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

    YES
    I agree with this so much. It´s very hard to find an outcome that will please everyone while still being coherent. I kept the goals in the last week intentionally vague to encourage people to make their own goals. This might come across as if the guide has no real focus though. Very difficult to get this just right.

    1. To be perfectly honest, the main reason for farming 8 is just because it looks nice in the introduction. When you really think about it, quality sprinklers are the only worthwhile thing you need to level the farming skill for. Even if you get kegs early, you won´t have any crop to process, so you have to wait for the first harvest of summer anyway. I´m currently thinking of removing the day 6 kale from the guide. One More Day made some good points about that, and it´s true that the kale doesn´t have much of a benifit beyond being able to reach farming 6 early without having to plant 175 strawberries.

    I would hate to tap random trees on the farm. It seems like it would be a waste of time walking from tree to tree to collect the resin. If you didn´t know, 1.4 added tree fertilizer, which guarantees that a seed will grow into the next stage every day. That seems like the best way to make an oak farm now, but I´m not really sure yet how I would implement it in the guide. I did try getting foraging 7 in a previous run, but it took a LOT of effort. I think I might have to swap the axe and pickaxe upgrades so I get access to the secret forest earlier.

    2. Good point. I could have upgraded it earlier. I think I would have to put in some more fishing if I want to get a gold upgrade in as well. I don´t think the steel watering can is necessary, and it´s definitely not worth getting before the spring festival, especially if i´m not getting more than 100 crops. I really dont´t like regular sprinklers for a run that uses fishing. I have done some tests with them but I can never seem to make it work.

    3. You could probably sleep through spring 1 and still complete everything by year 3 if you know what you´re doing. 3 years is such a long time that I really don´t know how to answer this question. Having proper infrastructure early on definitely helps though, that much is obvious.

    4. Yes. I wanted cram as much infrastructure in the guide as possible, but I now realise that it doesn't really work like that. getting the coop in spring is really too early. It takes quite some wood and it won´t pay itself back. It´s better to have some steady income first before focusing on animals, so I´m moving the coop to summer.

    The ´cart-restart' (I kinda like that phrase, I might use it in the actual guide) is more a little time safe thing rather than a min-max thing. Restarting takes less time than walking back to the farm. So, the restart not only saves you an hour of in-game time, it also saves you a few seconds of irl time.[/user][/QUOTE]
     
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    • WilliamZ

      WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

      Oh god... tried fishing without mods to give a honest try and I remembered why I hate this mini-game.
      It was very hard to purchase the fiberglass rod using the training rod (I noticed only later that all my catches was common), I managed to get fishing lv3 by +-1am, definitely don't use the training rod if you're not doing a casual gameplay.
      Trout soup I felt it like a luxury on day 3, most of the time that I had the buff I only fished trash and when It went off I didn't noticed the difference. What made difference was getting lv3 at fishing.
       
      • One More Day

        One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

        This calculation is incomplete. I'm slightly over-planting on my initial parsnips for Farming 1, so depending on how many of those parsnips survive the crows, it'll only take about 10-12 strawberries at Farming 1 to reach Farming 2. Then another 20 or so will be picked at 2 to reach 3, and about 30 will be picked at 3 to reach 4. That's only about 60-65 strawberries affected, not all 175 of them. And almost half of those 60-65 will be at Farming 3, itself only a very small difference to Farming 4. Right now I'm not able to whip up a spreadsheet to work it out exactly, might do that later, but I'll be surprised if it's over 500g difference.

        Batching a specific activity as much as possible will save time, whether it's travel time, or running to chests for inventory changes, or whatever. I plan for 12 days watering, rather than 18, and absolutely none of it is done with the basic can. Also, the more strawberries I have out there, the more benefit I gain from a single rainy day. And not wanting to completely spoiler my own route too much, and certainly not before I've tested to make sure I haven't made a huge derp somewhere, even the value of the fish eaten to water the early kale isn't actually the deal breaker for me there.

