A Powergamer's Build Order for your first Spring

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by ShneekeyTheLost, Jan 15, 2017.

  1. ShneekeyTheLost

    ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

    I... was unaware of this, actually. Dramatic revision incoming!

    Well, let's look at it...

    First off, you don't get the fertilizer, which is kinda the whole point of the strat, so you've effectively lost the goal you were aiming at, as you have said, but in addition to that, there's the price in the most expensive First Spring crop you can purchase suddenly being of null value, which could've been used to purchase something else instead. Early mistakes can snowball. Of course, it's a drop in the bucket if you consider fishing to be a core part of your strategy, since it's basically one or two fish and you're back even. My guide is trying to not be dependent upon fishing, as it is designed to be more newbie-friendly.

    Any particular reason why Kale instead of Potatoes? Just stamina efficiency?

    Minor nitpick: Gold Sturgeon only nets you Good response, Gold Cauliflower nets you Best.

    However, you get 9x Cauliflower Seeds for free when you turn in 5x items to the Museum, which should be fairly trivial to accomplish in time to plant them. If one turns up gold-star, save it for the luau.
     
      Last edited: Sep 26, 2019
    • Elenna101

      Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

      Kale gives more XP. I assume @UnexpectedParole wants that XP to get level 6 faster.

      Wiki says a gold sturgeon gives the best response.
      https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Luau
       
      • One More Day

        One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

        Crafting a sprinkler by some indefinable 'later' isn't difficult at all, as long as it is after spring 12.

        Getting the upgrade on spring 10, while absolutely guaranteeing that you retain watering capability on every single day, is a tremendous amount of work. You need to put the can in to Clint on day 8, and still have watering capability on day 9. To have a sprinkler watering stuff on day 9 you need to craft it on day 8, which means reaching Farming 2 on day 7, which means risking crops before they can enjoy the protection of a scarecrow, as well as rather lot more money and effort. It's either 20 potatoes or 17 kale planted on day 1, both of which are essentially impossible to afford, or more realistically, an additional 38 parsnips planted on day 3. Plus you suddenly need to buy extras for the bean and cauli on day 1. Either way, it means you need to invest well over an extra 1,000g, because of that risk of loss to crows.

        Furthermore, you are almost twice as likely to lose crops to crows each day than you are to not have any rain at all in that preferred 5 day window between days 7 and 11.

        Trying to rush Farming 2 just to get a single sprinkler, rather than taking the the much easier route of being prepared for a can upgrade, seems like a hell of a lot of unnecessary effort, when you can still get to Farming 6 for quality sprinklers relatively easily with a basic can, even if the weather is uncooperative.

        Partly stamina, but also I am always looking at ways of saving time, which is comfortably ahead of both money and energy in terms of being the most precious resource, particularly in that first spring. If you keep to 40 crops you can do it on 1 can of water, which not only means a rather obvious time-save due to the reduction in the number of hoeing and watering actions, but there's a further little time-save because it means no need to run to the farm pond each day to fill it up. Instead, it can be refilled while passing the mountain lake on the way to the mines.
         
        • UnexpectedParole

          UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

          That is actually a big deal, and was posted about not terribly long ago, which is why I was looking into paring down my 20 plant start to a 15. That seems very easy <and especially so once one more day posted his suggestion.> Then I got a wild hare-brained idea into looking into also getting a sprinkler, which is a topic for him an I.

          Ok let's look at this. I continually concede the plan is dead if the cauliflower gets eaten. I am not arguing that point at all. The plan risked failure and achieved it. So either the plan is restarted on a new farm, or we continue here in what you define as "behind". in evaluating my choice between the two, I'm trying to determine how far "behind" I really would be.

          However, we seem to have a disconnect about what "behind" means. Or maybe we are both making different assumptions about what happens after the cauliflower gets eaten?
          So let me lay this out more clearly.

