Advice for expanded farm?

Hi there, I finally registered Playing the first ever map (great game!) and have got to the third year. Recently I finally did an overhaul and started to get some structure to the farm, and very recently also got the final item for the Greenhouse (hoped to get it from the travelling cart, but had to wait to the Cherry tree yielded a cherry).

Discovered it was possible to buy iridium sprinkler once per week, so have done that for a handful or so, plus have made another batch from all iridium ore I got so far, so have 12 now I believe. That certainly helps with the watering issue, but I'm still running out of time every single day. Whereas before I managed to keep on top of time and get into bed before midnight, I'm now often getting the popup while doing needed work, and then have to run off home. Barely have time to do any fishing or mining either (but then I just get a frustrating amount of trash and seaweed while fishing anyway).

I have put quite a few jars and kegs in the barn, and recently bought the cellar upgrade, so much time goes to maintenance here, and running hither and thither. All that said and done, however, do you have some advice for me, so that it's possible to enjoy the game a bit more again, not feeling so stressed out by all the daily chores?

Sure would be nice if there was a way to auto-milk and such the animals, like you have a way with automating the watering process.

I've uploaded some maps to upload.farm: https://upload.farm/1F2tAH

Currently the farm looks like this:


The shed and 2nd barn is empty, but the idea was to use them for storing purposes. I've also put some fruit trees in the greenhouse, and an iridium sprinkler plus 24 strawberries, but not much is happening there yet.

And yes, that's a LOT of trees And that's after chopping down some 2-300 recently to make room for the extra barn and gated area. It was a pain to find the animals when they were totally free-roaming. I have 2 chicken, 2 void chicken, a duck, a dinosaur, 3 cows, 2 pigs, 1 sheep.

To recap again, do you have some advice for me, or players generally with more expanded farms, so it's possible to feel a bit more laid back again? Time flies so fast, and I'm running around 18-19 hours a day just to keep on top of things. Being a farmer is tough work!

 

First off, the following is written from a perspective where it is desired to make things more calm and laid back. I know there's joy in achieving things and planning and pulling it of. There's nothing wrong with trying to optimize your gaming experience, not until it is threatening your actual enjoyment. That's when this becomes relevant.

I've had similar issues with feeling like there's too many things to do and honestly when you get down to it it's self-inflicted. The only person who decides what you have to do is you, the game doesn't force you to do anything.
Don't get me wrong, I learned that the hard way from doing a farm setup that involved 820 crops and some 300 beehives and mushrooms in the cave.
So practically this was the routine:
Every day: Milk the cows. Harvest the five crab pots at the beach. Harvest the mushrooms in the cave.
Every third day: Harvest the fruit from the fruit trees, harvest the latest batch of fruit jelly, prep the next.
Every Sunday: Harvest the Ancient Fruit in the Greenhouse, harvest and prep the next batch of wine
Then add the beehives ever so often.
Curse the days where the beehives and jelly and wine making all collide.

I finally reached a point where I stopped and wondered what I was doing after I had restarted Summer 1 six times. I had been trying to clear and plant 820 blueberry plants with speed-gro before the end of day 1. Keep in mind, I had a gold clock at this point so there were no debris to clear. I had planted Strawberries during Spring, so the ground was still tilled and watered, all I had to do was to cut the weeds with the scythe. Then plant speed-gro, then blueberries. I tried to do this 6 times. Including drinking coffee for movement speed. I found myself actually stressed trying to get it done, because I kept not making it and I really wanted the extra harvest of blueberries before the end of the season. To re-iterate, I already had a gold clock. This was year 5. I didn't need the money for anything. It was just the drive to accumulate more of it. Eventually, I would max out on gold anyway, given enough time. I was stressing myself to do things optimally, for no good reason.