        It's certainly niche, and something that comes from watching TheHaboo too much on Twitch. Check him out, it's seriously impressive. I'm mostly trying to replicate those kind of farms. It's actually not much watering, you just dump out a ton of kale, enough for farming 6, and leave it out there in the hope of getting plenty of rain, only watering if necessary near the end of the season. All the money and resources then comes from skull cavern. Not gonna lie, it can be tedious if you aren't a big fan of deciding at 1.50am to reset the whole day if it wasn't perfect

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


        Again, different goal, different route. When you want 200+ oaks, every acorn is critical. With more modest goals, you can expect to get enough from chopping and just taking what comes without daily resets. Leaving the oak stumps will still generate enough fallen acorns to supplement what you get from when you fell the trees, as you're only planning a much smaller oak farm

        It's not for the foraging income per se. It's for the round trip to the Secret Woods first thing every day to grind the renewable large stumps, to get Foraging 7 within a day or two of the end of week 3. And while I do intend to get the stable in time for salmonberry season, I don't plan to waste time chasing more salmonberries than I need. Nor do I plan to repair the bridge to collect coral

        Because of the huge profit margin on strawberries, my back of an envelope reckons you need about 425 kale, compared to 175 strawberries, to make your back of an envelope correct. Considering then, that a fair chunk of whatever time you might gain on day 13, you would subsequently lose elsewhere doing the extra hoeing, and also the replanting, that 425 kale would then go a bit higher still. Swings and roundabouts.

        Also, and I think this is the real clincher, you can't get a straw hat if you don't go to the egg festival.

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

        This is basically the sole reason for getting it. Those stumps are the best way to grind Foraging XP, but they're quite a long way away, and at a time when I have spare cash, I have little else to spend it on; I have enough for strawberries, but I don't want more seeds, or other farm buildings, and I've already budgeted for tool upgrades, so investing in a daily time save on the round trip seems as good an idea as any, certainly better than just leaving it in a chest somewhere

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


        This is probably the most insightful single sentence in this entire thread. My guide will basically be geared up to offer the possibility to make several million in profit in the first year. Probably somewhere around five million cash in hand by the end of the year, without needing to resort to lots of skull cavern runs. Farming 8 and early access to kegs is an essential element as far as I'm concerned. And I don't see any reason why it couldn't complete everything in 2 years. Apart from the actual CC, obviously, because Joja, but completing bundles in two years is child's play anyway. But apart from that, all the quests, all the fish, 10 million earnings, all of it. I suppose there's always the RNG risk of missing one or two artifacts for the Complete Collection, but that's about it, you can't control that.

        That sounds more like a diary than anything else. I'm about to start my trial of my own walkthrough, so I might try this now. But the further away you get from the initial conditions, the more variability can be introduced by the RNG, and the less applicable a day-by-day guide would become. Also, other than planting days for Summer and Fall, and keg day (never skip keg day) there's not a huge amount of things that become essential on any given day.

        ****************
        The money for the rod comes from all your hard work on day 1, not from fishing. The fish you catch only pay for the bait. And the training rod makes fishing easier. It's all about getting XP; the actually quality of the fish you catch with it is pretty much irrelevant. In fact, I'd say getting all regular quality fish is actually a bonus of the training rod, because it keeps the inventory more manageable, rather than cluttering it with different quality fish when you only have 12 slots

        If you find the fishing mini game hard, this statement literally makes no sense. The training rod should be your dream item, it's basically like starting with a +4 fishing buff.

        By luxury, I assume you mean expensive and not really necessary

        If you don't like fishing, I am also doing a non-fishing version, although it does have much lower financial aims, because of the lack of fish to fund some key early expenses.
         
        • ThorfinnS

          ThorfinnS Orbital Explorer

          Oh, agreed. I thought we were shooting for 60-70 oak farm in time for one sap harvest before hops come in. Just shaking the initial oaks daily gets me about halfway there in time for planting with tree fertilizer. And it doesn't seem to make a difference in dropped acorns. No !!SCIENCE!!, just a whole mess of 2-4 week runs focusing on just that one aspect, then looking at how many acorns I have in each chest. Shaking looks to have about a 5-6% per tree per day success rate. Luck might make a difference. Never tracked it. Probably averages out anyway.

          You can't shake stumps, right? Not sure I ever tried. Maybe I'm missing a trick here.


