Hello, First time here in the forums. As the title says I need some help regarding the Rancher proffesion, currently I have been trying to work both on crops and in my coop and recently bought barn with one holding only 2 chicken and the other 2 cows. I'm unsure how to be more productive in the area I specialized myself but I do understand that it's the more labor extensive and having the aforementioned crops do help you keep a steady income each day. I believe I have a fair enough idea on the crops part though so if you guys have any tips for a noob in a game like this please do post it here. First playthrough as well, 2nd Year.
i believe that coopmaster should be your 2nd skill. oh, and pet your animals everyday, get a mayo and cheese maker asap, and you should be good to go.
The Rancher profession really only seems to do you good when you're befriending your animals - after that, you take hits on how much you can make off the products vs. Artisan. That's the big thing I've learned, I've taken Rancher a couple times now. That being said, I've done a dairy farm with 60 cows, and I currently have a chicken ranch with 48 chickens - if you build up your numbers and focus on the animals, you'll still do pretty well for yourself making mayo and cheese.
On my first farm I was surprised that the mayo machine needed earth crystals. They are common on the first 40 floors of the mines. Aside from that grow grass everywhere on your farm where you don't use the land. Buy some grass starter and spread them thin to let them grow. As to how you maximize profits, just try to always expand. If you look at Luthien's numbers, she sure has a lot of animals. So always try to build more coops or barns. Don't forget to keep up with machines to process your goods. Even without artisan but with rancher selling raw animal products is always inferior to processing them first.
My advise for Rancher: don't. To quote the infamous Admiral, it's a trap. Artisan is strictly superior. However, should you wish to go into animal husbandry, here's some tips: Fill up your buildings. With your entry-level barns and coops, that's 4 cows and 4 chickens. You've already spent the cash on the building, might as well make maximum use out of it. Pet your animals every day. After you get done petting/milking your animals, THEN you let them out to go eat grass. Don't forget to close their door after they've gone back in after 7 PM. This lets you find them to pet/milk them much more easily. Never sell raw animal products, it is always in your best interests to turn them into artisan products (well... until you get into wool/cloth). Eggs into Mayo, Milk into Cheese Gold-star cheese you get from Large Milk is one of the best food items in the game. Having a supply on hand is useful for your caving expeditions. Cheese and Mayo also make excellent gifts, most people will like one or the other.
There are animal products that are worth more with Rancher than converting them into the Artisan good. I had to dig back through the boards but I found the list the community compiled. The list doesn't compare the prices but Luthien, myself and other posters all put the research into it. The list *ONLY* applies if you took Rancher. Convert to Artisan Good: All Eggs Regular and Silver Small Milk Regular, Silver and Gold Large Milk Regular, Silver and Gold Goat Milk Regular, Silver and Gold Large Goat Milk Regular, Silver, and Gold Truffles Regular and Silver Wool Products to sell raw: Gold and Iridium Small Milk Iridium Large Milk Iridium Goat Milk Iridium Large Goat Milk Iridium Truffles Gold and Iridium Wool
Technically, the small and large milk, and the goat versions thereof, can be turned into cheese, then aged into casks for iridium star cheese for higher profits total. The only things you don't convert are iridium truffles (which are a guarantee with Foraging 10), and gold/iridium wool. And even then, truffles are a Forage not an Animal Good, so Rancher doesn't affect them, meaning going Artisan is still a better deal, in which case the numbers shift even more heavily in the favor of processing.
Our numbers weren't so much to compare Artisan to Rancher (we all know Artisan is better) but to say if you DO take Rancher, here's what you should sell and what you should process first, then sell. I think the small milks are still better turned into cheese if I remember right, but the large gold and iridium milk is better sold raw.
Actually... no. With Rancher, Iridium star cheese (aged in a cask) is worth 480g, iridium star large milk is 456g, and it starts off as gold-star right out of the bat, so you need less time to age it to iridium
Yes, but you're assuming this person has the ability to age the cheese. At the time of taking those numbers, I didn't have the cellar yet, so I was only able to get my numbers from selling stuff *before* aging. Being able to age things will obviously change the numbers but that's like...what, a 2 season process???
I ran the numbers for aging cheeses in that one thread and came to the conclusion that even without Artisan you're still better off aging wines made out of the greenhouse. It still takes 7 days to get that gold cheese to iridium for an additional profit of 24 gold or roughly 3 gold a day. Aging cheeses can still be profitable but I'd wager any farm with enough cows to fill a cellar will have plenty of cheeses to age without using iridium milks to make it.
^ That was kind of the point I was getting to - even with a cellar full of aging cheese (assuming you have that), you're probably still going to have plenty of milk left over, depending on how many animals you have. I'm not a number cruncher and I don't play for max profit on every single thing, I just know the basics because I was curious one time. By the time I'm buying house upgrades, the profit difference between any milk vs. any cheese is a drop in the bucket.
The way I see it is that it's not really worth my time to age everything. Yeah you'll get more money but by the time you have all of this set up you're probably not pressed for income anyways. As long as I get enough money to do what I want I honestly don't care about what's the most lucrative option. That being said I do wish they'd buff animals again. They're better but still falling behind.
