Since the moment I discovered I can create kegs and then use those kegs to create either wine or beer, I've been deeply in love with the idea of creating a mod that opens that world up even further. For the past few days I've been kicking around a few ideas to expand and flesh this out even further. I've come up with a final goal of creating a fully realized 10 level skill tree that forks down the path of brewing or distilling as well as the addition of recipes for both trees. Brewing Beer We have this already, but I would like to see it tweaked a faint bit. Rather than utilize the ingredient hops or wheat, we need to make a prerequisite wort. In order to get the wort going we'd need the proper malts. For the sake of ease, I am shooting for adding these in to Pierre's stock as staples. As such our selection of malts would be: barley, corn, oats, rice, rye and wheat with three variable malts of the crystal, roasted and dark variety. Lastly we would need brewing yeast. Just straightforward brewing yeast. Nothing fancy like getting into lager style, top fermenting, bottom fermenting.. Just plain ol' brewing yeast. The artisan flowchart would be malt + water = wort -> wort + hops = (beer style) -> (beer style) + brewing yeast = keg product and from there it would be the keg brew time until the beer is finished. Distilling Spirits This one is a bit trickier to noodle out in many regards and the principle is fairly similar to brewing beer, We would begin with a grain-based produced same as we would beer. But rather than working with a malt, we will need a mash. Sugarcane, corn, potato, rye and rice are pretty popular mashes for a variety of liquors and would serve as the staging point for the purpose of the mod. (more to be added as you guys bink feedback off my head) and varieties of sugar. Starting out we'll be working with the baseline sugar already in the game and we'll be adding molasses. The key difference is there are fewer steps for prepping liquor, the tradeoff is a longer distillation time. The artisan flowchart would be mash + sugar + brewing yeast = keg product and from there it would be a keg brew time until the liquor is finished. Skill Tree Skill level 1-4: I've no idea here guys. This is early planning. Open to suggestions. Skill level 5: Journeyman Brewer: Beers worth 10% more or Journeyman Distiller: 10% decrease in distilling time Skill level 6-9: Same as 1-4. My thinkybits are making funny farty noises. Skill level 10: Brewmaster: Beers now yield 2 per keg or Master Distiller: 25% decrease in distilling time My ultimate goal on down the road is to replace Pierre as the intermediary utilized for brewing/distilling supplies and get a fully realized/fleshed out NPC put in that serves as the go-to point for acquiring all the necessary ingredients.. or barring that, adding the attendant crops necessary for producing the mashes and malts available for the player to grow so they can make their own. This however would facilitate the addition of two machines that would accept the baseline crop and return the appropriate mash or malt. Edit #1: Working on what potential beer styles and liquor types will make the initial draft
I do hope it won't only be beer Dx. Pretty good start-out plan. Seeing the brewing system expand in this game, I'd very much like to play. As what I initially wanted when I got into stardew valley was have a brewery and have wine heaven.
Beer brewing and spirit distilling are the primary focuses at the moment, although to make my life considerably easier and so as to not step on the toes of Lead_poisoning who is hoping to get into a liquor aspect of their planned mod, I may flick back to the original rough sketch idea of revamping brewing beer and vinting wine
I'll keep this on watch, hope to see some updates soon! Would really love to see the brewing mechanics expand, I'd be the first one to test it out
I dug my rough draft notes out of the bin and the level mechanics would be the same for 5 and 10, just replace the instances of "Distiller" with "Vintner" The process would be fairly simple-ish as well. I would maintain the current game-given ferment time, altered if you chose the Vintner route for a maximum of a 25% decrease in how long it takes for the wine to "pop" The creation process would likewise be simpler in order to counteract the comparatively more complex process and shorter brew time of beer. I figure the tradeoffs are fair.I had worked out that with wine you would need a machine to render the fruit you are using into "must" which would serve as the basis of the wine you are making and out of that the addition of any unique traits. The artisan flowchart would be: fruit must + sugar + wine yeast = keg product. But I felt this to be a pretty bland state of affairs as it would invariably produce just plain ol' "(insert fruit name) Wine" and I did not like how I would have roughly 9 or so different styles of beer to brew with different recipes whereas wine was expanded to use machine to get fruit must, have sugar and wine yeast and wait. The variation I had thought of was as thus Wine Artisan Flowchart Fruit must + wine yeast = "Dry (fruit name) Wine" Fruit must + sugar + wine yeast = "Semi-dry (fruit name) Wine" Fruit must + honey + wine yeast = "Sweet (fruit name) Wine" Need some feedback here folks.. Would that be an acceptable alternative to doing wine, or are you wanting more in-depth like "Pinot Noir" and all those fancy names for boozy grape juice?
