Day by day guide to spring for the experienced player

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Shepherd_0, Feb 15, 2020.

  1. Shepherd_0

    Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

    Introduction

    In this guide, I will break down every day of spring year 1 in detail. The guide will provide a goal for each day and a schedule that helps to reach that goal, as well as some tips and extra explanations. It's meant for players who are experienced with the game, but who want to really challenge themselves. If you are a total beginner, I would recommend getting some more experience with the game first, before trying this guide for yourself. You can just read through it for some handy tips though.

    The main focus of the guide is character growth and infrastructure. Making lots of money is important of course, but you´ll be able to make a lot more money later in the year once you have some proper infrastructure set up. To craft all that infrastructure, you first need experience to reach certain skill levels.

    Considering all that, here is a list with what I think are attainable goals by using this guide:

    • Farming 6, mining 8, foraging 7, fishing 10, combat 5
    • All tools except the watering can upgraded to steel
    • 40+ sprinklers
    • A fully tapped oak farm for keg production
    • All spring exclusive items you need for the community centre (including an apple tree)
    • 30,000g+ available on summer 1
    • 100,000g+ in total earnings

    Note that an advanced player can get much better results than this. I tried to make the guide somewhat accessible. I think it's better to aim low and allow advanced players to upscale the challenge themselves, rather than making the guide impossibly hard for the more intermediate players.

    assumptions
    • The game is played on update 1.4
    • The game is played on the standard or four corners map (the others lack space)
    • No mods that affect gameplay
    • Finishing the community centre is a goal (Joja is evil)
    • The player is familiar with the game and can act accordingly (i.e. fish when it rains, regardless of schedule)

    Before I continue, I want to mention that I was inspired to write this guide by @Shoukry 's Year 1 Spring Guide: https://community.playstarbound.com...helm-people-tl-dr-fish-and-then-plant.130615/


    I learned a lot from this, both in terms of gameplay and in terms of writing a guide. If you notice similarities between my guide and his, that's why. Shoukry's guide is a bit outdated though. My aim is to write something similar, but more adapted to update 1.4.


    Edit - 22-02-2020
    Made substantial changes to the schedule, the guide should be much easier to follow now
     
      Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
      Honeywell, Shoukry and WilliamZ like this.
    • Shepherd_0

      Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

      Week 1

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      Day 1 - Monday
      Goal: 2 chests, 1050 gold

      Start by doing test runs. Walk around the map to check for spring onions, forageables and an artifact. I explain why this is encouraged in the section: a good day 1. Only continue with the guide if you have found a good safe file. Doing these tests runs first will save a lot of time if you need to restart and it also helps with optimizing your route when you do day 1 proper.
      • Pick up the parsnips and place the tv right next to your bed for convenience
      • Collect 50 wood and make a chest
      • Clear a little bit of space in front of the house. You should finish around 8:00 am
      • Collect fibre on the farm until 12:00 pm. Clear a handful of rocks at the bottom of the map to make a path to Cindersap forest
      • Put everything but the hoe in the chest. Bring the scythe for fibre collection in the forest if you know that you'll have enough inventory space (from a test run)
      • Go to the backwoods and forage
      • Go to the mountain and forage. Say hi to Linus, Demetrius and Maru
      • Forage daffodils in town, greet anyone you see (but don't go out of your way), check bins if you know something is in there (test run again), donate the cheapest artifact you could find to Gunther.
      • Go to the beach and forage. You should be ready to go to Cindersap before around 5:00 pm
      • Go to Cindersap forest to pick up spring onions. You'll probably run into Haley. Meet Jas and Marnie at the ranch. Collect any forageables you find
      • Go back to the farm and drop everything but the onions in the shipping bin
      • Quickly go to the bus stop to pick up forageables then go back to the farm
      • Plant mixed seeds to check for parsnips. Every parsnip you get is essentially worth 10g
      • Plant however many parsnips you need to come to a total of 13 and water the parsnips
      • Collect 50 wood for another chest
      • If there is still time and energy left, clear more space on the farm. Don't chop oak trees
      • Be sure to throw everything you have into the bin, except spring onions and maybe wood. We need the fibreglass rod by tomorrow for a headstart, so sell EVERYTHING!


      On day 2, you want to buy the fiberglass rod and at least 1 trout soup and 100 bait. All of this totals at 2550 gold, most of which you have to get on day 1. Since you already start with 500 gold, you actually only need to make 2050 before 5:00 pm on day 2, which is challenging but far from impossible. It’s ideal to get the price of the rod on day 1, to be safe, though it’s not a requirement. You can earn the rest of the gold for bait and soup by selling the fish you catch on day 2.

      So, I’m going to assume that you will have 1550g in your pockets at Tuesday morning in order to make day 2 consistent. This means you have to make 1050g on day 1.

      Just to give you an idea of much 1050g really is, I made a list of items that I think you are somewhat reasonably expected to get. Note that this list is only based on personal experience. The total amount of gold you can get on day 1 can vary wildly depending on RNG.

      • Archaeology quest - 250g (strongly encouraged to look for a safe file with artifact)
      • 150 x fibre - 150g
      • 3 x daffodil - 90g
      • 3 x dandelion - 120g
      • 3 x horseradish - 150g
      • 3 x leek - 180g
      • 2 x clam - 100g
      • 5 x clay - 100g
      • 20 x stone - 40g
      • 20 x sap - 40g
      • 5 x parsnip seeds - 50g (assuming you get 3 parsnips from mixed seeds
      • Total: 1270

      As you can see, this list of fairly reasonable averages will be well over enough money for day 2. With really bad luck, you might have to restart, but that’s why you start by doing a test run. So you don’t have to redo an entire day.

      One more thing to consider is energy. You don’t need very much energy on day 1, but it’s desirable to get some food items so you can chop wood in the evening. You technically only need about 3-5 spring onions to consistently hoe and water 13 parsnips, clear some rocks and collect 100 wood, but more is always better. DON’T eat bread, cookies or other dishes from trash cans. These items are worth a lot of gold so early on, so It’s almost always better to sell them so you can buy extra bait or soup on day 2. Green algae, Joja cola and field snacks from trash cans are acceptable food items. If you don’t get any food items at all, consider resetting. Checking spring onions is the first thing I would do in my test runs.


