Ultimate Desert Detectors Beginner’s Guide – How to Dig, Sell, Smelt & More

One man's junk is another man's treasure, right? Desert Detectors is all about that. You use your metal detector, find something valuable, sell it, and repeat. But even in a trade as random and seemingly easy as treasure hunting, you can pick up a few tricks, and that's what our ultimate Desert Detectors beginner's guide will help you with. Scroll down, and let's dive in!

Desert Detectors Basics - How to Detect & Dig Out Items

There are two tools you'll use while playing Desert Detectors: your shovel and your metal detector. You'll use the detector to find treasure. Equip it and then move around to start scanning. Each time the detector pings, it will scan the area underneath you for buried items.

Once an item is detected, you'll receive both an audio cue and a visual one in the form of an exclamation mark. The color of the exclamation mark will depend on the rarity of the item. Once you detect an item, move over its location and start digging down. Once you find the item, touch it/click it to collect it.

Where to Buy Shovels & Detectors & Sell Items in Desert Detectors

At each major location in Desert Detectors, you'll have a merchant NPC with whom you can sell your items and make money. In Dusthaven (starting town), that's Buffalo Bill. Each merchant NPC will also have a bunch of detectors and shovels around his shop, which you can buy by interacting with each one individually.

Recommended Shovel & Detector Progression

Below is the optimal beginner shovel/detector progression in Desert Detectors. Believe it or not, the Speedy Shovel + Core Detector combo is something you can stick to for a long while, and they cost only 3,500$ in total. Detectors are generally more important than shovels, so try to get those first. After you've got all these and a good charm, feel free to buy out all the other detectors/shovels available.

1. Rusted Detector - 100$ - Dusthaven
2. Core Detector - 1,750$ - The Farm
3. Speedy Shovel - 1,750$ - The Farm
4. Core Shovel - 15,000$ - The Farm

All Major Locations in Desert Detectors

Dusthaven

Dusthaven is the default starting area in Desert Detectors. Here, you can buy beginner shovels and detectors, golf carts that you can drive, and collect daily rewards. There are also event-triggering NPCs and a legendary charm NPC.

The Farm

The Farm is located right next to Dusthaven and is actually the go-to place for all the best and cheapest detectors and shovels in Desert Detectors right now. Also, you can buy tractors here to use as a vehicle, and they are much easier to drive than the golf carts from Dusthaven.

Train Station

The Train Station is north/northeast of Dusthaven, where the train with the Charm NPC arrives. Here, you can also buy rods and detectors, though their prices are very steep, and they aren't that much better than the ones at The Farm.

How to Buy Vehicles in Desert Detectors

In Desert Detectors, there are NPCs that sell and spawn vehicles you can use to navigate the map more quickly. The first two you'll encounter are the Golf Cart Merchant at Dusthaven and the Tractor Merchant at The Farm. Tractors are by far better than golf carts, so try to buy them. The Bluesteel Beast for 4,000$ is an excellent deal in the early game.

How to Get Charms in Desert Detectors

Charms in Desert Detectors provide you with a passive bonus to item and weight luck. You can equip them in your pack. To get new charms, you have to open Charm Crates, which you can get from the Train Charm NPC for 120$ per chest. You can also buy Legendary Charm Chests from the NPC at Dusthaven, though the price/reward ratio isn't great at all (10,000$ per chest).

Best Places to Scan & Dig at in Desert Detectors

The best places to scan and dig at in Desert Detectors are the edges of each major location, though the best one still seems to be Dusthaven. So, to find all the best loot in the least amount of time, just scan around the edges of Dusthaven, especially the south and west sides.

Other Desert Detectors Tips & Tricks

How to Smelt Items & Increase Their Value

In Desert Detectors, there is a mechanic called smelting that allows you to increase the value of your items. You can smelt items at the Blacksmith at Dusthaven, and each smelt costs 100$ and lasts 4-12 hours max. You can smelt at most 4 items at once, and because of that, it's best to smelt only the rarest items you find.

How to Get Quests

There are multiple Quest NPCs around the map, mostly just one per major location. They'll give you quests to find a certain number of items and reward you with money. However, since the quests often task you with finding really garbage items, it's more often than not better to just not complete them. He

How to Claim Daily Rewards

You can claim Daily Rewards at the Bank in Dusthaven. There is an NPC at the counter you can talk to to open the Daily Rewards menu. The rewards are pretty bad overall, but collecting them takes only a second, so why not do it?

How to Redeem Codes

You can redeem codes in Desert Detectors by clicking on Menu at the top, scrolling all the way down to the Codes section, inputting your code in the text field, and hitting Enter/Send. In the same menu, you can also equip titles and change graphics settings.

And that does it for our Desert Detectors beginner's guide. Now that you know how the game works and what to do, it's time you take your metal detector out and find all the cool treasure buried underneath! Also, for more content like this, be sure to visit the Roblox category here on PGG.