How to make a profit in 1.1: a number-crunching and theorycrafting thread

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ShneekeyTheLost, Oct 4, 2016.

  1. ShneekeyTheLost

    ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

    Right, so Blueberries and Cranberries took a shot on the chin. For that matter, so did Ancient Fruit. So, let's see how the numbers bare out, shall we?

    Spring wasn't changed all that much, with the exception of the addition of Coffee. Since Coffee yield a ton of low-cost produce, it's entirely to your interest to Speed-Gro it instead of Fertilizer. Water Retaining soil is, of course, still completely worthless.

    Let's crunch some numbers, shall we?

    You've got a 10 day initial growth, then every other day a new harvest. Each harvest yields 4 beans worth 15g each. Pulling out my handy-dandy calculator, that comes to... 4 * 15 = 60g per harvest. Now, 28-10=18/2=9 harvests for the season. 9*60 = 540g for the season. With Deluxe Speed Gro, you get an extra harvest, for an even 10 harvests for the season, bringing the total up to 600.

    Compare this to, let's say, Potatoes, which are a staple cash crop. Potato seeds are 50g, potatoes sell for 80, and you get 1.2 potatoes per harvest. It grows in six days, meaning you get four harvests for the season. 80*1.2 = 96-50=46*4=184 profit for the season. Not too shabby looking for Coffee.

    Now let's compare it to the two star crops of the season: strawberries and Rhubarb. Of course, both of these are not going to be possible in year one, but let's be honest, neither will coffee beans.

    Strawberries, assuming they are planted on Day 1, have five harvests available to them. They cost 100 for the plant, and you're going to have to store them all year. Probably you'll be using your greenhouse to grow more for more seeds for the spring planting season to get enough of them. They sell for 120 a pop, times five harvests comes out to a net gross of 600 as well.

    Rhubarb sells for 220 a pop, and costs 100 a pop. Since you have to re-plant, and they cost 100, that's going to eat up your profits in a hurry. With only two harvests per season, you're looking at 120 * 2 or 240 for the season.

    Now let's talk about Preserves Jar and Keg options.

    Four coffee beans brew up into delicious Coffee, which sells for 300 a pop. Now then, 9*4 = 36, which means you can make 7 coffee per season, with a bean left over. That makes your monthly take 2115. If you use Deluxe Speed-Gro, you get that tenth tenth harvest for an even 8 coffee, bringing it up to 2400.

    Rhubarb Preserves go for 490 a pop. With two per season, that's a gross income of 980. Rhubarb Wine sells for 660, which puts the yield at 1320. Still not enough.

    Strawberry Preserves sell for 290 each. With five harvests for the season, that comes out to 1,450. Strawberry Wine, on the other hand, goes for 360 a pop, or 1800 for the season.

    All of this changes if you have Artisan, though. Artisan does NOT affect the price of coffee, but it does for preserves and wine, albeit not as much as it used to.

    Rhubarb Preserves goes up to 686*2=1372, and Rhubarb Wine comes out to 924*2=1848. Close, but no cigar.

    Strawberry Preserves with Artisan come to 406*5=2030. Getting close. Strawberry Wine comes out to 504 *5 = 2520.


    tl;dr: Coffee stomps over everything but Strawberry Wine + Artisan. Even then, the difference in profit margin is minimal.

    For the summertime, Blueberries got hit. Hard. Of course, blueberries are never what are done after year one anyway, so this nerf only hurt the first year cash-in-hand crop. Hops and Starfruit are always the big money makers here. But can Coffee compete with them? Let's find out!


    So, for this one, we get to assume that they are planted in Spring, and carrying over into the summer. That means we have a total of 16 harvests! This is unaffected by any sort of soil.

    The beans themselves come out to 15*4*16=960 for the month. Not too shabby. 4*16 = 64 beans for the year, which means 12 coffee for a total seasonal yield of 3,600. IF you didn't use soil, and had a bean left over from last season, you can add it to this season's yield to make it 13 coffee for a total of 3,900 at the cost of 15g from last season. So basically, either you get your extra cup of coffee last season, or you get it this season. So, over the two-season period, it looks like fertilizer is not worth bothering with.

    Let's compare that to hops and starfruit.

    Starfruit got hit by the nerf-bat as well, albeit not quite as harshly as the others did. It now sells for 750, or 1550 for preserves, or 2250 for wine. With Artisan, that brings the tallies up to 2170 for preserves, and 3150 for wine respectively. Double that, since you get two harvests per year, and you're looking at 3100 for preserves without artisan, 4340 with artisan, and wine at 4500 without Artisan or 6300 with.