      [​IMG]
      [​IMG]
      [​IMG]



      If you are an advanced fisher, it’s best to fish for catfish on day 3. If you want to do that, I recommend getting an extra trout soup or two on day 2. A trout soup only has to make the difference on one catfish to pay for itself.

      This does mean that you need an extra money, on day 1. It’s definitely possible to get enough money for more than 1 trout soup, but it might take some resets.



      If you really have trouble getting enough gold on day 1, consider using the four corners map instead of the standard map. The little quarry can spawn geodes, which are potentially worth a lot of money. The contents of the geodes are fixed, so you can check what’s inside in a test run. The quarry also seems to spawn an unusually high amount of artifact spots, which means that you are likely to find valuable clay, rice shoots or artifacts to sell.


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      Day 2 - Tuesday
      Goal: fibreglass rod, 100 bait, 1 trout soup, fishing 4

      • Water parsnips
      • Go to the beach to trigger the cutscene with Willy. Take a chest with you
      • Fish at the ocean right in front of Willy's shop
      • As soon as Willy opens up, sell your fish and buy the training rod. Continue fishing
      • As soon as you get fishing 2, sell your fish again and buy the fibreglass rod and bait
      • Continue fishing at the ocean until 4:50 pm. Focus on getting perfect catches.
      • Just before Willy closes his shop, sell your fish and buy soup and bait. Get at least 1 trout soup and 100 bait. Spend all of the money you have because you are going to collapse tonight. Also keep a sardine for the CC if you can afford that
      • Go to the town and place your chest in front of Jodi's house. Fish for exp at the river
      • Eat a trout soup when you reach fishing level 3 and focus on getting perfect catches. You'll be at fishing 3+1, which allows you to catch iridium fish
      • At 1:50 am, manage your inventory (see note) and collapse


      The most important thing on day 2 is getting as much fishing experience as possible, especially if you’re planning to fish for catfish. Focus on getting perfect catches to drastically increase the exp gain. These are some general benchmarks to keep in mind for reaching certain skill levels:


      Fishing 1 – 10:00 am

      Fishing 2 – 2: 00 pm (it might take some practice and luck to hit this benchmark consistently)

      Fishing 3 – 7: 00 pm

      Fishing 4 – before collapsing

      Note that fishing 4 isn’t strictly necessary if are not fishing for catfish. Fishing 3 should be fine for the lake.

      If you are an extremely good fisher, you might be able to get away with ignoring the training rod entirely. Use an extra trout soup to make getting perfect catches easier. This strategy is only viable if the trout soup pays itself back by enabling you to catch quality fish and flounder/halibut. By getting perfect catches or treasure chests on flounder and halibut, fishing 2 can be reached before noon. This is very hard though, and somewhat reliant on chance.



      As you are fishing, you’re sure to find some treasure chest along the way. You probably can’t bring everything back to the farm in one go though. That’s why you should know which items to take home, and which ones to leave in the chest to pick up later.

      High priority items – take these back to the farm first:
      • Tools
      • Fish you want to sell (obvs)
      • Main food source
      • Valuable gems
      • Rice shoots
      • Coal and ore (prioritise copper and coal over iron and gold)

      Low priority items – these items can stay safe in your chest for a while:
      • Trash items
      • Fish and (beach)forageables you want to use for the community centre
      • Artifacts
      • Geodes (unless you plan on selling them directly, treat them like gems in that case)
      • Seaweed

      If you know that you will be back to fish in the same spot the next day, you can leave your rod and food items in the chest as well.


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      Day 3 - Wednesday
      Goal: ~ 50 wood, ~ 4500g, fisher perk
      • Thank Harvey for saving your life
      • Chop ~50 wood. Prioritise oak trees and only chop the tree itself, not the stump. Don't take too long
      • Make a mountain lake chest
      • Drop everything you don't need in the farm chest and go to the mountain lake
      • Fish until you collapse again
      • Pick the fisher perk


      You shouldn’t just sell every fish you catch. That’s because iridium and gold smallmouths or chubs will be your main source of food for a while, so don’t sell those. You should also keep some fish for the community centre.

      If you are just a little short on money, selling smallmouths or chubs is acceptable. Just make sure you have enough of them left for day 4, 5 and 6. You´ll need a lot of energy on those days.

      One more thing about chubs and smallmouths: eat algae and spring onions first. You can always sell the fish later when it turns out you didn't need to eat all of it.



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      Day 4 - Thursday
      Goal: 4000g+ in mountain fish, backpack upgrade, 1 green bean, ~ 200 wood
      • Water parsnips
      • Chop wood until 8:00 am. Prioritise oak trees
      • Make a mountain lake chest if you didn't already
      • Take your catch from yesterday with you and sell everything to Willy as soon as he opens
      • Buy extra bait while you're there. Restocking until you have 100 bait should be good
      • Go to Pierre's. Buy the backpack upgrade and a green bean (optional)
      • Go to the mountain lake. Place your chest and fish until 7:00 pm
      • Go back to the farm and chop trees. You need lots of wood to repair the bridge on the beach


      Since chubs are used as food and carps aren’t worth much money, you are making the majority of the lake fishing money from bullheads and largemouth bass. Largemouths disappear at 7:00 pm though, so the mountain lake becomes much less profitable during the evening. That’s why, when possible, I try to do most of the fishing at the start of the day.
      [​IMG]


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      Day 5 - Friday
      Goal: rat problem quest completed, floor 20 in the mines, 45+ copper
      • Check the traveling cart first thing in the morning. Found something interesting? buy it and continue with the guide. If not, restart the day so you don't have to walk back and lose time. Don't overspend! you need 2000g tomorrow.
      • Harvest parsnips. Keep one for the CC and another for the Pam (optional). The rest can be used as food in the mines.
      • Make another chest and keep it in your inventory. This one is for the mines
      • Trigger the cutscene at the bus station as soon as possible (8:00 am). If you don't have to go to the cart, chop some trees or plant some rice shoots to fill the time
      • Go inside the community centre and interact with the note
      • Go to the mines. Place your chest next to the elevator and descend
      • Try to get to at least floor 15 and get a minimum of 45 copper
      • Keep items that you don't necessarily need in your farm chest (mushroom, slime, extra equipment drops, etc.) in the mines

      You will need a lot of fibre for tree fertilizer later on. That's why you should collect fibre in the mines whenever you see a big clump. You can find fibre starting from floor 10. Floor 80+ also has fibre to collect.