          Could be. But that's split up in at least 2 plantings, right? A good share will have had 3 plantings in that spot. I'll wait to see your writeup, rather than take this one further afield.

          There is that.

          Incidentally, why doesn't Abigail ever wear it? On the years you don't win, I mean.

          Since you are probably walking the same route shaking trees and digging acorns, grabbing a sap adds just a single click. If you have a mature tree in the tree plot and no new tappers, go ahead and knock it off that one when you collect the sap.
           
          • WilliamZ

            WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

            I don't find the fishing mini game hard, I hate it:catlol:it's different because it have a random nature and don't reward skill. Some pulls are plausible while others are impossible, with the fish jumping top/down no stop. I said to avoid the training rod because if you're not new to the game it's beter to use the old rod and make more money with the gold and iridium pulls, personaly I find easier.
            Yeah, I honestly don't noticed the difference on my bar to fishing 3 to 4.
            I admit that I don't foraged all the grass in the lake but I was only 100g short because I fainted in day 2 and got charged 100g (the exact quantity, I swear) for bring back home, I thought that there's was no penalty for this in day 2. Emphasize in big bold letters that we shouldn't speak with anyone and focus only in foraging, also this is very reset prony in case that you get fewer onions (my case, only got 3 in the first day) or don't get a lot of foraging.
            If possible I would laid crab pots and never touch in the fishing mini game ever again.

            Edit: I just saw TheHaboo video and noticed that I did everything wrong, I think that you underestimate yourself, doing all that foraging in day one isn't easy without some practice (I guess that you guys do this all the time).

            https://www.twitch.tv/videos/517910286?collection=iBzXkP083hUatg
             
              Last edited: Feb 18, 2020
            • Shoukry

              Shoukry Big Damn Hero

              That's not a bad reason for farming 8: I was uncertain if there was another reason behind it. Again, everything always depends on what people are going for, but if you have kegs available by Spring...23ish then some of these strawberries could be wined. I am not saying this is optimal, but more of a what-if. Never have I pushed kegs that quickly to find out.

              It looks like there are 18 oaks in the immediate vicinity of the vanilla farm on startup. Gauging from your posted pictures, you cleared away almost the entire area they are in. If you clear everything but the oaks while starting your oak farm in the corner, you could have at least 18 tapped trees within the first two weeks, which is...36 resin by the end of the month? Indeed, I have beheld the tree fertilizer and was very disappointed when I tried to ignore its tooltip and put it under a fruit tree. Foraging 7 is definitely doable within the first three weeks but I am unconvinced of its viability. Like One More Day did, if you are planting those acorns immediately, you could have more than a few grown by summer, but even then it feels (this is how confident I am with my claims. Feels instead of is...) like you are potentially losing out on 50+ resin by waiting. Just something to mull over, perhaps.

              Now I am going to throw out utter nonsense: could a fast upgrade to either steel watering can or, taking a page from One More Day, basic sprinklers be a springboard straight to iridium sprinklers? The biggest dilemma with this is no storms early on in summer. And I pose this mostly as a way of saving on coal and smelting time. Regardless of the route, early Skull Cavern access is possible in spring. One good dive can net enough iridium for ~20 sprinklers and then you are simply at the mercy of RNG. No big deal. If you go the steel watering can route, everything is already laid out for iridium sprinklers. If you go the basic sprinkler route, you are not wasting time in the mornings watering, but you needed to spend more time mining and using extra coal. Just thought of this. No idea.

              I was unclear by everything, I fear. Everything meaning every achievement, and this is only in the two full years. Yes, I agree, if you know what you are doing then a lot of these things are plausible but, if someone is using the guide, I assume (always a great idea) they probably are not the intermediate player you seem to be targeting (correct me if I'm wrong, I often am--just ask my wife). Not trying to be reproachful, simply wondering.

              Again, it isn't that it is necessarily bad to get the coop and/or barn in spring, but more what is your purpose in doing so? For me, livestock are the worst thing to happen in this game with the petting, and the moving, and the remembering to open or close doors, and the grass, and the Marnie, and why is the silo empty, and it is too much. Too much, I say.