Then it sort of hit me that this is all in my head. The game doesn't force you to do this, you do because you feel you should. A lot of people are hard-wired to figure out and doing things the optimal way. To go on a philosophical tangent, I think it's because we are hardwired to gather resources as a species. The basic human emotions of greed and envy are tied to our survival instinct of accumulating resources as a way to secure our health and safety. There's no other explanation, at least in my mind, as for why our brains give us such a dopamine reward for collecting pointless things. Or why we covet what others have.

So, your enemy is your basic programming as a human being.

That said, a few things I've done over time to counteract it:
Settle for only using Kegs and Jars for products from the Greenhouse and not from any other crops.
Irridium Sprinklers and Junimo Huts.
Don't get too many animals that need regular attention.
Don't try to do everything at the same time. I like all aspects of Stardew (not so much the combat, but the rest) so I enjoy doing a bit of everything, but don't feel like there is some sort of bench mark you need to achieve by the end of each week.

Finally: Always keep in mind that the objective of the game is for you to have fun and enjoy your time. If you are playing the game in such a way that it's stressing you out, you are literally just wasting your time. Leisure time that feels like work, be it daily log-in nonsense (as in stuff you do because you think you should, not because you really want to play and enjoy it) or time-limited content (Overwatch seasonal skins, time-gated pokemon in Pokemon Go), anything like that is bullshit. It's enough that the gaming industry is shoving that crap at consumers, don't make the mistake of inflicting it on yourself in what is a shining example of a game that can promote tranquility if you let it.

 

I can't say I'm much of an expert when it comes to saving time, but most days I have plenty of time to do what I need, so maybe these will help?

From a quick look at your crops, while I can't tell what exactly it is you're growing (aside from ancient seeds and strawberries), I'm at least able to tell that you've got a variety growing. If you're looking to save time, though, I'd recommend not doing that unless you really need them, as it'll lead to a lot of different harvesting times and in most cases having to replant. Instead, I'd advise either planning ahead so what you plan to grow is able to be harvested at the same time as another crop, or planting only one of a crop (unless you're growing others for those quests on the bulletin boards?) for each season, as well as ancient seeds and maybe coffee if you use it. While I'm not sure if this is still the case, multi-harvest crops like strawberries, blueberries and cranberries were once extremely lucrative, and while I know blueberries have been nerfed since then, the sheer numbers of them you get with a large field of them both earns you a decent bit and allows you to save extra (about 100 per harvest, in my case) to convert to seeds and plant again next summer. However, if you've managed to unlock the desert, even though you'll have to plant it again every so often, starfruit is definitely lucrative, especially if you take the time to convert it into wine and put it into your cellar to boost it to iridium quality.

Once you've cleared the community centre and done Rasmodius' quests, you can unlock a number of things, one of those being a Junimo hut. While I haven't got one of these myself, I know that on sunny days, if you've got one set up, they'll auto-harvest your crops. However, I do know that it is a slower process, and I believe you'll need to check the hut at the end of the day to pick up what's been harvested. While I prefer the quickness of harvesting by hand, if it's the harvesting that's giving you trouble, then I'd say consider investing in one of them.

As for the animals? Well... I have to admit, in most cases, I completely forget about them. By the sounds of things, though, you don't have too many to deal with, so I'd say set up a chest either inside or outside your barn with the milk pail and shears just so you have them on hand easily. It saves you from having to run to where you keep your tools (outside your house, if you're like me?) and back again. As for the chickens/duck/dinosaur, I guess just go in and do your normal thing. Eggs do stay if you forget to harvest them one day, so you could probably get away with picking them up every two or even three days. The pigs might be a little more difficult, seeing as they dig up truffles throughout the day, but if you're going to the desert, then I'd just wait around the farm until you need to go and pick them up as they spawn. I believe they still spawn offscreen, so if I'm right on that, you can make a quick stop at the end of the day and clean up what you left. If I'm wrong, then clearly I've not paid enough attention, sorry. ^^