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      Day 6 - Saturday
      Goal:
      ~ 150 wood, CC unlocked, bridge repaired, axe upgrade, ~ floor 30 in the mines
      • Make a furnace and start smelting copper. You need 5 copper bars today
      • Chop trees until you have 350 wood. (300 for the bridge + 50 for an extra farm chest)
      • Quickly check the bus stop for forageables. Saturday is the last day before forageables reset.
      • Load your inventory with 5 copper bars, 300 wood, the axe, and geodes/artifacts
      • Go to Cindersap forest to forage. Don’t take too long, time is more important than forageables
      • Talk to the wizard and give him a quartz (optional)
      • Go to town and check your river chest for artifacts and geodes
      • Repair the bridge and collect the forageables
      • Donate the artifacts. Don't collect rewards except for cauli (and ancient) seeds
      • Go to Clint and smash geodes. Upgrade the axe
      • Donate minerals you got from geodes
      • Go to the mines. Give a spring onion to Linus on the way
      • Mine for the rest of the day. Descend as quickly as possible
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      Day 7 - Sunday
      Goal: spring forage bundle completed, floor 45 in the mines, 25+ iron ore, mining 3

      • Check the traveling cart. Reload the day if you didn't buy anything
      • Take one of each spring forageable to the community centre for the spring seeds. The spring seeds are not planted but sold outright. Also bring fish and anything else you can offer up
      • Go to the mines. You need at least 25 iron ore


      If you decide to go fishing, it’s a good idea to bring your furnace with you. You can smelt while fishing, which saves a lot of time. Your furnace should be fired up at all times, so take it with you wherever you go. Take them to the mines in the morning and take them back to the farm to smelt more ore overnight. You probably won’t even need to craft more than 2 furnaces for a while.

      Smelt ore that doesn't take long to smelt (copper and quartz) while mining or fishing. Smelt the ore that takes the longest (iron and gold) overnight.
       
        Last edited: Feb 23, 2020
        WilliamZ likes this.
      • Shepherd_0

        Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

        Week 2

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        Day 8 - Monday
        Goal: pickaxe upgrade, 4000g in mountain lake fish, foraging 3
        • Water crops
        • Go to Cindersap forest to look for spring onions
        • Go to Clint to receive the axe and to upgrade the pickaxe
        • Go to the mountain lake and fish until 7:00 pm
        • Go back to the farm and chop regular trees and hardwood stumps. You should be able to get foraging 3
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        Day 9 - Tuesday
        Goal: 5000g in mountain fish, fishing 8
        • Water crops
        • Make a mountain chest if you don´t have one already
        • Fish at the mountain lake for the entire day. You should have plenty of chubs for energy, so it´s fine to sell some of them if you need more money

        Plant the cauliflower seeds today if you didn't already. You want them to ready by the time of your first strawberry harvest so you have enough experience to reach farming 5 for tiller. If you don't have any other crops (like rice shoots), you don't even need a scarecrow.

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        Day 10 - Wednesday
        Goal:axe upgrade (steel), floor 60 in the mines
        • Water crops
        • Go to cindersap forest to look for spring onions
        • Go to Clint to receive the copper axe and upgrade the pickaxe to steel
        • Donate artifacts and minerals from geodes to the museum
        • Gift Vincent a daffodil for his birthday. He'll be right at the museum anyway (optional)
        • Go to the mines and descend as quickly as possible
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        Day 11 - Thursday
        Goal: 5000g in mountain fish
        • Water crops
        • Go to the mountain lake and fish the entire day
        • Smelt while fishing

        It’s very likely that Demetrius will shop up any of these days. The choice for either bats or mushrooms doesn’t matter too much, but there are some things to consider.

        If you are low on money, the mushroom cave can give you a small but consistent boost in gold. This might just be the little boost you need to buy enough strawberries at the egg festival.

        In any other case, I personally prefer the bat cave. The main reason is that I just can’t find the time to check the mushroom cave every other day. Meanwhile, the bat cave only has to be checked once a month. It’s also more useful for completing the CC and it generates some free foraging exp.

        At the end of the day, it’s your choice. It doesn’t have much impact on this guide.


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        Day 12 - Friday
        Goal: watering can upgrade, secret woods unlocked, ~ 80+ hardwood, foraging 4
        • Go to the bus stop and pick up all the forageables
        • Go to the beach and pick up all the forageables. Take your watering can with you
        • Go to Clint to receive your steel axe. Upgrade the watering can
        • Go to Cindersap forest. Chop down the oak trees and collect forageables
        • Go to the secret woods. Chop all the hardwood and collect forageables.
        • Go back to the farm and chop every hardwood log and stump. This should give you well over enough foraging exp to get foraging 4, and you´ll be close to foraging 5 as well.
        • Run through your chest and sell everything you don’t need


        The main reason for chopping all the hardwood on the farm is for the foraging experience. You should reach foraging 5 on the 13th, or the 14th at the latest. That’s because Cindersap forest will be deforested on the 15th, so you need to have the forester skill by then. You also need foraging 4 before salmonberry season.

        If you have well over enough money for strawberry seeds and weapon upgrades, you might want to put all that hardwood to use by building a stable. Having a horse will cut down on the amount of time spent on chopping hardwood stumps in the secret woods. It’s not strictly necessary, but if you have a lot of extra cash lying around, you might as well get the stable.

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        Day 13 - Saturday - Egg festival
        Goal: 14 hardwood, construction bundle complete, minecart fixed (optional), 100+ strawberry seeds, foraging 5 (pick forester skill)
        • Go to the secret woods and chop all the hardwood. You should reach foraging 5
        • Make a scarecrow and place cobblestone path around it (see picture)
        • Hoe and fertilize all the tiles you want to plant strawberries on
        • Go to the egg festival. Buy at least 100 strawberry seeds. Get more if you want to
        • Annihilate some children in egg hunt and crush their dreams
        • Sweet hat yay
        • After the egg festival, plant all the strawberry seeds you just bought. Be quick
        • Go to the CC and offer up everything you can. Complete the construction bundle at least. Complete the boiler room if you got a fire quartz through fishing or geodes

        [​IMG]

        With 100 strawberries, you will hit farming 5 (tiller) after the first harvest and farming 6 (sprinklers) after the second harvests, assuming you plant the 9 free cauliflower seeds from the museum. You can get more strawberries if you want, but do keep in mind that you need 5000g on the 14th for a tool upgrade as well. Even more if you also want the stable.