              Fair enough. Like I said, this is a personal grievance. I would guess most have no problem with this. You could go one step further and use MouseyPounds's Stardew Predictor to potentially save more IRL time.

              Also fair enough. Although, if very specific goals are set for the 2 years, RNG can be eliminated entirely from most of the aspects. Each season needn't be as extensive as spring, but it is a different kind of organization now. Sure, what you will do on any given day may change slightly due to reasons, but if 4,000,000G by EoY 1, 12,000,000G by EoY 2, and bundles completed by X date are hypothetical goals, then one could map out how many crops, animals, trees, kegs, etc. are needed by certain times. Once the infrastructure is in place, I cannot think of a reason why a day-by-day isn't feasible. You need a battery, but we are prepared with lightning rods for whenever a storm happens; you need a rainbow/nautilus shell, but we check the beach in summer/winter until it appears and then we ignore that step, etc. If the assumption is the worst-case scenario for every day, RNG would not matter. Definitely agree there are not a lot of essential things to do on any given day after spring, but the mundane things still need to be done, and we can tell people and be told what we need to do a la Alphas and Epsilons.

              Most importantly, I would like to read such a thing, if someone wrote such a thing. Look forward to your coming guide as well!
               
              • Shepherd_0

                Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                Oh that´s right. You don´t get the exp all at once. Derp on my part.
                Yeah, I know about TheHaboo. I´ve seen his speedruns on youtube. I didn´t know he did other challenge runs other than speedruns though, so thanks for pointing that out.

                With in time for salmonberry season, do you mean before or during salmonberry season. If you want to get it before salmonberry season, you´d have to get it on the 12th, which seems very early. You can also get it on the 14th, but getting it right after purchusing strawberry seeds also seems a bit much, especially if you also want to upgrade a tool on the 14th. Do you get the axe upgrade back to back on the 6th and 8th?

                Hmm, I chop the tree and leave the stump for a while. Stumps can still spawn tree seeds, so that's I how I 'farm' acorns. The acorns are then grown with fertilizer in the last couple of days of spring. I need space for crops, so I don't think that I can keep all 18 oak trees standing. However, some of the more 'out there' oaks could indeed be tapped instead of chopped. As long as they're not in the way, I guess it wouldn't hurt. I might try this.

                Why wouldn't intermediate players use a guide? I think that most people that would look at a SV forum are at least familiar with the game. That's why I joined the forum too, to find likeminded people that like the game and to learn more about the game. I think most people that frequent the forum are intermediate players.
                 
                • Shoukry

                  Shoukry Big Damn Hero

                  You are, of course, correct. I was writing some of this last night, did not finish, had something in there about advanced or expert players, and when I snipped that part then what was left is completely backward from what I was trying to say. The "not" was supposed to be omitted: as in "...they probably are not the intermediate player..." Apologies.

                  Edit: plus, the deletion makes the paragraph seem incomplete anyway. Let's pretend I wrote nothing there as I cannot remember exactly what I was going to say.
                   
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                  • Elenna101

                    Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                    I agree with Shoukry, not much point in getting quality sprinklers and also upgrading the watering can to steel. Especially since you aren't getting that upgrade till after getting the sprinklers. It's basically only worth it if you're doing so many crops summer 1 that you can't hoe and water all the spots in one day, and even then, a) you should consider doing sacrificial parsnips instead and b) you can just not water anything but hops day 1 and you'll get the same number of harvests, assuming no speed-gro.

                    Not sure how much knowledge you're assuming the average intermediate player has, but it might be worth mentioning a couple mining tips, e.g. don't break the grey rocks on copper floors because they take more hits, enemies have a 15% chance of dropping ladders but only when killed over empty ground and not sand/rocks, break the big crate deposits on floors 3/9/24/29 for food and maybe a weapon... Of course, a guide to mining efficiently could be a whole post in and of itself.

                    I assume you're selling the seeds? Probably worth mentioning that explicitly.

                    Minor nitpick: if not buying parsnip seeds, you can plant an apple sapling summer 1 and still start getting apples fall 1, so you can save some time by skipping this trip to Pierre's and buying the sapling along with all your other summer crops.

