows you to create supplies, weaponry, and structures that aid you. You can normally find these in giant Boulders with yellow stripes, scattered in Graveyards and Rockyland biomes, or by trading Gravedigger items (trinkets and toys you can sometimes find when you dig up a grave with a shovel) to the Pig King. Sometimes, though, you’ll find yourself running out of places to get your Gold, and while you can occasionally get them after earthquakes underground, it’s not a very reliable way to get Gold in the long run. The best you can do is farm Gold using the Pig King.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Farming Gold Using the Pig King

1
Locate the Pig King. The Pig King is the most reliable way to gain gold, and the only way to farm the material. Once given a meat item (excluding Frog Legs, Cooked Frog Legs, Monster Meat, and Cooked Monster Meat) or the non-renewable Gravedigger items, the Pig King will reward you with some Gold Nuggets, depending on what you’ve given him. Because of this, as long as you have a steady supply of meat, Gold becomes an infinitely renewable resource.
- The most reliable way to find the Pig King is to follow the roads and trails scattered throughout the game. These roads and trails sometimes lead to Pig Villages, which is a collection of huts and occupied by several Pigmen. Normally, if the Pig King spawned at all, he’d be close to a Pig Village.
- Do note that not all worlds generated by the game have a Pig King in it, since sometimes there isn’t enough room for the Pig King to be generated in the game. The Pig King’s appearance is that of a very large pig with a crown made of dried grass lying down on a wooden floor and surrounded by black pillars.
2
Rustle up meats with Traps. Most farming methods require you to have a way to generate meat easily and quickly. If you find the Pig King early enough in the game, the easiest way to gain meat is to create Traps through the Survival tab, represented by a looped rope icon, on your crafting hotbar (right-hand side of the screen). This item costs 6 Cut Grass and 2 Twigs, and are easily renewable resources. Place it over some rabbit holes, which can be found all over the map and are especially concentrated around Savanna biomes (a biome with a yellow grassy look full of grass tufts, rabbit holes, and no trees).
- After setting the Traps, check it regularly. A Trap looks like a normal stick-and-basket trap, and when you’ve caught something, the basket will be on the ground and shaking constantly. If you click on a shaking Trap, you can gather both the rabbit and the Trap, if you have space in your inventory, and you can kill the Rabbit right off the bat by right-clicking it. You now have your meat. Get Rabbits trapped in your other Traps, and kill them for more meat. Set the Traps again to get more Rabbits, ensuring a steady supply of meat.
- Rabbits normally spawn at morning, but the best time to check Traps would be around dusk. Traps, however, wear out eventually, and you’ll be forced to keep making them to replace the broken ones and using up precious resources in the process.
Advertisement
3
Rustle up meats with Spiders. Another, and more efficient, method of getting meat involve luring nearby Spiders into a Pig Village. Get Spider Eggs, which you can get by destroying third-tier Spider Dens (Spider Dens with two additional layers on its mound), and plant the eggs somewhere near the Village to create your own Den. Spider Dens can be found scattered everywhere across your map (they look like white boulders covered in spider webs), sometimes clustered closely together. The Spider Eggs will immediately become full-grown Spider Dens.
- Once the eggs become a den, simply walk up to it and a Spider or two will emerge to attack you. Attacking one will alert other Spiders in the den, and they’ll all emerge to try to kill you. Lure them to the nearest Pig, hitting them every now and then with your chosen weapon to ensure they’re still following you, and the Pigs will start attacking it.
- The more Dens and the higher the Den’s tier, the more Spiders will come out at once, giving you a steady supply of Meat and Pig Skin from the unlucky slain Pigs, and Monster Meat, Silk and Spider Glands from the Spiders.
- Once the assault of the Spiders are over, you can then feed the Monster Meat to some Pigs, which earns their trust and lets them follow you around for a while. Feed them too many Monster Meats, and they turn into Werepigs, making them aggressive and attacking everyone in the area, even other Pigs. Once a Werepig attacks a Pig, the entire village will attack it, and with luck, they’ll finish each other off without you having to lift a finger to help. Werepigs still drop Meat and Pig Skins, though, and are a slightly more reliable way of making sure Meat drops since they drop 1 Meat and 1 Pig Skin consistently upon death, unlike the common Pig’s drop rate of 75% Meat and 25% Pig Skin. You don’t even need to keep attacking the Spiders and Werepigs after luring them into the village; the normal Pigs can do that for you, and both the village and the den respawn their respective denizens eventually, providing you a steady stream of resources.
4
Present the meats to the Pig King. Once you’ve gathered enough meat, simply walk up to the Pig King, select the Meat by left-clicking the item on the computer edition or by scrolling to it with your right analog stick (console), then give the Meat to the Pig King (left-clicking the mouse or left button on the D-pad). You can also hand him some excess Pig Skins if you want, since it’s considered a Meat item. As long as you have meat, he will keep giving you Gold.