        If you want to get farming 6 after the first harvest, you need to plant 175 strawberries. Because you get quality sprinklers early with that strategy, you can spam however many parsnips as you can get watered by sprinklers in the last week of spring. This will get you to farming 8, if that’s a goal for you. It takes a significant amount of extra watering though.


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        Day 14 - Sunday
        Goal: pickaxe upgrade, 5000g in mountain fish
        • Check the traveling cart. You don’t have to reload if you didn’t buy anything
        • Chop hardwood stumps in the secret woods
        • Go to Clint to receive your watering can. Upgrade your pickaxe to steel
        • Go back to the farm to water your crops with your newly upgraded watering can
        • Go to Robin and build the stable (optional)
        • Fish at the mountain lake for the rest of the day
         
          Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
          WilliamZ likes this.
        • Shepherd_0

          Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

          Week 3

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          Day 15 - Monday
          Goal: ~ 1000 wood, ~ 50 salmonberries, foraging 6
          • Water crops
          • Go the secret woods to collect salmonberries and to chop hardwood
          • Deforest Cindersap forest. You get tons of wood thanks to the forester skill
          • Give the wizard a solar essence (loved gift)
          • Pick up salmonberries along the way
          • If there’s still time left, chop more wood on the farm or fish
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          Day 16 - Tuesday
          Goal: hoe upgrade, floor 70 in the mines
          • Water crops
          • Go to the secret woods to chop hardwood
          • Go to Clint to receive your steel pickaxe. Upgrade your hoe
          • Go to the mines and descend as quickly as possible
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          Day 17 - Wednesday
          Goal: 5000 gold mountain fish
          • Water crops
          • Go to the secret woods to chop hardwood
          • Fish at the mountain lake for the rest of the day
          • Smelt ore while you fish

          You should be pretty close to fishing 10 after today. DON’T sell any fish until you have angler unless you absolutely have to. Just stockpile the fish and sell all of it at once when you hit fishing 10. One or two more days of fishing should get you there.

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          Day 18 - Thursday
          Goal: ~ 100 salmonberries, hoe upgrade (steel), floor 80 in the mines, mining 5 (pick miner skill)
          • Water crops
          • Go to the secret woods to chop hardwood and collect salmonberries
          • Collect some more salmonberries in Cindersap forest. Don’t get more than you need
          • Go to Clint to receive your hoe and give it right back
          • Go to the mines and descend as quickly as possible. You should be at floor 80, if not 90. Pick the miner profession at mining 5

          After you obtain the obsidian edge, you don’t really need to descend anymore. It’s better to farm ore by repeatedly going up and down the elevator on levels 20, 40 and 80, depending on the type of ore you want to farm. A big advantage of this mining technique is that you will pass your furnaces and charcoal kilns very often, so they will be smelting non-stop.

          Since you will get farming 6 on the 21st, it’s recommended that you focus on getting iron and gold for quality sprinklers first. Once you have all the sprinklers you want, you can focus on getting copper for tappers and kegs.



          You don’t need more than 200 salmonberries. 150-200 should be plenty to get you through spring and early summer. So, don’t waste time on scavenging the entire map in search for salmonberries. Once you have enough, just hit the mines or fish.

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          Day 19 - Friday
          Goal: 5000 gold in mountain fish
          • Water crops
          • Check the traveling cart
          • Go to the secret woods to chop hardwood
          • Go to the beach to collect forageables. Sell them Willy so they don't clutter up your inventory
          • Gus should have just opened. Buy a beer for Shane’s birthday
          • Go to the mountains and fish at the lake

          You can safely sell chubs and smallmouth bass from now on. You should have plenty of salmonberries to last you through late spring and early summer.


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          Day 20 - Saturday
          Goal: fishing 10, foraging 7, friendship with Shane (pepper poppers), ~ 1000 wood
          • Water crops
          • Go to the mountain lake to fish. Stop once you reach fishing 10. (skip fishing entirely if you already are at fishing 10)
          • Go to Pierre’s and give Shane a beer. If you finish fishing early, he’ll be at Marnie’s ranch instead
          • Go to Cindersap forest to forage. Chop any trees you missed on the 15th
          • Give the wizard another solar essence
          • Go to the secret woods to chop hardwood
          • Go back to the farm and chop most of the trees. Prioritise the area next to the greenhouse. You should be able to reach foraging 7 today

          If you didn’t get it today, you should be extremely close. I was actually only 2 hardwood stumps away from foraging 7 today. If this happens to you too, you have to make one extra trip to the secret woods on the 21st and set back the oak farm by one day. It’s unfortunate, but not the end of the world.

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          Day 21 - Sunday
          Goal: 50+ acorns planted, lots of sprinkler materials
          • Water crops
          • Go to the secret woods to chop hardwood (optional, only if you don't have foraging 7 yet)
          • Check the traveling cart. Reload if you didn’t buy anything
          • Clear the area left to the greenhouse and plant 50+ acorns. Use tree fertilizer
          • Go to the mines to farm more ore


          Note on week 3

          Most of the days in week 3 are interchangeable. You can swap the days around based on weather or daily luck if you want, as long as you reach the following important benchmarks at the end of week 3:

          - Mining 5 (miner)

          - Foraging 7 (tree fertilizer)

          - Fishing 10 (angler)

          - Floor 80 in the mines (90 is recommended for the obsidian edge)

          - ~ two full stacks of wood

          - Enough salmonberries to last you through spring

          With all of these milestones, you are well prepared for the last week. Week 4 will involve a lot of mining to farm materials for sprinklers and tappers.
           
            Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
            WilliamZ likes this.
          • Shepherd_0

            Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

            Week 4

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            Day 22 - Monday
            Goal: enough materials for 20+ quality sprinklers
            • Harvest your strawberries and water your crops
            • Plant acorns with tree fertilizer if you didn’t already
            • Go to the mines and farm ore. Start with iron and gold for quality sprinklers. You should already have more than enough quartz

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            Day 23 - Tuesday
            Goal: more sprinkler materials
            • Water crops
            • Mine
            • yeah that's it
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            Day 24 - Wednesday - Flower Dance
            Goal: materials for 40+ sprinklers, copper for tappers
            • Water crops
            • Avoid Cindersap forest unless you want to do the flower dance. I recommend not going since there is no benefit to it at all
            • Go to the mines to farm even more ore
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            Day 25 - Thursday
            Goal: hoe upgrade (gold, optional), copper for tappers
            • Water crops
            • Go to Clint to upgrade the hoe to gold (optional)
            • Mine. Focus on copper now so you have enough materials for 50+ tappers tomorrow

            The gold hoe and pickaxe ugprades are completely optional. If you would rather spend the money on farm structures or a kitchen upgrade or something, that's fine. Think of where you want to go with your farm and act accordingly. With an oak farm for kegs, 40+ sprinklers and many important professions, you are well prepared for the rest of the year, regardless of what you do from now on.