          The plan A is to plant a cauliflower and a bean on day 1 so that they are harvested in time to fulfill the bundle requirement on the 13th spring to acquire speed-gro to place under 20 strawberries purchased on the 13th. The plan is also to get a scarecrow built and placed upon them on the 6th. Further goal of Plan A is to have farming level 6 by end of spring 28 and 20 quality sprinklers in the ground before end of Summer 1.

          IF plan A fails due to a crow eating the cauliflower before spring 6 scarecrow, <and we are not restarting> then Plan A must be abandoned and my farm needs to swap to plan B. Plan B doesn't include <those 20> strawberries fertilized with speed-gro. It has 20 speed-gro blueberries instead.
          All things considered Plan B begins on whichever day I wake up and the cauliflower is gone. The possible options are Day 2, Day 3, Day 4, Day 5 or Day 6.
          I would/could define "behind" in a couple of ways.
          My main definition would be to compare where I would be on day X in plan B had I started that way from day 1, to where I am right now.
          question. "Ok, day X, what do I need to have done by today for Plan B to work?"
          answer. "Nothing different boss. It's all the same." =Not behind. i mean sure, we're out the 80g we spent on the cauli, but we've conceded that too already.

          The second way to determine "behind" would be the number of days later in the year I earned farming 6 and got the sprinklers down.
          IF plan B gets me to Spring 28 with farming 6 and 20 sprinklers the day after. What is the behind? I've played enough without speed gro strawberries and gotten level 6 farming and sprinklers before. Plan B works.

          Any other definition of "behind" sounds more like "out" to me and just requires a restart. I'm only out the time it took me to find out my farm plan failed and I restart a new one.

          As for the price of the strawberries having null value. I don't follow. They are worth exactly what they would be worth had I not decided to buy a cauliflower. In plan B they still yield the non speed-gro values, same as the other strawberries I would have bought in Plan A. And they are worth the same as the strawberries on your farm where you didn't buy the cauliflower and go looking for speed gro. How are they null?

          If buying a cauliflower was a mistake, then what was the cost? 80g. And, if I don't want those 20 non speed gro strawberries in plan B I won't buy them. The money will not be "wasted" or thrown into a lost opportunity category.





          I think we are going to get to the same answer, even though we are approaching it from two different angles. But i'm going to walk you through what I wanted, since you talking about watering can upgrades on the 10th and continuous watering isn't at all what I'm looking for.-though I can see how you interpreted what I wrote that way. -My mistake.

          My goal with the sprinkler was to be able to water 4 fields continuously. Period. I don't care about continuous watering on any of the other fields. (There might not be any other fields for the purposes of this discussion.)
          I wanted the single sprinkler to be built no later than the 10th not the watering can upgrade. So that it would water 4 squares on the minimum 11th and 12th and so on. And yes it was to ensure that I could get the watering can before strawberries planted on the 13th. But looks like I need it back on the 12th, which is turning it in on the 10th. Not the 8th. Still possibly moot since day 10 is the earliest I can get a second harvest. Not day 9.
          You are correct in that the farming level 2 on the day before might be an issue if I also wish to speed-gro strawberries and do not wish to risk the cauliflower being eaten before day 6.
          That is why I'm looking into it. But it's 38 parsnips on day 5 would get me the 10th. which buggers my scarecrow.

          edit to add, needing farming 5 for speed gro by the 13th buggers with the plan as well.

          So if I want to try this other route I was looking at, speed gro strawberries don't fit, and thus the cauli < and early sprinkler> is un-needed. question answered for now.
           
            Last edited: Sep 27, 2019
          • One More Day

            One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

            OK, sorry for misunderstanding. So, for clarity, I think you want to get the speed gro on day 13, and also, for reasons to be revealed later, you want to be able to craft a sprinkler by spring 10, to be operational from day 11 onwards.

            I mean, of course it can be done; a lot can be done if you're properly organised. You can buy 350 strawberries at the egg festival, and have them all watered by quality sprinklers, if you plan accordingly. By comparison to that, getting Farming 2 by day 9 is child's play.

            But it's a slightly bigger effort than getting it on day 12, not only because of the reduced timescale, but also because of the risks that now need to be insured against.