Aside from that, I'd recommend setting up a route to check everything if possible. My route is usually clockwise around the farm, letting me check on the field of crops below my house, the second I have below my barn and coop (you know where your barns are? A little to the left for me, for reference), before heading up to check my animals and finally my greenhouse. For you, I'd say go fields-barn-coop-greenhouse. I'm assuming you have one already, but if you don't, at least saves some time running from place to place. Also why I recommend keeping your milk pail and shears near the barn- even a few seconds of time saved can make a lot of a difference.
Lastly, you know the return scepter Krobus sells? It may be hugely expensive, but if you're still running low on time, then it might be worth considering saving up some money for that. It teleports you to right outside your house when you use it, so say you're mining in Skull Cavern. It allows you maybe that extra bit of time mining before you have to return home. Of course, don't go beyond your limits- don't forget that you have a penalty to energy the next day if you get to bed way too late.

And that's it, I think! I know this is something that probably doesn't work for everyone, but I'm often left with days where I can just go to Skull Cavern after checking on my crops to make sure they haven't fully grown yet and animals, and spend the entire day mining there without having to work on the farm. And for reference, I have two fields that are about the same size as the one you've got there (one might actually be a little bigger, in fact), as well as a lot more animals. But because I have sprinklers set up and I tend to plant stuff that's multi-harvest, as well as a section for starfruit in summer, I don't have to worry about them most days. At most, I spend a couple of hours harvesting, a day at the end of the season for putting everything into the seed maker (or a couple of days in summer when I'm looking to plant more starfruit), and a day at the beginning planting everything. Again, it's not the perfect setup, and it might easily not work as well for you as it does for me. At the same time, though, it should save you at least a little bit of time.

Good luck, and hopefully this helps!

 

I was (and still sort of am) more worried about the money than the 'quality time' I should be spending with the game. I'm always rushing to the Statue of Perfection, then my basement to check the casks, then my farm, my animals, my furnaces, kegs, and by the time I know it, it's quite late and there's no time to go to the mines for that ore I needed. I'm currently in Fall 9 of Year 3 and I think I've started to realize that it's not much of a point to plant an extreme amount of crops and such. As I was holding the button to purchase 456 seeds of bok choy today (which is an exhilarating process, I might add), I suddenly thought What am I doing? I'm buying 456 bok choy seeds and 336 beets. This is ridiculous. For the past year or so I've been going to Krobus every Friday to buy the Iridium Sprinkler, but I think I have enough now, to be honest. It's a lot of working harvesting and replanting the crops each season (I know there are the Junimo huts, but I haven't had the time to figure out where to put them and sort out the pathing, etc. etc.) I've been basically ignoring everyone in town and hiding in my debris-overridden farm, planning what I'll plant once my 336 beets are ready to harvest . . . but I think now I'll be focusing more on the other parts of the game, not just farming.

Here is some of the advice I can give, but if you find something that helped you out (from other people as well) let me know!

• Don't worry about your animals too much. I have this problem too. Sometimes I really need to go to the Skull Caverns for some rocks or ore or whatever, but milking/shearing/picking up animal items takes way too long and I get stressed about it. Forget about them for one day - after all, if you've got 12 or so sprinklers, you shouldn't be too worried about money. The truffles from the pigs will still be there the next morning if you forget or don't have the time to collect them, and even though your animals' friendship might go down slightly, nothing negative really happens.
• (more to do with how you keep fishing up trash/weeds) Get a few worm bins (maybe one more to join the one you already have?). I have 2 near the box where you can sell things (where you put the lightning rods). It takes a minute to check them, pick up the bait, and equip it onto my rod. Even if I don't fish that day (like you, I never really have time to fish) I keep collecting the bait so when I do fish I'll have enough. Right now I have around 180 bait equipped, I think? Even with the bait you'll still catch a bit of trash, but if you head to the Lonely Rock I'm sure you'll catch fish there.
• Warp totems. These have helped me a lot. When I have a chance to go in the mines I usually bring a farm warp-totem so I can get back home without rushing to Pam's bus and sprinting home at 1 am. It's also a good way to get to the Beach quickly if you don't want to walk/ride your horse all the way through town (and a good way to get back to your farm after some late-night fishing). The only downside to warp totems is that your horse doesn't travel with you, which makes moving around once you get to your destination a bit slower.
• Spend a day doing something. This might seem super unproductive when you could be mining, fishing, farming, or just gaining money. The system makes you feel like you have to earn something every day, but that's not the case. Remember that there are weekends - for fun and games! Fish the entire day with a few snack breaks. Go into town for a 'shopping day'. Talk to everyone. Get a checkup from Harvey. Go around delivering presents like Santa, or hold clay above your head and just run crazily around. Try to beat the games in the Saloon.
• Have fun. Do a lot of completely random things for no apparent reason. Chop down all the trees in the Cindersnap woods, go into the mines and see how many rocks you can break in a limited time. During winter, hoe the beach completely and see what you can find (a lot of people use this method to find snow yarn/winter roots to run through the seedmakers for seeds, which you could do for fun). Spend the day finding ingredients for a feast and cook the villagers' favourite foods to give them!

