Prospecting Excavations: All Sites, Permits & Loot Guide

Prospecting excavations are the high-tier endgame dig sites where the real money lives, and knowing the permit costs, toughness requirements, and loot pools for each location separates casual panners from serious prospectors. This breakdown covers every active excavation, the tools you need to start digging, and the rare drops that justify the multi-billion-coin entry fees.

Understanding Prospecting Excavations and How They Work

Prospecting excavations are special dig sites that go beyond the standard riverbed panning loop, offering access to rare minerals, enchant books, and endgame crafting materials that cannot be obtained anywhere else in the game. Unlike surface digging, excavation sites require a Permit purchased from the in-game shop, a minimum Toughness rating dictated by your equipped shovel, and often a sacrifice of valuable gems to even enter the area.

Once inside, players dig the sediment using the same mechanics as standard panning, but the loot tables are stacked with endgame-tier items. The two flagship excavation zones — Frozen Fortress and Magma Temple — represent the current pinnacle of the excavation system, each tuned around a specific toughness threshold and a distinct elemental loot pool.

Core Mechanics Every Excavator Should Know

Every excavation site follows a shared interaction loop, but the gating requirements differ dramatically between zones — toughness rating, permit cost, and sacrifice items each stack on top of one another. Before you burn two billion coins on a Magma Temple permit, confirm your equipped shovel clears the local Toughness threshold and that you already banked the required altar offerings; otherwise the dig zone simply won't unlock, wasting the entire entry fee.

• Toughness Rating: Your equipped shovel determines whether you can dig at a given site. Lower-tier shovels will be blocked with an on-screen warning before you can interact with the sediment.

• Permit Cost: Each site has a flat entry fee paid once per dig session. Costs scale with the rarity of the loot pool, so the Magma Temple sits at the top of the price ladder.

• Sacrifice Gates: Some sites require you to hand over specific gems or tokens at the entrance altar before the dig zone becomes interactable.

• Shared Loot Family: Endgame consumables like Meteor Fragment, Solar Token, Solar Magnifier, Infernal Idol, and Cosmic Resonator all drop from the new excavation sites, making them the primary farming route for players chasing these items.

Why Excavations Matter for Mid-Game Progression

Standard panning tops out quickly. Once you have maxed out a Fossilized Shovel and enchanted your pan with Midas, the marginal returns from riverbed sediment flatten hard. Excavations reset that ceiling by introducing loot that simply does not exist in the surface economy. According to community data reported by players on the Prospecting wiki, the Magma Temple alone contains eight exclusive items in its drop table, including Infernal Enchant Books and The Magma Furnace — neither of which can be farmed anywhere else.

For a player sitting on a few hundred million coins and a fully kitted pan setup, excavations are the natural next step. The grind is real, but the payoff in both coins and collection completion makes the system worth mastering.

Prospecting Excavation Sites: Every Active Location

The current excavation roster is split across elemental themes (frozen, molten, toxic, crystalline, and shadow), with each digsite gating a unique piece of the late-game crafting ecosystem and requiring its own prospecting excavation permit before you can begin. Below is a full rundown of every active digsite, its biome location, minimum gear toughness floor needed to survive environmental damage, and the headline drops—such as Voidsteel Ingots from the Frozen Fortress or Ember Cores from the Magma Temple—that drive the meta economy.

Frozen Fortress Excavation Site

The Prospecting Frozen Fortress digsite is the ice-themed excavation zone and one of the two flagship endgame locations. It sits in the upper-tier toughness bracket and rewards players with frost-aligned loot that feeds into several enchant chains.

The Frozen Fortress demands a tougher dig session than any surface location because its permafrost layer registers a Toughness 5 threshold — standard-issue shovels simply lack the frost penetration to break the crust, and attempting the dig prompt with a sub-recommended tool (anything below the Frost Shovel tier) results in a hard lockout rather than a degraded attempt. Bring the Frost Shovel from your loadout, confirm the dig prompt activates, and then the Meteor Fragment, Solar Magnifier, or Cosmic Resonator drop table opens up alongside the site-specific Snow Globe and Frost Enchant Books.

Magma Temple Excavation Site (Excavation Site B)

The Prospecting Magma Temple — also labeled Excavation Site B on the wiki — is the volcanic counterpart to the Frozen Fortress and currently the most expensive excavation in the game. Positioned next to the Museum, it gates the entire Infernal loot family behind a 2,000,000,000 coin permit.

The toughness floor of 6 is the highest in the current excavation system, which means a Fossilized Shovel is the absolute minimum entry requirement. Players still running pre-Fossilized gear should treat the Magma Temple as a long-term goal rather than a short-term farm.