            To save money on day 1, I'd probably plant as many mixed seeds as possible, to try and get a few cauli for free, and buy probably three or four beans from Pierre, although I'd hold off on planting those until first thing on day 3, as they only need ten days, compared to the twelve days for the cauliflower

            For reasons of time to do other things, and money to do them, I'd look to get all the XP for Farming 2 from parsnips planted on day 5, because any rainy days would provide the most benefit. That means being able to harvest a total of 48 of them by day 9. So, again including insurance, that means planting up to 40 more parsnips on day 5, to be ready on day 9.

            It's certainly doable, but it's a bit of extra work to drag it forward three days.
             
            • ShneekeyTheLost

              ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

              Hmm... normally I consider regular sprinklers to be a sucker's bet, however there's a really interesting idea here...

              With a 13 Parsnip/1 Cauliflower/1 Bean start, if you plant the cauliflower and the bean at a diagonal to each other, you could hit them both with the sprinkler for however long it is needed, while your main farm plot is more logically developed elswhere on the farm. You'd need to leave behind another scarecrow, but you were likely wanting another one eventually anyway. The regular sprinkler is kind of a 'waste', in the sense that you won't be using it after Spring, but it's two things you don't need to water for a while.

              The problem is getting Farming 2 soon enough. The iron bar is easy enough, especially if you do your initial dive on Day 5 as soon as it opens. But if you immediately follow up your first harvest with Potato/Kale, your next level of Farming won't happen until the 13th, which is when your cauliflower is coming up anyway. It'll still be relevant for your bean for the rest of the season, but not as much use out of it as I had hoped.
               
              • UnexpectedParole

                UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                I was hoping to force water the cauli and bean to skip a watering day before the festival to upgrade my can so that I would have the copper can by starberries. That isn't going to happen, now I'll just have to spend a day or two watering strawberries by hand. Alternatively, if I don't use speed gro and try to sneak the extra harvest, the strawberries have a built in day where they can skip watering and I can upgrade at will after the festival.

                The big killer to my dreams with the sprinkler though, was I wanted to water the pet's dish automatically. Turns out you need an iridium sprinkler to even place once within the radius, and even then I don't have a farm with them to try it with to see if it does fill the bowl.

                I just hate walking all the way up there to water the damn bowl, but can't not, you know?
                Time to look into shifting my fields to a new location and building a well early I guess.
                 
                • Filmstudy

                  Filmstudy Subatomic Cosmonaut

                  Unabashed mini-maxer here.

                  I haven't played in quite some time, but I found power mining to be the fastest way to wealth in the game. I also was never able to duplicate the results reported by top fishing advocates. I'm not doubting their accuracy, but I was missing something in terms of execution, because I could never catch nearly as many or as good fish.

                  I'm not sure if anything has been added to the game, but do the best fishing to bulk farming methods stand up in terms of wealth generation to the best mining now?
                   
                  • squigglyruth

                    squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

                    Most top strategies start with fishing, since the mines don't open until the 5th. 3 days of fishing can buy a lot of potatoes to plant on the 6th with scarecrows. Then it's a balancing act of farming for money and XP and mining for sprinkler ingredients. The gems from the mine are a bonus but straight fishing would earn more money; it's the ore that is needed. As One More Day mentioned, it's possible to get 350 (or more) strawberries planted in Spring Y1, and get farming 10 before the end of the season, but that's a pain to water if you don't start building sprinklers.
                    Mushroom levels are good for fast money, though.
                     
                    • ShneekeyTheLost

                      ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                      It's a matter of profits vs time frame.

                      Day 2, fishing all day long, neglecting everything else save watering your initial crops, can easily get you Fishing level 2, possibly level 3. If you fish up in the mountain lake, you can easily fish up enough to afford the Fiberglass Rod on Day 3 as soon as Willy opens his doors, plus some bait. At this point, you can't get into the mines just yet because it's still blocked off, and getting Linus to 4 hearts by Day 3 is not possible, purchasing bait is your only option.