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            Day 26 - Friday
            Goal: 50+ tappers, materials for 40+ quality sprinklers
            • Check the traveling cart. Reload if you didn't buy anything, the usual
            • Harvest and ship strawberries
            • Tap all of your oak trees. You should have plenty of wood from deforesting Cindersap forest and your farm in week 2. I you don't have enough, buy extra wood from Robin
            • You guessed it, back to the mines again. You need to finish today. Get enough materials to make 40+ sprinklers
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            Day 27 - Saturday
            Goal: smash geodes, pickaxe upgrade (optional)
            • Go to the backwoods and collect all the forageables
            • Go to the beach and collect all the forageables
            • Go to Clint to recieve your hoe and upgrdae your pickaxe. Today is the last day you can smash geodes if you do get the pickaxe upgrade
            • Do an activity of choice. I would recommend foraging in the forest today since it's a Saturday. Fish if you need more money
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            Day 28 - Sunday
            Goal: donate artifacts, complete bundles, apple sapling, clean up the farm

            Today is the day to tidy up the farm and prepare for summer 1.
            • Check the traveling cart. Reload if you didn't buy anything
            • Check the bat cave (if you have it)
            • Complete as many bundles in the community centre as you can
            • Donate artifacts and minerals to the museum
            • Go to Pierre's to buy an apple sapling. Buy extra parsnip seeds (optional)
            • Go through all of your chest and sell everything you don't need. Also check the mine and fishing chests
            • Clean up the farm in preparation for summer 1. Be sure all your sprinklers are installed. It’s a good idea to make an organized storage system
            • Fish if there’s time left

            If you have like 50+ sprinklers, consider buying extra parsnip seeds as fodder. The parsnips will wither on summer 1, but they do get watered. That means that you don't have to hoe or water any tiles with dead parsnips on them. It saves you a lot of time on summer 1, but it is technically a waste of money. This trick is only worth it if you can't plant everything you want to plant on summer 1 in time otherwise.

            One more little tip for players who don't buy the fodder parsnips: skip going to Pierre's today entirely. You can get the apple tree on summer 1 when you go to Pierre's for summer seeds anyway.
             
              Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
              WilliamZ likes this.
            • Shepherd_0

              Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

              conclusion

              These are the results of the first version of the guide. I wanted to improve on the oak farm, as described on the 'future improvements' section, so that's exactly what I did. Note that the content in this quote is thus outdated.


              Results

              Overall, I'm pretty happy with the new results. I think the guide is alot easier to follow for more novice players now. Here is a screenshot of the entire farm. I'm playing on switch, so that's the reason for the ugly black borders (I think). Sorry about that.

              [​IMG]

              As you can see, I have two fields of 20 sprinklers each, which can water 320 crops. I got a silo just to get it out of the way for summer. I have an oak farm that is fully tapped. It will have produced twice around the time of the first summer harvest. This is completely optional, and probably a bit overkill so early on. It's just something I like to have personally.

              Money Money Money

              [​IMG]


              Skill levels
              [​IMG]



              The end
              That's it. Thank you for taking the time to read through all that, I hope it was helpful. Please let me know if you have any feedback. Do you think the guide misses anything? Were you able to achieve the goal for each day? Please let me know.
               
                Last edited: Feb 22, 2020
                WilliamZ likes this.
              • One More Day

                One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                You've beaten me to the punch a bit. I'm most of the way through writing my own complementary pair of routes, one with fishing, and one wholly without fishing. Obviously the fishing one aims quite a bit higher because fishing is a superior strategy for making money

                I think you missed a trick by not doing anything whatsoever for the first 7 days. Might want to fix that



                Slightly more seriously, your sprinkler layouts are a bit wasteful of space; you've only got 160 watered plots per scarecrow, and you can save yourself a stack of effort and get exactly that with basic sprinklers. As per my basic sprinkler thread a few weeks back, quality sprinklers can get >10% better coverage, so I don't know why you wouldn't

                You've also not routed in tree fertilizer, but it's not really that hard to get IMO. Makes an oak tree farm ridiculously easy. I'm looking at filling a whole shed with every harvest of resin, or a big shed every second harvest

                A stable is both much easier and also much more useful in 1.4 that it was when Shoukry wrote his, so I think that should have gone in somewhere.

                Cash goal also seems a bit low too, tbh. For my fishing one, I'm routing in probably 50k cash in hand, with the expectation of getting up near twice that. And no, I'm not including catfish. If you catch them, it's just a bonus, but certainly not necessary. Total earnings is pretty meaningless, as it can be so easily manipulated, to whatever you want really. As long as you have a high boredom threshold, you could earn millions in spring.


                Would be interesting to see what your first week looks like, because that's what makes or breaks the rest of the run.
                 
                • Shepherd_0

                  Shepherd_0 Starship Captain


                  It seems like the post with the first week needs to be reviewed by a moderater first, before becoming visible for everyone. I guess that that a measure to reduce spam. The first post is very long after all, you'll see.


                  day 1 - plant 13 parsnips, get 1300g to buy the fibreglass rod on day 2
                  day 2 - fibreglass rod, fishing 4
                  day 3 - chop ~5 oak trees, get 7500g in fish
                  day 4 - sell fish to Willy, get backpack upgrade and 72 kale, fish at mountain lake until 7:00 pm, clear space next to the greenhouse
                  day 5 - trigger CC cutscene, get 70 copper in the mine
                  day 6 - start oak farm, get pickaxe upgrade, repair bridge, forage forest, plant kale
                  day 7 - fish at the mountain until 7:00 pm, finish oak farm


                  I did try to incorporate basic sprinkler in my first attempt at writing the guide, but it didn't really work out well. I decided to drop them completely. I had a different tool upgrade order in that attempt though, so I might try basic sprinklers one more time with the tool upgrade order I used for the guide. It worked pretty well for me.