Frozen Peak Excavation Zone

Frozen Peak functions as a bridge between standard digging and the full excavation experience, sitting at toughness 6 alongside the Magma Temple and offering 18 mineable minerals across its tiered snowfield. The Fossilized Shovel remains the baseline pick, but because the zone shares its toughness gate with permit-based digs, players who unlock Frozen Peak are typically only one or two upgrade tiers away from triggering the Magma Temple permit requirements, making it a natural waypoint in the broader prospecting excavation progression.

While Frozen Peak is not a paid excavation in the same sense as the Magma Temple, it shares the same toughness gate, which is why most players encounter it right around the time they start considering permit-based digs. For a deeper breakdown of Frozen Peak's mineral table and the routes up the mountain, the Frozen Peak Guide walks through the climb in detail.

Prospecting How to Excavate: Step-by-Step Workflow

The actual process of running an excavation is more structured than standard panning, following a fixed sequence: dig Dirt with a regular Shovel, then use the Trowel on the special Excavation Site to swap the base layer for a new material, and finally chisel loose fragments with the remaining Trowel charges. Skipping or reordering these steps wastes permit fees, especially on the multi-billion-coin Magma Temple runs where each Prospecting Excavation permit represents a sunk cost if the dig sequence is botched.

Step-by-Step Excavation Loop

The six-step loop below is the workflow most experienced diggers follow when running a permit-based excavation, from the entry-gated Frozen Fortress and Magma Temple down through the cheaper tier of prospecting excavation sites. Each step is sequenced deliberately — verify Toughness before you spend a permit fee, stock pan enchantments before the dig, and sacrifice gems only at sites that actually require them — so skipping ahead usually means burning the 2,000,000,000 coin Magma entry for nothing, or arriving at the Waterfall Temple without the Emerald, Diamond, and Starshine it demands.

1. Verify Toughness — Check your shovel's toughness rating against the site's requirement. A toughness-5 shovel cannot dig at a toughness-6 site, so there is no point buying the permit until you upgrade.

2. Stock Consumables — Bring food, luck boosts, and any pan enchantments that improve rare-drop rates. Midas on the sell pan is standard, but switching to a luck-enchanted pan for the dig itself can shift the rare-drop odds.

3. Buy the Permit — Pay the entry fee at the site NPC. For the Magma Temple, this is the 2,000,000,000 coin gate; cheaper sites scale down from there.

4. Sacrifice Gems if Required — Sites like the Waterfall Temple (behind the Crystal Caverns waterfall) demand an Emerald, a Diamond, and a Starshine before the interior opens. The Frozen Fortress and Magma Temple do not require this step as of the current patch.

5. Dig and Pan — Use the standard dig-pan-sell loop on the excavation sediment. The drop table is loaded with endgame items, so even common pulls from these sites outperform surface dig rewards.

6. Sell or Craft — Route drops to the appropriate vendor or crafting bench. Infernal Idols and Solar Magnifiers feed into specific recipes, while raw minerals can be sold for coin.

Common Mistakes to Avoid on First Excavation Runs

Most new excavators lose coins on the same handful of errors during prospecting excavation runs, and they are all avoidable with a little prep work. For example, players who skip the luck-enchanted pan at the Frozen Fortress dig site routinely walk away with 30–40% fewer rare sediment drops, because the Midas swap only applies its bonus to vendor payouts, not to the dig roll itself. Burn a few seconds before each permit to swap gear, check your shovel's toughness floor against the site's tier requirement, and pop a food buff — these three checks alone recover the coin gap that catches first-timers off guard and keep your excavation permit costs from eating into the haul.

• Digging Without a Luck Pan — Using a Midas-enchanted sell pan during the dig itself leaves the rare-drop bonus on the table. Swap to a luck-enchanted pan, dig, then swap back to sell.

• Ignoring Toughness Warnings — If your shovel is one tier too low, the dig prompt will silently fail. Always confirm the toughness floor before paying the permit.

• Solo-Running Without Buff Food — Excavation sediment is denser than riverbed mud. Without a food buff active, dig speed drops noticeably and session length stretches out.

• Selling Infernal Idols Raw — Infernal Idols feed into the Infernal Enchant Book chain. Selling them at the standard vendor is a major loss compared to holding them for crafting.

Prospecting Excavation Permits: Costs, Value, and When to Buy

Permits are the entry ticket to the high-tier excavation system, and the price gap between sites is wide enough that timing your first purchase matters. Spending two billion coins on the Magma Temple before your gear is ready is one of the most common ways mid-game players stall their progression.

Permit Cost Comparison Across Active Sites

The table below lines up every active prospecting excavation with its current permit cost, toughness floor, and the rough value proposition based on community-reported drop rates. The toughness column is particularly important for solo diggers because it determines the minimum gear tier needed to survive a full session at each site — Magma Temple's floor of 6 effectively locks out players running sub-T6 picks, while the Frozen Fortress at toughness 5 remains accessible to mid-game excavators willing to grind for Frost-class drops. Note that the "Best Drop Class" column reflects what the community has actually pulled most consistently, not the theoretical loot pool listed in the permit description.