                      Head to a local river, and fish up catfish, plus other assorted river fish. You can get several thousand in catfish if you are lucky, but can reasonably expect at least a couple thousand on Day 3 alone.

                      From there, continue fishing in the mountain lake, especially the valuable Largemouth Bass, can net several hundred to over a thousand gold *per day*, which is, for that period in your playthrough, the highest amount of cash per day available to the player.

                      Mining itself isn't really all that profitable, barring things like mushroom floor farming. The importance for power mining is really for getting gold for the purpose of making sprinklers.
                       
                      • One More Day

                        One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                        If you're min-maxing wealth, you don't need to worry about watering crops on day 2, because you don't plant them on day 1. Parsnips suck for making money, and for food we can just eat some of the 200 or so fish we'll catch over the next 3 days. Instead, the 15 free parsnip seeds get sold for money to buy bait on day 2, along with absolutely everything else except wood for chests, and probably spring onions. Don't bother saving forage items for the bundle yet either, you'll get more chances to find what you need again in the coming days. Added to all the fiber, stones, coal, geodes and sap from farm clearance, you should be able to ship well over 1,000g by the end of the first day, and hopefully 1,300g, which is already enough for the fiberglass rod, when added to your initial 500g.

                        With no crops to worry about, Day 2 is immediately down to the beach to get the rod from Willy, where it should be possible, with a few perfect catches, to hit Fishing 2 before Willy closes at 5pm. The fish you catch during the morning and afternoon will get you plenty of bait, and then you head up to the town river on a chase for Fishing XP. This is a better bet than going to the lake IMO, for at least four reasons. First, it's much closer than the mountain lake and therefore you simply get more day 2 fishing time. Second, the lake has a lot of carp, which has a ridiculously low base XP of 8, a problem you don't face in the town river; you'll maybe catch one or two sunfish (base 13 XP) before 7pm, then bream and smallmouth all evening, which are both base 14 XP. Third, the river fish are all relatively easy to perfect most of the time, for the XP bonus, whereas chub in the lake are quite tricky to perfect at lower fishing levels; chub are worth the same XP as both smallmouth bass and bream, but the two river fish both have a much easier pattern. Fourth, you can fish directly in front of Jodi's door, putting your chest next to you, and use that same spot tomorrow for catfish. I know that the lake has bullhead, which are higher XP and worth more money, but right now, the money isn't as important as the XP, and the carp, plus the lost time, drag the lake down too far. The money comes from day 3, courtesy of the catfish, which is why you want to get Fishing 4 on day 2.

                        So anyway, it's early evening on day 2 and you have the fiberglass rod, so you've headed to the spot in front of Jodi's door. Place your chest and spend the rest of the day trying to perfect catch everything that bites. Fishing 3 should come up some time around 8-9pm, at which point you can eat a Trout Soup if it was possible to afford it, which should enable you to cast into the deep water for gold fish and the added XP that goes with it. By now you should be getting perfects on everything, and fishing 4 should come up comfortably before 2am. Pass out at 2am.

                        Day 3 you head to the same spot outside Jodi's and just fish for almost 20 hours. If you've practised catfish, it should be possible to catch at least a dozen of them, and all the other fish you get will take you past Fishing 6 and earn you over 5,000g. Again, pass out at 2am

                        Only on day 4 is it worth heading to the mountain lake to catch Largemouth; I like to do this after selling a few catfish to Willy, both to top up on bait if necessary, and also for buying the 24 slot backpack for mining on day 5
                         
                        • ShneekeyTheLost

                          ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                          You still need to grind your Farming skill before the Egg Festival to craft extra Speed-Gro for the third strawberry harvest, to go along with the 20 you get from the bundle completion. And you can't do any decent farming until you hit Farming level 1 and get Scarecrows unlocked. You're also going to want at least one Cauliflower planted Day One as well as a Bean Sprout so they will be ready in time for the Spring Crops bundle completion before the Egg Festival. So I can't really agree with this.
                           