It's completely up to you to do what you want. If you decide you don't like your house, remove all of your furniture and start afresh. Remember this game doesn't have an end, so even if you "waste" one day procrastinating and choosing what colour table you would like to have in the dining room, there'll always be another day to do what you want to do!

That being said, I'm also a relatively stressed person when it comes to time. I'm always rushing from here to there, checking my casks, buying seeds, harvesting, turning milk into cheese, etc. If my advice doesn't work for you then that's completely fine (I don't even do those things, but I should probably start to)! Of course, once multiplayer comes out I think you can relax with someone else and have a fun time together

 

Thanks to both of you for excellent posts.

Totally correct that it's up to me how I play, and I can scale back if needed. Money isn't a problem. Can't buy the scepter yet, but have well over 100 000g after buying the cellar and around 10 fruit trees in fairly short time. I was a bit surprised how much more time I spend on daily chores after the re-design though, as it's not really that much bigger than what I had before. Plus, I also have a pack of sprinklers now. Had nothing before. The animals probably take up a lot of the time tbh, and I did bring some more not that long ago. It was easier when I just had around 4 in the coop.

Should probably be less meticulous with all the jars and kegs too, and just do it every other day or something, and ignore that products sit finished for a day or two. I had saved up a decent chunk of fruits and vegetables before winter, so used all of winter to make some decent money with the probably 20+20 jars and kegs.

Like probably most, I greatly prefer multi-harvest crops, but sadly there isn't much of that in spring. Harvesting the crops this time around takes more time, but it's still pretty effective. Perhaps the biggest time sink is the animals, so perhaps I ought to get rid of some of those? Going there every day and 'loving' the animals plus milking them takes time (and of course you always get the pop-up sometimes from mis-clicks). Mostly I have the milk pail on me at all times, but the shears is stored in a chest in the barn. Also have a chest in the coop for extra eggs. And a handful of chests in the house, and outside it in various places (a couple by the shipping box).

Will try to scale back the tough-to-suppress drive for perfectionism and see if I can get more free time for fishing and mining. I have quite enjoyed the fishing mini-game (just frustrated by the amount of trash+seaweed+algae), and I need some fish for making quality fertiliser. Lately I've just gone to the mine to get coal and try to level up to 10, and although I kind of like the combat, it's getting a bit stale now. Not been much to the Skull cavern, dropped down 7+4 levels one time, so got down to 16. Looks like there is no elevator system though, so getting to level 25 for a quest will be based on rabbit-hole luck. Glad I tried to smack downed mummies with bombs though. Couldn't kill them otherwise, but that did it!

