Slime Rancher is a wonderous game that lets you collect slimes to your heart's content, but sometimes it can be a bit frustrating. This comes in the form of trying to find resources such as the rare Lava Dust. Unlike slimes, resources aren't happily hopping around the map waiting for you to suck them up.
You will have to use a gadget, along with patience and the right placement, to build up a stock of Lava Dust in Slime Rancher. To help you out, the guide below goes over everything you need to know about the resource, including where to find Lava Dust.
What Is Lava Dust And How Is It Used?
Lava Dust is a rare slime science resource that you must collect in order to craft certain items. It can't be found through normal means and is only obtained through using an extraction pump.
There are also a few chests that contain the item, but those are few and far between, making it a resource that you may have never even run across before this point.
Lava Dust can be used to craft the following items in Slime Rancher:
- Warp Depot
- Thundering Glass Sculpture
- Towering Glass Sculpture
- Fiery Glass Sculpture
- Cute Fashion Pod
- Dainty Fashion Pod
- Party Fashion Pod
While most of these items only have cosmetic purposes, the warp depot is used to transport items between locations, which can be extremely handy when looking for resources.
There are several different colors of warp depots, but all of them will require one Lava Dust to build. The only items that require two Lava Dust are the cute and dainty fashion pods.
Where To Get Lava Dust
Lava Dust has to be harvested from the ground using the pump, an item that you will need to craft in the lab. Once you have a pump, then you can place it pretty much anywhere on the map to start harvest resources.
This can take quite some time as Lava Dust is rare; having a more advanced extractor can help speed this process up a bit, though.
- Tip: It's actually best to place the pump on your ranch since there is a smaller number of resources that can be extracted.
When placing a pump in areas without a larger resource pull, the rate of getting Lava Dust is reportedly 1 out of 101. If you place the pump in an area like the Glass Desert, that number jumps to 1 out of 191.
- Tip: It's best to set up a pump and leave it running while you do other tasks.
Lava Dust that is found in treasure pods can be found in both the Dry Reef and Ancient Ruins. There is reportedly more Lava Dust in the Dry Reef, but you will need access to Green, Blue, and Purple treasure pods.