Given: I am a non-gamer. That means I am bad at fishing and combat. I am even bad at clicking in the right places when farming and foraging, which costs me time and some energy. Sometimes I move in the wrong direction, and I am never sure about my WASD and 12345 fingering. Bottom line: I am a pretty good worst-case test. Log: On an early run, I logged my mine descent. There were days I made 10 floors, but it took me generally around 9 hours and rarely less than 5 hours per 5 floors. And I died a lot (usually from inattention, and I did always restart the day). And I stayed away from The Mines when my luck was negative. So I reached floor 65 on Spring 21, floor 75 on Spring 26 (starting heavy ore farming for basic Sprinklers, which I don't regret), and floor 80 on Summer 2nd. (I kept this run and eventually married Penny. I still use my basic Sprinklers for Honey and field extenders. I never upgraded my watering can.) My mining ran on food. For me, my Summer 1 sprinklers were bought with food. That means I was eating a lot of Spring Kale since its energy/value ratio is high. I don't know how else I could have descended. I started Summer with only 102 crops, irrigated except for 18 of them, and soon felt rich enough with Melon jelly to start socializing in earnest. Maybe I could have done better with a good understanding of ladder spawning mechanics (If an on-load ladder spawns, you will never get a ladder from a rock. (!) And every monster that dies over a good tile has a 15% spawn chance.) plus a more rigorous analysis and practice of bomb economics. But that's what I did. I am having fun editing https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Stardew_Valley/First_Spring, and I want to be in tune with good consensus. Questions: 1. Is it a good enough suggestion to descend 5 floors every possible day regardless of luck (which doesn't affect spawning ladders on load or from monsters), which will result in reaching floor 80 in the last week of Spring? Advantages of this approach could be occasional extra time for socializing etc. If I knew I were only aiming for 5 floors, I could have sometimes waited until noon to enter The Mines (maybe gathering Spring Onions daily) instead of rushing there before 9:00. 2. What food recommendations are there for a non-gamer to fuel Year 1 Spring Mining? Just Spring Onions and Salmonberries? 3. By the way, I don't hear much about basic sprinklers, and I initially dismissed them on my first runs (they look like a pathetic waste). Any thoughts about making 10-20 of them?
Specifically, if you've already gotten a free on-load ladder or a ladder from a rock, you will never get another ladder from a rock. Probability of a ladder from a rock, assuming one has not already spawned, goes up as the number of rocks left goes down - you will always find a ladder by the time you break the second-last rock on the floor. Also, in addition to the 15% monster ladder chance (which is significantly higher than the rock ladder chance unless there's very few rocks left), killing all the monsters on the floor adds 4% to the rock ladder chance. (That 4% goes away if another bat/flying bug spawns). So it's definitely worth killing all the easy-to-kill enemies (making sure you do it over empty ground and not when they're overlapping a stone, sand, wooden flooring, or your own hitbox). And if there's only a few enemies left, it can be worth killing them all regardless. What counts as an easy-to-kill enemy obviously depends on both your combat skills and the weapon you're using. (There's obviously a balance to be found between breaking a bunch of rocks immediately and exploring the floor for free ladders/killing enemies. That mostly comes from practice, I guess. Zooming out to see more of the floor helps.) No real need to rush there fast if you're only doing five floors. IMO maybe go early on good luck days and/or when you have little else to do, and try to make 10+ floors on those days, then you save some other days for anything else you want to do. In my experience the difference between goon luck and bad luck is noticable but not huge (obviously there's some confirmation bias there), so no harm in going on a bad luck day if you have the time. You ought to be able to make a few floors regardless. Those, plus any fish you caught (chubs are especially good energy/gold), any foraging you find (try to save a bit of everything if you can, but leeks, especially, are decent energy), and maybe those initial 15 parsnips. You're better off selling the kale and buying salads with it from Gus if you need more energy. Break all the crates you find and you should get some cave carrots. There are large crate deposits on 3, 9, 24, and 29, as well as the corresponding iron floors (43, 49, 64, 69) and gold floors (83, 89, 104, 109, although there's no need to go past 80 in the first spring unless you're trying to min-max super hard and go to Skull Cavern early.) Frost jellies have a 8% chance of dropping a winter root (25 energy) and dust sprites have a 2% chance of dropping a crystal fruit (63 energy) if you can kill them. Also, don't forget you can check the trash - I wouldn't go out of my way for it, but if you happen to find some bread or cookies or whatever, that's a nice help too. Depends how much ore you get and how fast you go down, I guess. If there's a long gap between you hitting iron levels and hitting gold levels, or if you don't want to wait for Farming 6 to stop watering, having some basic sprinklers can help. It's definitely possible to arrange them in a way that is at least sort of convenient. And saving energy on watering can help you get more things done, such as getting further down the mines. On the other hand, any extra time you spend grinding ore for them instead of going further down pretty much becomes wasted once you get quality sprinklers - not to mention that you'd be using a decent chunk of your ore/coal for something that you'll eventually not use anymore. Really, like most things, it depends on playstyle.
