One of the most basic collectibles in Pokemon Go is Stardust, a sparkly substance that is used to power up Pokemon. With it being so basic and common, you’re going to need a lot of it, and therefore knowing all the methods of getting it will help you keep your Stardust total high.
How to Get Stardust from Catching Pokemon
Upon catching a Pokemon, you will receive some Stardust. Being one of the more common methods it's not a huge reward but there are ways to make it more substantial.
Star Piece Bonuses
In the shop, an item called a Star Piece can be found. Like some other items, it is inherited from the mainline Pokemon Games however it has far more use here. Using a Star Piece will boost your Stardust gain by 50% for 30 minutes. They’re relatively cheap and come in bundles as well so it should be easy to stock up on them.
Daily Bonuses
Once a day, you can receive a bonus for catching your first Pokemon of the day. This rewards you with a 500 bonus Stardust. While it seems like a lot, its infrequency makes it a poor choice to rely on for Stardust farming.
Weather Bonuses
Some Pokemon are power boosted in certain weather, like water types being stronger in the rain and ice types being stronger in the snow. These weather bonuses don’t just apply in battles, they also affect your catching. If you catch a Pokemon which is currently boosted by the weather and you will receive a bonus of 25 Stardust. This is more frequent than the Daily Bonus but is too small of a bonus to matter much.
Evolution Bonuses
You may have tried to Stardust farm before and not been very successful despite catching 100 Zubats. This is because the Pokemon’s evolution matters for Stardust rewards. A Zubat is the first in its evolution line and will only give 100 Stardust, but catching a Golbat, the next evolution, will reward 300 Stardust. Catch a Crobat and the bonus gets even bigger, reaching 500 Stardust. These evolution bonuses also increase the amount of candy you receive. So if you ever see an evolved wild Pokemon, prioritize catching it as it will always be worth more than its pre-evolution.
How to Get Stardust from Hatching Eggs
Hatching eggs is the other way to get new Pokemon and is another way to get Stardust. Eggs come in variants dictated by how far you have to walk to hatch them and their Stardust rewards grow along with their distance growing.
- 2 Km Egg rewards 400 - 800 Stardust (300 Stardust per Km average)
- 5 Km Egg rewards 800 - 1600 Stardust (240 Stardust per Km average)
- 7 Km Egg rewards 800 - 1600 Stardust (~172 Stardust per Km average)
- 10 Km Egg rewards 1600 - 3200 Stardust (240 Stardust per Km average)
- 12 Km Egg rewards 3200 - 6400 Stardust (400 Stardust per Km average)
This spread of values makes it a little random which eggs will give you the most Stardust but on average the most lucrative egg is the 12 Km one but it is very rare. So it's lucky that the second-best option is the most common egg in the game, the 2 Km egg. Hatching a large amount of 2 Km eggs can be a very good way to help boost your Stardust total, especially if you’re catching Pokemon with the previous bonuses in mind as you hatch them.
How to Get Stardust from Gyms
After the rework of Gyms, the ability to feed the Pokemon in Gyms that your team has control of not only heals them but will also reward you with some Stardust. With only 20 stardust as a reward, it's not good to rely only on this method but it's a good option on the side while using the previous two methods.
How to Get Stardust from Research
To incentivize daily play, Niantic added the Research tab to the game. This menu shows a number of tasks that get updated in different intervals, from daily to monthly. Completing individual tasks may not always reward Stardust but completing a set of tasks for Timed, Special, and Bonus research will reward a large amount of Stardust.
On top of those three options, the Daily Research option is currently being tested. It is only available in a few countries but if you have access to it you can complete tasks in it which can potentially reward Stardust. You may notice that the Stardust for most of these tasks is not guaranteed. This is because research rewards are random and can be a number of things from Pokeballs, to wild Pokemon, to Stardust.
Conclusion
Stardust, while common, is incredibly valuable due to powering up Pokemon eating up tons of it. Knowing how to stockpile Stardust is essential to getting newly caught Pokemon stronger. And if you’re a completionist kind of person, you’ll need quite a lot to max out the Combat Power of every Pokemon you own.