    So, Starfruit actually outperforms Coffee by a good margin if you have Artisan, but coffee is king if you don't.

    Now for the reigning champion: Hops. Hops brews up into Pale Ale that sells at an unchanged 300 each. Hops matures after 11 days, and produces every single day thereafter. 28-11=17 harvests. Speed-Gro cuts a day off of maturation, and makes that 18 harvests. Deluxe Speed Grow cuts another day off that, giving you 19 harvests. Sadly, you miss 20 harvests by a quarter-day.

    Each harvest can be brewed into Pale Ale. So, assuming no fertilizer, you're looking at 5100 for the season. If you have Artisan, that comes out to a swell 420*17=7140.

    tl;dr: Coffee beats Starfruit if you do not have Artisan, but they swap places if you do. Either way, Hops stomps pretty severely on them both.

    Let's see what the Blueberry nerf did to the poor things:


    Now then, assuming 3 blueberries per yield, and 4 yields per season, that comes out to 12 blueberries per season. Before, that was worth 960, now it's only worth 600. Preserves values went down because of base-price deflation, and are now only worth 150 each, meaning seasonal yield of 1800. It is completely pointless to put them in kegs for wine, because the wine costs as much as the preserves. With Artisan, you can get up to 2520, but that's it.

    Ouch. Let's compare that to, say, Melons.

    We're going to assume you don't get any large melons, so you might get higher yields depending on how your plot is set up. You get two harvests of Melons. Each melon is worth 250 a pop, for a total of 500. But when you Jar it, preserves come out to 550, for a total of 1100 without Artisan, or 770*2=1540 with. Now, Wine goes for 750*2= 1500 without Artisan, or 1050*2=2100 with.

    Blueberries are now only marginally better than Melons.

    Now, let's talk about Fall. This is where a farmer really gets hurt. Badly. The problem with Cranberries wasn't so much their profit margin, it was that most of your options were anemic at best. Let's go over the damage.



    Profits got cut almost in half. They now only sell for 75 a pop, with a yield of two per harvest, and 5 harvests per year, yielding a net profit of a mere 750. With Preserves, this goes to 200 a pop, for a monthly yield of 2000, or 280 a pop for Artisan and a monthly yield of 2800.

    Ouch.

    What's worse, it is no longer profitable to turn them into wine. The difference is a mere 25g each for tripling the processing time.

    So, what are we going to do? Are there any other options?

    Actually... there is. You see, the price of the seeds remains unchanged. You buy them for 240, but sell them back for 120 a pop. Which is more than you get for the fruit itself. In fact, since you get, on average, two seeds per cranberry, that comes out to roughly 240 * 2 = 480 per harvest * 5 = 2400 You lose out on about 400 for the season, but you can process an entire crop in a single day with only six or so seed makers, instead of needing rows and rows of expensive preserves jars. Especially for a first-year fellow... this is the one to beat.

    In year one... actually, not so much. You won't have access to Artichoke, Grapes grow on Trellis which can be awkward to navigate around, Beets are only found in the Oasis, but let's see how the numbers fall out for some of the other crops this season:

    Let's take a look at Grapes. 10 days to grow, every 3 days thereafter. 18/3=6+1=7 harvests. Grapes go for 80 a pop, 80*7 = 560 for the season. Preserves go for 210*7=1470 or 2058 with Artisan. Wine goes for 240 * 7 = 1680 or 2350 with Artisan. Almost, but not quite, and those annoying Trellis to deal with.

    Let's look at Pumpkins now. Two harvests out of the season. Pumpkins go for 320 a pop, making the monthly yield 640. Pickled Pumpkin go for 690, or a seasonal of 1380, which comes out to 1932 with Artisan. Pumpkin juice is apparently quite a thing, selling for 720 a pop for a monthly yield of 1,440 or 2016 with Artisan. Not quite.

    Let's look at Artichoke. 8 days to harvest, which brings a mere 3 harvests to the table. However, with Speed-Gro, you get to squeeze in a 4th harvest. Artichoke sells for 160 a pop, pickles sell for 370, and the juice sells for less than the pickles. 370*3=1110 for the season, or 1554 with Artisan. If you use speed-gro, that comes out to 370*4=1480 or 2072 with artisan.