                  I agree on the tree fertilizer. As I mentioned in the future improvements, I wasn´t happy with the oak farm. I think I should be able to work in foraging 7 in the guide somewhere, so expect an update on that. It also frees up time in the first week.

                  The stable is in there, to an extent. It´s one of the options for the farm buildings of choice on day 25. I personally didn´t have too much need for it because I unlocked the minecarts very early. I should have bought it on day 27 though, I could have easily afforded it.

                  Yes on the cash goals. They are not really goals as much as absolute requirements to afford upgrades. I frequently was well above my own money goals. I like having a bit of extra money for the traveling cart. I ended spring with 50k on hand as well. I did mention that the main focus of the guide would be infrastructure and character growth. That's why I didn't fish for money all that much after the first week.
                   
                  • WilliamZ

                    WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                    Hey nice guide! You cleary put a lot of effort on this and I appreciate!
                    I actually have trouble and find hard to manage trees and tappers, I use mods that shows the harvest time and tappers always are kinda random, even if I put all them at the same time, I also not organized enough for that, maybe you can add that in another guide or @One More Day can take the lead on this one.

                    Edit: I totally forgot to ask, but eating a chub and chopping the trees by yourself is cheaper than purchase raw wood at Robin's in year one? Or it just a bit of strategy to gain some foraging level? I'm not a fan of chopping a lot of trees until I have the iron axe, but that's just me.
                     
                    • Shepherd_0

                      Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                      Thanks.

                      I'm already trying another playthrough using my own guide. This time, I'm going to skip the oak farm early on and focus on getting foraging 7. I want to make an oak farm with tree fertilizer towards the end of spring. Hopefully I can test tappers as well, if I can get enough materials.

                      I think chopping wood yourself is slightly better than fishing an entire day to just buy the wood, assuming you get about 5000-6000g from a day of fishing by the lake. I find that with the steel axe, I can get about 800 wood from chopping trees for an entire day. The problem is that you will run out of trees to cut very quickly, so at some point you would have to wait or buy from Robin anyway. If foraging 7 is a goal, you should definitively chop trees yourself.
                       
                      • One More Day

                        One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                        I've had a bit of a read through now, and while you've undoubtedly put quite a bit of effort into this, I feel there really are some rather sizeable leaks in it, particularly given the new content in the game now.

                        Although it's not quite ready yet, I already have most of my own route done, so I don't know whether to list here what I think, which might seem unnecessarily critical, or just go ahead and post my own route to compare. Obviously I feel my own route produces better results, and probably with less effort too. I'm aiming for more sprinkler coverage and other infrastructure, more cash and less frantic effort to achieve it all, thanks to a schedule that I feel is more coherently arranged to aim towards the overall end goal, rather than a succession of short term goals.

                        I'll definitely be putting my own version out when it's ready, and it will include getting ready for putting tappers on enough trees to fill a shed in one harvest. Although I'm still struggling to actually fit all the tappers before Summer 2 or 3 without buying coal, so I still need to work out if it would be better just to buy it, or plough on with dust sprites and try for the burglar's ring while I do so. I mean, it could all be done with Skull Cavern pretty easily, but I'm trying to avoid that too, because that's starting to get quite extreme min-max and not really the sort of guide that I feel is needed.
                         
                          FickleRhubarb likes this.
                        • WilliamZ

                          WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                          For a non-min/max guide I think that it's safe to play with the 3 years length in mind, since it's the time that takes for receive the first grandpa evaluation, I believe that have the goals for autumn in the first year and finish everything by summer 2º is ideal even for a first-timer. One of those days I saw some discussion about skipping strawberries in first year since you can make more money fishing and gain exp farm by cultivating other things, dunno what are both of your thoughts about this.
                          PS: looking foward for the tappers!
                           
                          • Shepherd_0

                            Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                            That´s fair enough. Apart from the first week, I intentionally kept the goals quite low as to not scare away newer players. I also tried to minimise the amount of fishing after the first two weeks or so, because fishing gets quite tedious. That in and of itself is arguably sub-optimal play, but I just don't want to fish almost every day. Those are some reasons why the results might be a bit modest to you. Though, comparing my results to @ShneekeyTheLost 's powergaming build order as an exapmle, which aims for only 40 strawberries, it's obvious that my results are a lot better than that. It's not really a fair comparison because that build order is outdated, but still. I guess it goes to show that it's kind of hard to know when you're doing a good job in terms of min-maxing, because you don't really have anything to compare to other than posts on the forum. That was another one of my reasons for writing the guide, actually. To stir up discussion so I could improve myself further.

                            Reflecting back on the guide, I do think that it falls apart a bit towards the end. I kept the goals intentionally vague because what activities you want to do depend on where you want to go with the farm. That is different for everyone. Not having a schedule kind of defeats the point of having a guide though, so I might sharpen the goals once I figure out something good. I honestly wasn't really sure what to recommend for the last week. I should have spend some more time on that, but I already had most of the guide written and I just wanted to get it out.

                            As I mentioned before, I want to incorporate foraging 7 into the guide at some point so I can have a proper oak farm. Aside from that, I also think that I want to move the coop back to summer or fall. I feel like I was trying to push in too many directions at once, wanting to build EVERYTHING in spring just for the sake of having everthing. I now realise that the incorporation in the schedule of the coop and the other structures is kind of random. The main reason for building a coop is to complete the animal bundle to unlock the greenhouse, but I realise you don't need to complete that bundle in spring. It's not paying itself back any time soon either, so it's probably a bad investment so early on. I think I'll replace it with the stable after all. I would guess that this was one of the sizeable leaks you were refering too?

                            By the way, do you think it would be a good idea to spend the wood and money from skipping the coop on preserves jars? One of the main perks of the current farming build order is that I get farming 4 very early, but this is pretty underutilised. I feel like it wouldn't mesh very well with the oak farm. Needing to collect materials for both jars and kegs seems a bit overkill to me, but it might be worth it if the jars can earn enough money to allow me to buy the wood for kegs from Robin.

                            Something I'm not too sure about is adding regular sprinklers to the guide. I just can't seem to make them work. Either I don't have enough materials to make a serious amount of them, or I don't have enough money for seeds. I also really hate the pattern, even though it's not so hard to set up. Watering ~100 crops with the copper can is very manageble anyway, so I don't feel like I really need early sprinklers. I'm very interested to see how you go about it in your guide.
                             