Of course, alternatively I can just scale back on both the farming and animals -- but then I imagine things could get a bit boring as well, with less drive to improve on your situation. Maybe I've kind of come to the end of the line here, and should start over, or drop the game? Hmmmm. It's been great fun for the most part and there are still things to do though, like getting to know the people better and potentially hooking up with somebody. I just don't like the usual game-idea of buying friendships and love, so haven't been gifting gifts every 2 seconds. Funnily enough, Pam is up to 7 hearts now, which is partly because I pick up fruits near the bus stop, go to talk to her, and accidentally gift it =)

Thanks again for the helpful advice. I'll play some more and quite possibly come back again and ask for more advice

 

Thanks. To address these points, I've actually done a fair bit of this (if you mean a proper check-up by Harvey, then I didn't know this was even possible! -- but I keep laughing at my cat getting scared to death by a scarecrow :lol: ). Sometimes go into the saloon in evenings to talk to people, and have spent time losing badly at the games (especially Prairie King - would take some doing for anybody anywhere to do worse - died 3-4 times with Abigail in probably less than a minute). As mentioned in the cross-post, I don't like the gift stuff non-stop mechanic. Besides, I don't known what people like, and was a bit surprised that Linus got mad at me for giving him food.

I genuinely like the fishing, though, so would like to do more of that. And it can be a nice way to get some extra stuff, especially since I'm level 10 with the treasure chest boost. Struggled for a long time in the early mines levels (damn flying devils!), and made a nag about it on the GOG forums, and then shortly after picked up a treasure chest with Glaive, a diamond, several gold ores, and something more. DAMN!!! Crazy luck. And naturally it solved things in the mines rather nicely, as the Glaive was a handy upgrade from the wooden sword.


On a bit of a tangent, I do wonder what Eric (the developer) thinks about all the posts and images and whatnot with very optimised 'speed-runs' to the Community Centre and so forth, and for that matter my own post (if he were to read it) of feeling a bit stressed out. Not that I'm truly stressed out, it's a fun game that I enjoy playing, but it was nicer when I had more time to do 'stuff on the side' besides tending to crops and animals. So I'll try to get back to that again. Even if it means letting the trees take over more of the farm again.

 

I played one file til year 7, did everything slowly, bought everything, did pretty much all and realized it was just busy-work at that point, trying to make huge gobs of gold. So I started over with different farm layout and playing even slower. Make enough money to build something, give more gifts in year 2, taking it easy. A few more things for the community center (since I knew what I needed this time around). Minimal animals and crops to cook everything eventually. Not filling every inch of the farm with production. No stress - I don't think I'll even fill the damn basement so packed full that I had to move things to get at the wine this time. May take another 7 game years for the gold clock but whatever. Game is still funsies!

 

Just this: do only as much as you want to. Don't feel like constantly working a bunch of kegs? Don't. Don't feel like braving a bunch of annoying slimes down in the cave that leave those stains which just won't come out in the wash? Don't. So what if it takes a bit longer to please your old fart of a grandfather; he's not running the farm, now. You are. Do what you want is the whole of the law, etc. If the game's stressing you out, you're not really playing it to have fun; you're playing it to get ahead. Just...relax.

 

One thing you need to do is clear trees and make space around the mushroom tree so you can have a forest of mushroom trees.

 

Good point, I should probably clear a way over there so it can spread. Get plenty of mushrooms from the cave, but just the sight of a forest of big mushrooms might look cool.

Otherwise I have enjoyed the game much more again, and have got more time to traverse the world and talk to people. Don't think I'll expand the farming business much more though. The money is already good, and will be better when the wine and cheese from the casks get ready, and I can get some starfruits in there. It's already difficult to plant everything at the start of a season, so I've no idea how people with the whole land covered in crops are supposed to get by. Must take a week just to plant the darn thing :lol: 12 animals isn't too bad, and especially the pigs are very low maintenance. Even on days with lots of harvesting, I can usually get done by around noon, so then there is plenty of time to do other things, or sit in a chair on the porch and enjoy the sight

 

I'm not fond of farming but here are some tips:
- Use the rain totem at the end of every season (except for Fall) so you don't have to water seeds in case of rain.
- Use the cheapest seeds to retain the tilling soil after haversting your final crops (those seeds are meant to die).

