The short answer
Search Howling Sands for Thorium or Whisperfrost Frontiers for Cobalt. Before mining Adamantite in the Devastated Lands, equip a Thorium or Cobalt pickaxe. Bring back the cloth your equipment recipes need as well as ore.
Before you start
- Iron equipment, food, lighting, inventory space and a marked return route.
- Procedural worlds vary. These are biome routes, not universal coordinates or guaranteed yields.
Choose the trip for the upgrade you need
| Target | Where to search | Recognisable landmark |
|---|---|---|
| Thorium | Badlands in Howling Sands and caves beneath the desert. | Desert rock and cliff faces. |
| Cobalt | Whisperfrost Frontiers; it is also reported in Howling Sands. | Blue ore on exposed rock; wooden mineshaft structures lead to tunnels. |
| Adamantite | Devastated Lands surface and caves. | Volcanic terrain, exposed rocky patches and red ore. |
Sources for this section
Meet the mining gate first
Update 2 made a Thorium or Cobalt pickaxe mandatory for Adamantite. Higher-quality pickaxes also need fewer strikes against ore. An older launch walkthrough using Iron is no longer a reliable preparation list.
That update changed ore placement for newly generated chunks. If an old area produces poor results, explore new terrain; reinstalling or repeatedly mining the same cleared cave is not a substitute for new generation.
Sources for this section
Collect the material that ore cannot replace
| Equipment direction | Companion resource | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Cobalt | Shadoweave Scraps | Outlanders in Whisperfrost Frontiers; look for square settlements on the map. |
| Adamantite | Cindercloth Scraps | Incandescent skeletons in deep volcanic Emerald Grove caves or in the Devastated Lands. |
Sources for this section
Plan one useful upgrade before a full set
Kingy trip plan: inspect your target recipe at the correct station, write down its metal and non-metal shortfalls, then choose the nearer suitable region. A first Thorium or Cobalt pickaxe opens the Adamantite mining route; it can be a more useful immediate goal than collecting an entire armour set’s materials.
Mark the cave entrance and return route in your own world. If you cannot mine a node, check its name and the equipped pickaxe before assuming it is a bug. Equipment stats, drop rates and a complete current-build Mithril route remain outside this verified guide.
Sources for this section
Your checklist
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Research checked 2026-09-12. This is a source-based guide; Kingy has not independently play-tested these steps. Evidence and coverage.