    Beets are from the Oasis. They grow in 6 days, which means 4 harvests, or 5 with Deluxe Speed-Gro. They go for 100 a pop, which brings a monthly yield to 500. However, pickled beets are apparently a delicacy at 250 a pop, * 5 = 1250 or 1750 with Artisan. Still not enough.


    tl;dr version: Yes, they got nerfed, but there's still nothing else that can really compete with even the reduced prices, so you'll just have to resign yourself to having half the profits in Fall, making it the least profitable season overall, next to winter. But hey, at least you won't worry about wine anymore, since the wine costs as much as the preserves now.

    End result: Coffee reigns supreme over Spring, but Hops and Starfruit are king of the Summer. Fall profits decline sharply, and there's nothing really you can do about it.

    To make it easier on yourself, and to save yourself the initial costs, grow your Coffee in spring, add hops in the Summer, forget about either Starfruit or Blueberries. Fall just kinda dies out, you'll be relying on your greenhouse and your animals to carry you.
     
      Last edited: Oct 4, 2016
    • ShneekeyTheLost

      ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

      Now let's take a look at what we can do in the Greenhouse. Since the Ancient Fruit took a shot on the chin, is it still the king of profit? We go now to our greenhouse live:

      Ancient Fruit prices dropped sharply on the commodities market, following the 1.1 update, sending the farmer's market into an uproar as quite a few business models depended on it. And remember, as the price dropped, the price of wine dropped geometrically. Furthermore, the demand for artisan good has also caused a reduction in wines overall, combining together to bring ancient wine to an all time low of a mere 1650, or 2310 for Artisan. This comes out to 330 gold per day for Artisan.

      With the prices so low, farmers look to other crops to tend in their greenhouses. Could this spell the end for the former king of profit?

      Hops is a strong contender on the market. Unaffected by any price fluctuations, other than the slight slide in artisan goods, pale ale is still a market contender. Once it starts going, it produces hops every day, and in a greenhouse, that is non-stop. Pale ale comes out to 300 a pop, or 420 with Artisan. Per day.

      Ladies and gentlemen, do we have a new greenhouse crop?

      But wait, there's another factor to be considered. Hops grow on Trellis, which cannot be walked through, so you can't have them as dense as you would otherwise. What crop will go in between them?

      And another stranger shows up to make a strong appearance, one often overlooked before, the fruit trees. Peach and Pomegranate both produce one fruit a day, turned into wine, that's 588 per day. Of course, you can only fit in 16 of them, but you can grow crops between after they have fully matured.

      Let's go to a graphic demonstration:

      [​IMG]


      So, as you can see, 16 fruit trees, 72 hops, and a mere 32 other crops you can walk on. Plus you can grow more trees on the sidelines, but we're discussing utilizing the actual fertile ground here.

      So, let's do some math here

      For a pure Ancient Fruit plot, you're looking at 116 plots times 330 per plant per day or 38,280 per day, or just over a million a season. 1,071,840 to be precise.

      Now let's calculate what that graphic will bring in, assuming the crops are Starfruit, which comes in at 211.5/d

      (16*588)+(72*420)+(32*211.5)=46,416 per day, or a total seasonal yield of 1,299,648. Looks like Ancient Fruit is just not measuring up. Of course, you can fill in those 32 tiles with ancient fruit if you have it, but this demonstrates that you can get a better profit margin without needing them.

      So, shocking news in the agricultural industry as farmers start turning away from Ancient Fruit in favor of more easily obtainable and profitable crops. From SDV news, this is Shneekey The Lost, up next is the local weather...
       
        Last edited: Oct 4, 2016
      • Inf_Wolf14

        Inf_Wolf14 Parsec Taste Tester

        Hmm... Number crunching always is very satisfying to me for some reason...
        Nice work on this. I guess now no one can complain about my obsession with coffee. :)
        "Coffee! You can sleep when you're dead!"

        "And it looks like it will be raining all day tomorrow."
        No crops to water... Time to go fishing.
         
        • DarkOmegaMK2

          DarkOmegaMK2 Pangalactic Porcupine

          Very insightful thread. Thanks for bringing these numbers.
           
          • Magistrella

            Magistrella Big Damn Hero

            Couple of remarks:

            Coffee is, according to the wiki, affected by Artisan - so it will sell for 420 (at least according to the wiki, ill find out if i get to artisan, had gotten some coffee beans on 16th of spring, lucky x.x) - which makes it even more OP in Spring and summer....