 

If the length of the day is stressing you out and you're willing/able to mod, I can't recommend TimeSpeed enough. Even adding just a couple of seconds per ten-minute tick can feel like a huge difference at the end of the day. I wouldn't play without it now.

 

If you want a low-stress farm, may I suggest reducing the amount of things you need to do? You can get a million and a half per season out of your greenhouse full of trees and ancient fruit. You'll only have to go in three or so times per week, and the wine processes weekly.

From there, just plant Ancient Fruit outside next spring, and forget about it. You'll have to manage your crops once a week, and your kegs as well. Have Junimo Hut to cover them all and you won't even need to do that, just hit up the hut some time in the afternoon after they've already picked it clean (unless it is raining).

If you want to keep a barn for pigs and cows, feel free. I do that to keep myself stocked in cheese, simply because it's so good as a food for cave diving, and the truffles are stupidly expensive. But the coop is barely worth having once your bundles have been completed. As long as you have a Deluxe Barn with an auto-feeder, you won't have to worry about the animals getting upset, they just won't get hearts as fast if you ignore them.

If you want an orchard, you can, but I've never seen them as worthwhile outside of the greenhouse.

 

Uploaded to upload.farm after playing yesterday, and apparently there is another mushroom now. Cleared the area around the first one, but should probably hack my way to the second one too. Assume the chance for this to occur is pretty low?

https://upload.farm/1F3Dmd



Agree the outside orchards aren't doing much financially, but they kinda look nice, so I'll keep them. Low maintenance too. Naturally the ones in the greenhouse will be much more effective, but then I'm not playing for most money here. Will take many years to reach 10 million, if I play that long, but like in real life I don't see the big point with just accumulating wealth.

 

Another hidden drain on your time is writing thousand word essays on forums....

 

I think the odds go up when you have that many trees on your farm, especially if they are spread across different areas of your farm. I'm sure there's a full explanation of the mechanics somewhere on this forum.

 

I would like to respectfully disagree with your estimates, having just tried this out. Playing on the foraging map, using just a copper hoe, I was able to plant up my entire area with a mix of crops in well under three days. About 150 plots just needed scything, but the rest had to be tilled first. I also watered everything that was time-critical on planting, using my original (non-upgraded) watering can, and fertilised all the crops that weren't hops. This wasn't particularly stressful or time-pressured: I was also able to buy seeds, work on friendship, visit the desert, and empty and fill a large number of kegs in those three days. Obviously the foraging map has less plantable area than the main map, but I can't see it taking anywhere near a week on the main map, especially with better equipment.

I was a bit worried about harvesting time with nearly 400 hops, but it turns out that it's perfectly possible to take care of 22 animals, harvest all the hops plus any other crops, and be out of the farm by lunch time.

This is the first time I have tried out filling the whole map with crops - I've always thought it seemed quite tricky. So I would just like to let others know that it isn't as time-intensive as you might believe.

 

You don't have to read it.

 

Dude, lighten up, it was only a joke.

I don't mind reading lengthy posts, and my own verbose tendencies on forums have certainly cost me a few hundred hours over the last twenty odd years. But foruming is one of life's hidden time sinks, whenever you get into any recreational activity, be it gaming, or sport, or whatever.

 

I was feeling the same way about the game and recently stopped playing. Now after reading this thread, I feel a renewed sense to play. I'm in year 4 and have tons of money, so I got rid of all farming except what is in the greenhouse(then I dont have to worry about what season it is), I have 2 of each animal, and next I want to focus on fishing. It is the only skill I am stuck at lvl 3 in. I dont know why I'm so bad at it. LOL My main gripe is HAVING to go to bed by 2am...darn it, If I want to stay up all night mining, I should! LOL
But I'm also eagerly awaiting multi player...I think that might add some fun.