                            • One More Day

                              One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                              Nor do I. Fishing every day will get you lots of cash and absolutely no infrastructure, which is rather pointless

                              Tree fertilizer is obviously a huge introduction in 1.4 and I think it needs to be taken advantage of in a build schedule at this level of ambition

                              I mean, if you're going to do a farm like this, buying the greenhouse from Joja is simply better. It's quicker, it's cheaper and it's a whole lot less effort. There's no reason not to. The pantry bundles are painfully slow, horribly expensive and a time drain when you have to chase after animals every day. And with no pantry to repair, there's not really much point to animals at all. But if you absolutely insist on doing the pantry, then yes, building coop and barn early provides no benefit, because you still need to wait for items for the fall crops bundle. Same with the silo really. They can all go back to summer, when you can rake in at least 10k a day from fishing.

                              Yes, an early stable is now far more valuable than it ever was in earlier versions.

                              No, I wouldn't bother with jars either, because tree fertilizer gives a fixed and very early date for oak resin, and therefore kegs, and that makes spamming hops in summer even more attractive. So any early wood not used for a few chests, or the scarecrows, is going towards tappers. By the time I actually start on the kegs, I'll be buying wood anyway; it's only 300g per keg, plus 3,000g per shed, which will all be recovered on the first batch of pale ale.

                              IMO, the kale itself another huge leak. You're wasting a half bar of energy each day to water it, plus another half bar to hoe it all out, all before salmonberries. RIP 2k worth of fish to replace that wasted energy, and that's basically your profit gone. Add in the opportunity cost of the lost fishing time, and it's actually going cost you money to plant and water the kale, to reach a milestone which will not be useful. Plus, those kale seeds cost over 5k, an enormous and unnecessary cost so early in the game.

                              I am doing two versions, one with fishing and one without. I only have the basic sprinklers in the one without fishing, and I only have 40 of them, exactly enough to use 1 scarecrow to the maximum possible extent. I'm not planning to get Farming 6 from the first strawberry harvest there, and far fewer seeds are purchased than in the one that does have fishing.

                              ***************************************************

                              Strawberries are the best spring Y1 crop for both money and XP. If you can afford them, I don't know why you'd plant anything else
                               
                                Last edited: Feb 17, 2020
                              • Shepherd_0

                                Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                                I can´t speak for everyone, but I think most people prefer the CC route, because Joja goes against the spirit of the game. Though, maybe those are not the same people that would follow a guide like this. I should drop a note about it in the assumptions section.

                                There is a little more to it than that. First, you have to factor in the extra quality strawberries you will produce thanks to having farming 4. It´s probably not enough to cover the loss in profit from eating fish entirely, but it comes close. Secondly, you also have to consider that you get three days of watering back later on because the kale allows me to get farming 6 after the first strawberry harvest. You don´t necesserily need the kale for that, but you would need about 175 strawberries to reach farming 6 after the first harvest without the kale, which seems implausible. An advantage of having quality sprinklers after the first harvest, aside from saving 3 days of watering strawberries, is that you can spam however many parsnips you can get watered by sprinklers. Parsnips don´t make a huge profit of course, but it´s easy money just in time for summer 1. The only work you have to put in is hoeing the ground. Not sure how worth all of this is anymore, but those were my reasons for investing in exp with the kale anyway.

                                The parsnips get you to farming 8 as well. I don´t know how plausible it is to have the oak farm fully set up before summer though. I don´t think it´s worth saving strawberries to process in kegs, because it probably won´t be done in time to be worth the effort.

                                I guess I was putting in effort to reach milestones just for the sake of it again, like with the coop. Having early quality sprinklers and farming 8 in spring isn´t hugely benificial if you consider opportunity cost, but it does look nice in the guide´s introduction.

                                Anyway, from what I gathered from your critique, I should probably:
                                - scrap the kale and forget about early sprinklers
                                - replace the coop with the stable
                                - scrap the oak farm early and do it later on with tree fertilizer

                                that last one is kind of funny to me. I remember that I specifically didn't aim for tree fertilizer because you (and some other people) didn't think it was worth it in the tree ferilizer and early access thread. In a playthrough I did at the time of that thread, I did manage foraging 7, but it took a lot of effort. That's why I didn't consider it for the guide.

                                [​IMG]


                                I think this is enough to improve on for now. Thanks for the advice. I don't want to make my guide into the guide that you're making though, so I won't just change everything. Then there would be no reason for my own guide to exist, and it doesn't seem fair towards you. I shouldn't undersell myself either. I think the extra general gameplay tips, like the inventory management, still hold value for players who might not know those kinds of things. Hopefully I'll be able to accomodate those tips with a better schedule.
                                 
                                • One More Day

                                  One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                                  Fair point, didn't really consider it, but perhaps I intuitively know it's not going to be that much. It's only going to apply to about 65 strawberries, at only a few g of expected value per strawberry, so I reckon it's about 300-500g difference, and given that it's only going to be on day 22, when we won't be hurting for cash anyway, having just harvested over 25k worth of strawberries, it's honestly not enough to make kale worth the effort. There will also still be some fish left over to sell, and a fair few thousand in gems will have been found too, from all the time spent in the mines.

                                  I'm also getting Farming 6 from the first harvest, and yes, I'm planting exactly 175 strawberries. It's far more affordable than you think. I'm obviously going to do a run through first, but honestly, I'm expecting to still be paying for upgrades too at around that time, so I don't expect to struggle to afford them.

                                  Doing this too, also handy for tilled ground on summer 1. It'll just be enough for Farming 8, to unlock kegs without waiting for the first summer harvest.

                                  Getting the acorns is fine, but honestly, I don't quite see me squeezing in the fitting of tappers before Summer 2. But as long as it allows the chance to get the first kegs set up by the time the first hops are harvested, it might not be necessary to try and do it two days earlier. Although it would be nice for the guide. Perhaps I might retitle it the first 30 days, instead of the first spring, so I can still sneak it in and claim it

                                  No, they're the cash for summer 1 spending. For me, the kegs will be for the hops

                                  Totally different kind of farm. In that one, I would have been aiming at skull cavern and 200+ sprinklers and starfruit, and doing all sorts of funky stuff that I wouldn't put into a guide like this. I'd also be prepared to reset a day a few times to "get it right", something that I don't intend for this project. There should be enough wiggle room to allow for mistakes each day. Different goals = different route
                                   
                                  • Shepherd_0

                                    Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                                    The chances for quality crops with basic fertilizer are 77%/15%/8% at level 1, and 50%/31%/19% at level 4. If we assume 100 strawberries like in the guide, then you can just multiply these pecentages with the different prices of different quality strawberries. I'm using the tiller prices.