                    Like One More Day said, not all that much watering, but a whole heck of a lot of fishing, skull cavern trips, and resetting days.

                    Definitely the most important point :)

                    Not sure about fishing bar size, but I definitely notice that in most locations you can only get gold/iridium quality fish at level 4, before that you can't fish far enough away from shore.

                    I feel like if you're going to go that far, you might as well just use Stardew Predictor (which IMO is significantly less broken/OP than it used to be now that you can't farm mushroom floors). Maybe at least mention its existence in the guide and let the player make up their mind.
                     
                    • WilliamZ

                      WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                      I understood everything wrong, the point of the soup is that by the end of the buff you already will have fishing skill lv5, it isn't to be used to lv3 by lv4.
                      But get fishing skill lv4 by day 2 is very hard, I saw some streamers and honestly I didn't anything of different in terms of fishing and yet wasn't able to get.
                       
                      • Shepherd_0

                        Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                        I do get the upgrade towards the end of spring, kind of just to have it. It´s nice to have on summer 1, but maybe that money is better spent on wood for tappers or kegs?

                        I thought about this a bit more. While I do think that 70 copper isn't very hard to get, I'm still going to change that part in the guide. In order to get foraging 7, I'm switching the axe and pickaxe upgrades. That means that day 6 and 7 can be used for mining. That would mean that you only need 45 copper minimum on day 5, much more doable. I want the guide to be a bit more approachable in general, so I'm doing more of these changes that will make the guide easier to follow, especially in the first week.

                        Yes, good points. I might add a note on summer 1 so I can mention the apple sapling thing.

                        I didn´t know that restarting for the cart was considered ´going far´. It´s not like you have to restart and entire day or anything. In fact, you save time irl by not having to walk back to the farm too.

                        I don´t use the Stardew Predictor either. I´m playing on Switch, so I´m not even sure if it´s possible to use it. If you want to, you can definitely use the predictor though.

                        No, it definitely is used at lv3 to get to lv4 with the buff. You can only start getting gold quality fish without perfect catches at lv4. If you get a perfect catch as well, you can get iridium fish at fishing 4. That´s why you use the trout soup on lv 3, to enable catching iridium fish early.

                        If you want to hit fishing 4 on day 2, you have to get a lot of perfect catches. A perfect catch drastically increases the exp gain. That´s probably the difference between your fishing and that of the streamers you watched.
                         
                          Last edited: Feb 19, 2020
                        • ThorfinnS

                          ThorfinnS Orbital Explorer

                          Maybe. Swinging the scythe at the right time is a skill you can develop like any other. I find using the keyboard AND mouse helps me. I'm much better at timing with they kb.

                          Exactly. That's the reason to bother with the training rod. If you can't regularly get perfect catches, the training rod gives you the L5 bar, which makes it a LOT easier. The Perfect Catch multiplies XP by 2.4, which reduces the amount of time to gain levels by almost 60%. With mostly Perfect catches, you can get L2 by noon, otherwise, by the time Willy closes is about the best you can hope for.

                          If you have a difficult time with perfect catches, you MIGHT try not watering your crops before heading to the beach. The halibut disappear at 11, and without them, it's much tougher to get the level. Either head back home in time to water them before you pass out, or accept the one day delay to get the scarecrow. Not really a big deal so long as you aren't pushing for the spring crops bundle in time for strawberries.
                           
                          • UnexpectedParole

                            UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                            If you are pushing the spring crops bundle there is still an argument to be made about just watering the bean and cauli while accepting the 1 day delay in scarecrow on the rest of your crops.
                            I agree here that with specific goals in mind for specific dates , RNG can be 'removed' and courses can be charted. One can work backwards and forwards to place in the framework of the guide.
                            Want truffles by X date? Then back off the 12 days to buy the pig and let it grow. Count the days to upgrade the barn (twice) and the days to build the barn. Then with those time blocks, and drop dead dates, you can move the pieces earlier into your plan and spread them out where you can afford them, and have Robin free not working on something else. Same with the coop. Same with kitchen upgrades. etc.
                             