            Cranberry seeds are nerfed too. They will only sell for 60g - which makes the monthly profit on that only 1200... personally, cranberries are officially dead past year 1 :/ 2.8k is nice then, but not when i could use the space for gem berries.... crazy as it sounds, but those are a profit of 2000 (2300 with tiller) for the season. And once you got them started in the greenhouse while waiting for your ancient fruits to grow youll start to like them. If you go with deluxe fertilizer you even get the profit up to 3500 (3950 with tiller) which is, compared to the workload for the rest, really really good - even if you have to
            turn 50% of your crops back into seeds for next years harvest again ^^ - if you only use the non star berries you'll probably only loose like 1/3 of your profit.

            Man, cant wait until i've grown enough coffee from those lousy 2 beans i got so far xD
             
            • likwid

              likwid Subatomic Cosmonaut

              Yikes so ancient fruit isn't even as good as a crop you can buy day 1 now combined with hops? lol
               
              • ShneekeyTheLost

                ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                Gem Berries can't be put in a seed maker, and can only be purchased one at a time from the Cart Vendor. You won't get enough to be able to do them in bulk.

                Sadly, there is really no viable cash crop in Fall anymore. You just have to suck it up, buttercup, and be resigned to the fact that your fall profits will simply be half what they were.
                 
                • Magistrella

                  Magistrella Big Damn Hero

                  You can not buy coffee beans for 15g. You have only 2 options. 1) Buy it for the whooping price of 2.500 from the traveling cart or 2) get it as a drop from dusk sprites

                  No.2 wont be as much as a problem if you start with a pre 1.0 savestate as you can just pummel through the poor duskies, but as a beginner you'll have to work your way up and will have to multiply your beans with each harvest and planting more for season 2, not seeing any profit at all b/c you do not have kegs yet. And when you do you first want to burn through the hops you get in the summer...


                  Wrong, Gem Berries can be turned into Rare Seeds with the Seed maker - try it if you don't believe me ^.~
                   
                  • ShneekeyTheLost

                    ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                    Fortunately, you can exponentially grow your crop pretty quickly. Every other day, you have four more beans to plant, no seed maker necessary.

                    Oh, believe me, you'll get your kegs up and running very early in the summer. Between harvesting your hops every day and your coffee every other day, you'll be up to 9 farming in no time. And, since you're already into iron level, means you can start cranking out the pale ale and coffee well before fall begins.


                    Won't let me...
                     
                    • ShneekeyTheLost

                      ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                      Well, either the wiki is wrong, or I just ran into a bug. Coffee sells for 150 each, cut those numbers in half. It's actually better to just sell the beans at this point
                       
                      • DarkOmegaMK2

                        DarkOmegaMK2 Pangalactic Porcupine

                        300 is the sell price to you, the player, if you decide to purchase it from Gus.
                         
                        • ShneekeyTheLost

                          ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                          Yea, but it says on the wiki that you can sell it for 300, or 420 with Artisan, which would've meant Gus would have had to raise his prices to compete.
                           
                          • likwid

                            likwid Subatomic Cosmonaut

                            So would it be 210 with Artisan?
                             
                            • DarkOmegaMK2

                              DarkOmegaMK2 Pangalactic Porcupine

                              Someone slipped while editing the wiki and now it's causing confusion. Gameplay-wise wouldn't really make much sense that you can sell coffee for the same price as Gus would.
                               
                              • ShneekeyTheLost

                                ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                                Nope. Character had Artisan, just sells for 150
                                 
                                • DarkOmegaMK2

                                  DarkOmegaMK2 Pangalactic Porcupine

                                  Was it coffee that you made on your kegs? or coffee that you had from gus on a previous save. Because i just checked my old save and my coffees are also non-artisan and i have the slight suspicion that only coffees you make get the artisan tag.
                                   
                                  • ShneekeyTheLost

                                    ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                                    nope, it's coffee that came fresh outta the keg
                                     
                                    • ChaosAzeroth

                                      ChaosAzeroth Existential Complex

                                      This has to be new then because I was seed makering them before 1.1 all the time...Bummer....
                                       
                                      • Manning

                                        Manning Aquatic Astronaut

                                        You couldn't put rare fruit in the seed maker in 1.07 either. I tried far more often than can be explained rationally.
                                         
                                        • Terradel

                                          Terradel Subatomic Cosmonaut

                                          Hmm, seems like Coffee may be the way to go with the new update. I'm still debating whether I want to replace my Ancient Fruit greenhouse farm or not.
                                           

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