The Magma Temple sits alone at the top of the price ladder, and for good reason — its loot pool includes the Infernal Enchant Book, which is a multi-step craft that cannot be shortcut. Players running this site consistently report that the permit pays for itself within two to three full dig sessions, provided they are not selling Infernal Idols back to the vendor.

When to Pull the Trigger on an Expensive Permit

The general rule across the community is to wait until you can comfortably afford three permit fees back-to-back before buying the first one. Permits are not refunded on a bad dig, and a streak of low-roll sessions can wipe out a budget that was meant to last a week. According to community testing reported on the Prospecting official Roblox page, the developers tune drop rates in waves, so a permit that felt overpriced last month may pay out much better after the next patch.

Endgame Loot Farming: Rare Drops and Where They Come From

The endgame excavation loot pool is where the prospecting economy really lives. Every rare item below has at least one excavation site as its primary source, and several of them cannot be obtained any other way — making excavation permits and site rotations the true gating mechanism for top-tier prospecting gear, since overworld mobs, frozen fortress chests, and magma temple vendors drop none of the exclusives listed in the tables ahead.

Rare Drop Source Breakdown

The Magma Temple dominates this table, and that is by design. The site's permit cost reflects its position as the primary farm for nearly every Infernal and Cosmic item in the game. Players who commit to the Magma Temple as their main dig location will accumulate most of the endgame crafting materials within a few focused sessions.

How to Maximize Rare Drops Per Session

Maximizing rare drops is less about luck and more about stacking the right modifiers before each dig, because the excavation loot table at sites like the Frozen Fortress and Magma Temple rolls independently on every pull and each buff you apply multiplies that baseline. The checklist below covers the highest-impact buffs in the order you should apply them, from your pan and food buffs through your excavation permit timing, so every modifier is active before your first swing.

• Equip a Luck-Enchanted Pan — Switch from your Midas sell pan to a luck pan before digging. The rare-drop rate increase compounds across every pull in the session.

• Activate Food Buffs — High-tier food buffs extend dig speed and stamina, which means more pulls per permit.

• Bring a Group — Co-op digging is widely reported by players to improve rare-drop frequency, although the exact multiplier varies by patch.

• Time Your Sessions Around Events — Developer events often stack a global luck buff on top of the excavation loot table, which is the single biggest boost available without spending extra coins.

• Sell in Bulk After the Session — Once the dig is done, swap back to your Midas pan to convert the haul into coin in one efficient batch.

For a visual walkthrough of the full excavation loop, including permit purchase and pan swapping, the Radex Tips excavation guide on YouTube covers the entire workflow from start to finish — clocking in at roughly eight minutes, it demonstrates the exact menu path for buying an excavation permit, shows the Midas-to-luck pan swap before entering the Frozen Fortress, and captures a complete pan-swap back to Midas at the sell NPC, which is useful because many players waste the post-session bulk-sell window by selling individual hauls instead of batching the entire inventory in one transaction.

For more strategies and details, explore our Recent Updates.

Frequently Asked Questions

What toughness do I need for the Magma Temple excavation site?

The Magma Temple requires a toughness rating of 6, which means a Fossilized Shovel is the minimum tool you can equip and still dig there. Any shovel below the Fossilized tier will be blocked from interacting with the sediment, so upgrading your shovel is a prerequisite before buying the 2,000,000,000 coin permit.

Is the Frozen Fortress or Magma Temple better for farming Meteor Fragments?

Both sites drop Meteor Fragments, but the Magma Temple has the higher concentration of Infernal and Cosmic items in its table, which makes it the more efficient farm if Meteor Fragments are your only target. The Frozen Fortress is a better pick if you are also building toward the Snow Globe or frost-aligned enchant chain, since its pool is tuned for those drops instead.

How much does the Magma Temple permit cost?

The Magma Temple permit costs 2,000,000,000 coins per dig session, making it the most expensive excavation currently in the game. Community testing suggests the permit pays for itself within two to three full sessions if you hold the Infernal Idols for crafting rather than selling them back to the vendor.

Can I excavate without a Fossilized Shovel?

No — both flagship excavation sites and the Frozen Peak dig zone require a toughness of 6, which is only reachable with a Fossilized Shovel or higher. The Frozen Fortress is the one exception in the current roster, with a toughness floor of 5 that opens it to a slightly wider shovel range, but upgrading to Fossilized remains the long-term goal for any serious excavator.

What is the fastest way to earn back excavation permit costs?

Running the Magma Temple with a luck-enchanted pan, a food buff active, and at least one other player in your co-op session is the fastest reported method for paying off an excavation permit. Selling the haul with a Midas-enchanted sell pan immediately after the dig converts the rare drops into coin at the highest available rate, which shortens the payback window significantly.