What about limited backpack space? Aren't crates gone forever once smashed? I worry about breaking open good stuff I can't carry. I always put them in my designated Quality Sprinker slots (reserved from day 1) and just use them as 50% coverage or field extenders. I feel very tidy about that. I tried getting creative once about arranging them and it was yucky. But I agree I wouldn't want more than a few of them.
Take a chest to the top of the mines with you on day 5 when you start mining. it takes very little time to elevator back up to the top every 5 floors and drop excess things. Though I also very much like to have the backpack on day 5 as well. That depends on my fishing luck sadly. My day 5 crops are expensive. I don't ever have enough copper to craft the basic sprinklers. Do you upgrade the watering can to copper at all? The sprinklers seem like they would interrupt my flow of watering in straight rows of 3. And I don't plan for quality sprinklers until my summer planting anyway. a 9x9 is just 27 waterings with the copper can. Cost wise, 2000 and 5 copper bars is do-able in mid spring if you catch rain. But 5 iron and 5 copper for a sprinkler to water just 20 spaces more spaces which aren't more if you try to water with the can in rows of 3. Those 5 iron are likely the 5 iron from my first 5 quality sprinklers, or the iron pick upgrade. Obviously your mileage may vary, which is why I'm trying to work through the 'math' / 'logic'. Depending on how my spring 1 gold dive goes, I'm usually planting wheat in my quality sprinkler locations.
I've put a chest next to the elevator since run one, I think. I can try breaking crates. There's always the possibility to prioritize and drop if something cool comes along. I'm just usually super focused on descent when I am in descent mode. I don't. And you are right. Basic sprinklers and watering can upgrades don't mix. You have to choose. All I can say is I've been really happy choosing basics over watering can upgrades (I did upgrade once), as ugly and useless as the basic pattern looks at first. Once I started thinking of it as 50% coverage of the Quality pattern, my outlook changed.
i may give it a go on a run. But the copper watering can is one of the best upgrades mony can buy i feel. None of the others is 3x efficiency. Time/energy saved in watering is important. And yes you are saving time and energy too. But you are paying mineral resources (especially iron) for it, that I don't think I have. I'm not great in the mines, and the 25 copper and 2000 is obtainable for the can for sure, but If I've got more iron than my Q. sprinklers need, i'm using it for other things like lightning rods, kegs, which I also need copper for and copper for tappers. Realistically I'm looking to get gold from the mines to q. sprinkle everything as soon as I can so that I can stop mining as soon as I can. I'm not a dungeon crawler. -But I am an efficiency freak, so if there is an angle here I can exploit I might have to adapt it in. cheers.
I chose quality sprinklers and have never upgraded my watering can. Now, I use it to fill the cat's bowl. But then again, I'm not power gaming. I didn't reach the bottom of the mine until summer year four and I was ok with that. As someone said in another thread: it has to be fun and whatever that means to you.