Skill Tree Skill level 1-4: I've no idea here guys. This is early planning. Open to suggestions. Skill level 5: Journeyman Brewer: Beers worth 10% more or Journeyman Distiller: 10% decrease in distilling time Skill level 6-9: Same as 1-4. My thinkybits are making funny farty noises. Skill level 10: Brewmaster: Beers now yield 2 per keg or Master Distiller: 25% decrease in distilling time Need some feedback here folks.. Would that be an acceptable alternative to doing wine, or are you wanting more in-depth like "Pinot Noir" and all those fancy names for boozy grape juice? ---------------------------------------- Brainstorming here: Ok, how about differing skill levels opening up recipes, and the recipes doing more (making more? Making better?) products as you go up in levels? I like the idea of blended or aged wines taking more skill than a straight-up grape simple young wine. Also, you have to blend wines to make ... well, blended wines. Many wines are blended, but they don't have to label whether they are or not, so they don't. Some wines have to come from a very particular area - so we'd have to have not only the right ingredients, but maybe make them in a special place, like setting up a keg in the desert, or one near the river somehow... An example is Port - Port has to come from the right river in Portugal to be actually Port. There's Tawny (a nuttier, sweet-deep flavor with a sort of brown undertone) and Ruddy (aka Ruby in some parts)(a fruitier, brighter flavor that's slightly less sweet but imo richer). Both have to be blended with the right ingredients, and start with the grape-juice wine of the right variety, and age for a good long time. Both have to come from grapes in the right area, and each vintner has a different recipe - so you get a lot of different varieties of both types! Rice wine can be blended to make Plum wine (no, it's not base-plum, much as that would be nice, most of it's blended rice wine with flavors), sake, and a host of other weirder blends I've seen in asian food stores. I think a lot of liqueurs would fall into liquor, so maybe I should speak with the other person about those. Champagne (*gag* gods I hate champagne, but some folks love it) is a yeasty white wine and has to be bubbly. I like a bubbly moscato, but most white wines (and thus most bubblies) have a yeasty sort of overtaste that I can't stand. Some reds have it too, but once they breathe, it usually fades and you get just the flavors in the wine. I'm not sure what makes the bubbles, or whether they're related to that awful yeastiness. At level 10, you could produce a 'Case of Wine' object, which can be sold for more maybe, or opened for multiple drinks? I love the idea of being able to make a couple hundred different types of wines. If you want, I can help by looking up a whole big list-pile and see what we can do with them. I'm not great at coding (my Starbound mods were fairly simplistic, just stained glass and block-making), but I can do the grunt work! lol
Perhaps in due time I'd expand both selection and variety of wines/beers, but for right now with what the game presents of "if its fruit, it can be wine" is the method I'd like to preserve. By nature, Stardew is simplistic in approach and I want to follow that approach more or less in this mod. The most complicated thing in it I'd say is the cooking and that is the yardstick I'm measuring things by. The "Case of Wine" object is a nifty idea, but if I have 7 kegs churning out Cases of Sweet (fruit name) Wine that sell for dozens of thousands, then I've effectively turned the game into "Lets ignore everything else to put E & J Gallo to shame!" I am shooting for the mod to be a lovely companion to the game as a whole, not become the centerpiece of it. That said, feedback thus far as given me a bit of food for thought. That said, I am looking at releasing roughly 9 or 10 beer recipes for the first version of the mod. The baseline of wine is already there and I'd just have to do a play on the variation. Beer Styles (tentative list) Pilsener (This is what I consider the default "Beer" in the game to be) Doppelbock Pale Ale (Again, provided by the game.. Thank you good sir Ape!) Brown Ale Oatmeal Stout Imperial Stout Marzen Robust Porter
Hello! As it happens, I am a brewer as occupation, maybe I can help? First of, the Pilsener beer you are thinking of might be Lager, and there's both light and dark of them. Second, when it comes to the skills. How about 1-4 can be "family recipee" meaning using a recipee from the family, basicly the first skills means you get a few recipees per level. maybe 2 per level? up to level 4, then it goes down to 1. 6-9 can be using a copper still, making giving it a +20% chance for a better beverage and an additional reducement in time. When it comes to the wine recipees, that's quite good . Now, when we talk about heavier brews such as Whiskey and Rum and the like... I don't think anyone here is interested in waiting a full 12 years for the whiskey to be done, so I'm thinking bourbon. It will be ready after a season of storage in hardwood barrels, same goes for rum, sherry and any pot-stilled matured drinks, cognac as well. To go overcourse, how about making moonshine and selling it in juggs? Simplest recipee to make and with a semi-good profit? These are just suggestions though, if you wish more, let me know and I'll try to help. Regards, Michael