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Getting Gold through Other Means

1
Give Gravedigger items to the Pig King. Sometimes, you’ll find large patches of raised soil every now and then when exploring the world, or some headstones lying around in the Forest. Those are graves, and you can dig those up with a Shovel, which you can make for 2 Twigs and 2 Flint in your Science Machine. If you’ve dug up some graves and found some odd little things, you can take them to the Pig King, and chances are, he’ll accept them for quite a few pieces of Gold, normally more than what most Meats can net you.
- The items you might dig up from graves include knots, buttons, toys, and a lawn gnome, which apparently amuses the Pig King immensely, judging by the amount of Gold he hands you.
- Graves, and therefore items from them, are non-renewable and scarce in the original game, however, and must be considered as a sort of last resort if you need a lot of Gold at once. In the Reign of the Giants DLC of the PC edition and the console edition, these items can sometimes be found by breaking open Tumbleweeds in the Desert, but it’s still not very reliable despite the yield.
2
Wait for an earthquake in the Caverns. Caverns are found by mining a large, craggy boulder called a Plugged Sinkhole you sometimes encounter while exploring, and going down the revealed hole in the ground. An earthquake would naturally and randomly happen underground, and would normally net you a small amount of Gold once it ends, though you’d have to be careful during it as rocks are constantly falling and will damage the player when hit with a falling rock.
- You can sometimes trigger earthquakes by detonating Gunpowder and Slurtle Slime while in the Caverns. You can make Gunpowder by combining a Rotten Egg, Charcoal, and Nitre, and you can get Slurtle Slime by killing Slurtles, which look like an odd combination of turtle and slug, or feeding them plenty of Rocks.
3
Kill the Bunnymen you find in the Caverns. Sometimes, when exploring the Caverns, you will encounter giant white rabbits hopping around, or a carrot-shaped house. These Bunnymen are the underground equivalent of the Pigs, which means you could befriend them with carrots and they will aid you for as long as their loyalty lasts. You can also kill them by hitting them with a weapon or tool, or by letting them fight monsters for you. Killing them will net you a carrot, a piece of meat, and occasionally, a Bunny Puff, which you can trade to the Pig King for 2 Gold Nuggets. However, it’s an uncommon drop from the Bunnymen despite its worth.
4
Go fishing in the Ruins. The Ruins is a layer lower than the Caverns and accessed by mining an orange pile of rock and going down in the resulting hole. When you find a pond and fish in the Ruins, you’ll get an Eel, which is renewable and worth a good 5 Gold Nuggets each when traded to the Pig King, unlike other Meat items. Fishing in the Ruins is reserved for late-game ventures, though, since the area is very dangerous.

Community Q&A

Question

Are ruins accessible in Don't Starve PE, and if so, what is the best way to get there?

Community Answer

The pocket edition is the same exact game as for any other platform. The process for accessing the ruins is the same for PC, PlayStation or Nintendo Switch.