                            • Grimgaw

                              Grimgaw Space Spelunker

                              You can catch gold 'perfects' at level 0, so sure as hell you can catch gold at level 4 without 'perfects'.
                              Just want to point out that you can't catch Halibut and Flounder with training rod.
                              It's a bit of a toss up whether training rod or trout soup is a better path to level 2. For me the extended bar from trout soup is enough to catch 'some' prefects. Being able to catch gold, silvers and Halibuts and Flounders makes up for lost 'perfect' exp and gives more money at the end of the day.
                               
                                Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
                              • Shepherd_0

                                Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                                I said you can only get gold fish without a perfect at level 4. A gold fish you catch at fishing 1-3 is really a silver fish bumped up to gold by the perfect.

                                What I really mean is that you can only get iridium fish at level 4. That´s why I use a trout soup on day 2 when I´m at level 3. The jump to 4 thanks to the trout soup enables cathing iridium fish. Again, those iridium fish are really just gold fish bumped up to iridium by the perfect. That's why I said you can only get gold fish at level 4 without a perfect.
                                 
                                • Grimgaw

                                  Grimgaw Space Spelunker

                                  And I'm saying that you can get iridium fish at level 1 fishing. Please just check the thread I linked.
                                   
                                  • Elenna101

                                    Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                    I just skimmed it, but it seems like you can only catch iridium fish at level 1 if you can somehow get your bobber far from the shore, which is presumably only possible with glitches/mods.
                                     
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                                    • ThorfinnS

                                      ThorfinnS Orbital Explorer

                                      Boy, is my face red. I don't use the training rod. I just bought it once because someone recommended it, and decided it wasn't for me, but could see how those with trouble with the fishing game could find it useful. I was usually catching enough XP to get L2 by 1pm, so it wasn't worth foregoing the better quality fish.

                                      I had no idea it also prevented you from getting halibut and flounder. Didn't use it long enough to notice that, I guess.

                                      [EDIT]
                                      I'd gone through that thread, too, and saw no way to reach the "gold" spots without noclip or similar. Was there something I missed?

                                      Incidentally, how does one get the grid on the screen? There are times I could use that.
                                      [/EDIT]
                                       
                                        Last edited: Feb 20, 2020
                                      • Grimgaw

                                        Grimgaw Space Spelunker

                                        I guess it's not common knowledge that you can direct the bobber with AWSD while it's in flight?
                                         
                                        • Shepherd_0

                                          Shepherd_0 Starship Captain

                                          I have concluded a second playthrough using my own guide as a baseline. The structure is very similar, but I also made some substantial changes that have had a big impact on the schedule.

                                          There were two big changes I made:

                                          - I didn't buy kale to be planted on day 6. Farming 8 was no longer a goal
                                          - I incorporated foraging 7 into the schedule for tree fertilizer

                                          These big changes had many smaller effects on the schedule. The most important one is that I swapped the axe and pickaxe upgrades to unlock the secret woods quicker. Chopping hardwood was pretty much a daily task until I hit foraging 7. Chopping wood has an increased focus in the new route in general, and excessive mining has been moved back because quality sprinklers are only unlocked by the 26th now.

                                          I also made some effort to make the guide easier to follow. Because the day 6 kale is dropped, it's not as necessary to fish for catfish on day 3. Because the pickaxe upgrade is moved to the 8th, it's not as necessary to get 70 copper on day 5. These kinds of changes will help make the guide more approachable, even for newer players.


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                                          The main thing to notice about the final farm is that the oak farm is actually finished now. I have 54 oak trees, all tapped. I will get two harvests of resin around the time of the first harvest in summer. You might also notice that I made a little bit less money in total. That is mainly because I had absolutely TERRIBLE luck with rain days this run (I only caught 9 catfish), but also because I spent more time chopping wood and collecting ore for all the tappers. This isn't really a big problem as far as I'm concerned, because money was never the goal of the guide anyway. The money that was used on the big coop in the original run was spent on the gold hoe and pickaxe upgrades instead. I feel like tool upgrades are more immediately useful than farm buildings.

                                          Despite the fact that I made a little less money,I'd say that the results are better. That's mainly because it took a lot less effort than the first time around, and because the oak farm is not as half-assed. I'm updating the OP when I have the time.

                                          Thanks everyone for the feedback.
                                           
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