                                    Farming 1 - 77x132 + 15x165 + 8x198 = 14 223
                                    Farming 4 - 50x132 + 31x165 + 19x198 = 15 477

                                    So the diffence is closer to 1250g, which is not much, but not insignificant either. It's certainly much better than 300-500g.

                                    About the strawberries, I'm not worried about being able to afford that many strawberries as much as I'm worried about having to water 175+ crops every day. With the kale, this watering is spaced out a bit at least. Though, I suppose that if you want farming 6 as soon as possible without compromising the other skills, you might as well go all out on strawberries since strawberries are just better crops than kale. That does make sense. The outcome in exp will be the same, but with the strawberries you'll actually make a profit too. You'll also be able to use salmonberries for energy instead of fish.

                                    I think I've done runs with180 crops before sprinklers in the past. It's definitely affordable, but also very tedious. I'm not sure I really want that in the guide. Alternatively, I could also aim a low and go for about 90 strawberries, and without the kale. This would still get farming 6, just not after the first harvest. It would lose out on the aforementioned 1250g, and on any profit the parsnips would make, but this is easily made up for with extra fishing. I can see why the kale is unnecessary, but I'm more comfortable with keeping the strawberries at 90-100 rather than 175, for the guide at least.

                                    fair enough. I would be interested to know how you would go about this. I reckon it involves a lot of fishing and a LOT of watering an ungodly amount of crops. Seems cool but also tedious.
                                     
                                    • ThorfinnS

                                      ThorfinnS Orbital Explorer

                                      Unless you use One More Day's suggestion to reload after you figure out which oaks are double acorns, seems to me there's no point in prioritizing oaks. Might as well chop something else and shake the oaks and dig up the acorns. There are a great plenty of acorns to be had, and you have fully-grown oaks available whenever you have spare resources for a tapper. Take out the standing oaks as you need the space for crops. By your guidelines, the 23rd at soonest.

                                      For me, Cindersnap oaks are fair game any time I happen to be going past. They come back quickly. If I happen to get lucky with onions and forage, they might be day 1.

                                      Is it a good use of early resources though? All it's doing is saving a small amount of time once per day running to the mines or your fishing spot. If it's done before the salmonberries, maybe it saves you enough time to make it worthwhile, since you have more time at the end of the foraging run to mine or fish or whatever. Otherwise, it's not even close. Fishing or mining, depending on what you need, is a better use of the time than foraging, even if you only forage once a week. Best case, you only get enough forage to make 7 sets of spring seeds. 2k, maybe 3k tops, at a cost of the better part of a day. It's hard not to get that fishing.

                                      MAYBE if you are making fertilizer rather than buying it, but by the time I'm using DSG, I'm better off buying it than making it. At least for the relatively trivial amount of coral I'm finding.

                                      Certainly it's worthwhile by the time blackberries show up, but the stables are pocket change by then.

                                      Carryover of the concept from the stables. Going to the festival costs you a minimum of 8 hours. That's a bit shy of 2% of your entire Spring down the drain. Add in the amount of time and energy you are going to spend watering them before you get sprinklers... I don't know. I'm sure your mining skills are better than mine, and if you can get just 5 ore per hour, my back of the envelope math (and practice runs with basic sprinklers/tappers) suggests that's better use of time than what strawberries net over other crops.

                                      I'd mention that this is assuming one does not do reloads. If you typically load the game, run the forage circuit and plan the route, then reload and do it for reals, my comments are less applicable -- you already know whether it's worth it to forage, and how to minimize the time cost. Similarly, if you use the predictors, the stables become worthwhile earlier in the game.
                                       
                                      • WilliamZ

                                        WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                                        @ThorfinnSthe the stable sounds like a beginner's trap, it's easy to fix the mine carts and summer will be spent in skull cavern instead of the mines, so the horse will not be used anyways, the horse only came handy when you have to grind exp in the secret forest.
                                        But to be honest, at the end of spring we will be swimming in cash, so we can build both the stable and the coop, while the stable isn't mandatory you won't hurt your game by setting the coop/barn on summer and I'm assuming that you want to unlock the greenhouse by the winter, or else you can skip them entirely, but for a min/max perspective I don't see the need to build the stable.
                                         
                                        • Shoukry

                                          Shoukry Big Damn Hero

                                          @Shepherd_0, I think the hardest thing with writing guides for this game is finding a focused goal which will appeal to a lot of different people. Instead of suggestions, I can only supply a few questions since I have not really discovered everything 1.3 and 1.4 has to offer (as in, I just discovered the Night Market) and I am actively looking to avoid spoilers. So here I go:
                                          1. Is Farming 8 a goal to unlock kegs in Spring? If so, why aren't uncut farm oaks tapped beforehand to take advantage of reaching Farming 8?
                                          2. Why are you upgrading the watering can to steel at the end of the month if you have quality sprinklers already? I personally did this to show it could be done, but upgrading the hoe, axe, or pick could be upgraded to gold instead. If you want the watering can upgraded to steel, could it be fit in before the strawberries are watered to save energy before your sprinklers are ready? Or, like @One More Day mentioned, could basic sprinklers be a better stopgap and avoid upgrading the watering can at all?
                                          3. Would this setup be optimal for being able to complete everything -- and I mean everything -- by Spring 1, Year 3? If so, that could be a nice note to pin at the beginning of the guide.
                                          4. Would delaying building the coop and/or barn help make summer smoother? Especially if you are looking to get kegs rolling since that is a decent amount of time spent in Spring when possibly better activities could be done.
                                          My only complaint, and it is very subjectively my personal preference, are the calls for restarting if the cart does not have something worthwhile. This goes back to the guide's overall goal, and if you are writing for the intermediate player then I would think checking the cart is probably just a risk of losing a little more than an hour of your day. If you are writing for the extreme min-maxers then I would stick more of these suggestions in other parts of the guide as well.

                                          Great write-up! Maybe you or someone else in here has the stomach for a full, 2-year walkthrough, with a day-by-day for, at least, the first year. Thanks for posting! Keep them coming.
                                           

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