                          • One More Day

                            One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                            If you're simply going for megabucks, strawberries aren't worth bothering with. Completing the spring crops bundle for just 20 speed gro certainly is not worth the effort. And at this early stage, every scrap of copper is needed for furnaces, there's none spare to smelt for crafting tappers to ultimately make more speed gro. Furthermore, there's no time to go beachcombing for the clams you also need either.

                            All you need to do on the Farming front is make sure you harvest enough kale to hit Level 6 for quality sprinklers by about spring 26, and those sprinklers are then going to water starfruit in summer.

                            Spring Crops bundle items aren't necessary, because after fixing the minecarts and the bus you're switching to Joja. And scarecrows aren't necessary so early either, as kale only takes six days.

                            Again though, I do want to reiterate, this is all only relevant if you are min-maxing for extreme wealth generation.
                             
                            • ShneekeyTheLost

                              ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                              On first glance, it doesn't look like there's any particularly substantial changes to my guide, as it explicitly avoided several of the exploits that have been fixed (using Journal to fish without passing time, mushroom level exploitation, etc...). Rice is new in Spring, but it produces 'Unmilled Rice', meaning you're going to need a Mill to turn it into Rice, which ain't cheap. And honestly, on first glance, doesn't seem to be worth it from a profit perspective.

                              The big thing, from my perspective, is the shed upgrade. This is... well, it's pretty huge. Upgraded shed can easily hold as much, if not more, than a Deluxe Barn now. I can fit in 130 kegs and be able to reach them all. The upgrade to let you strafe your produce into the kegs without risking eating something is also an enormous help for the strategy I will be putting forth post-spring.

                              There might be a use for the new fish pond. Apparently...

                              Coral grows at a rate of two per day? If true, this could mean a substantial quantity of Deluxe Speed Gro with an Oak Tree stand present.


                              The many QoL upgrades are appreciated, as is the exploit patches (looks like he finally got around to sanitizing his queries). Most of the other updates, however, tend to be late-game stuff that won't impact my guide substantially.
                               
                              • squigglyruth

                                squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

                                I had never considered the idea of getting the fibreglass rod before Willy's closes on Day 2. But, now that's in my mind, I think it can probably be combined with planting 15 crops (13 parsnips, 1 cauliflower and 1 green bean) on day 1 and watering them each day. That would be a really strong start! - I'm going to try it.
                                 
                                • One More Day

                                  One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                                  In v1.4 there's a new rod for sale from Willy with no Fishing skill requirement. The Training Rod, which only costs 25g, can be bought as soon as Willy opens his shop on day 2. It can only catch basic fish, but it has a much bigger green bar, so if you're a decent fisherman you can easily get perfect catches on sardine, anchovy and herring for the 2.4x bonus on XP. That means if you start fishing as soon as you can run to the beach, it's now possible to get Fishing 2 by as early as noon if you manage to avoid catching trash, and almost certainly by 2pm. For sure, the Fiberglass Rod on day 2 is an absolute gimme now.

                                  As soon as Fishing 2 comes up, you can pop back in to the shop, sell everything you caught, buy the Fiberglass Rod and bait, and then fish until just before 5pm, sell all fish again and buy enough bait to last the whole of day 3, and hopefully two Trout Soup as well, which should last you the rest of day 2. Then it's a run up the beach to the aforementioned spot outside Jodi's, munch the first Trout Soup, and try to get as many XP as possible. With almost 100% rate of perfect catches on sunfish before 7pm, and then just bream and smallmouth bass after the sunfish disappear, you should start getting iridium quality fish by early evening, and you'll be closing in on Fishing 5 by the time you collapse at 2am.

                                  If you can reliably catch catfish at Fishing 4 first thing in the morning, I don't think there's much benefit to keeping extra Trout Soup for day 3, because you'll still get gold quality catfish, but won't be able to perfect them to make them iridium quality. But the Trout Soup will definitely get you more XP on day 2 by allowing you to reach the deep water much earlier in the evening.

                                  I'd make a wild ass guess that iridium fish have made fishing in v1.4 probably about 25-30% more profitable than it used to be in v1.3, and with the demise of mushroom farming, it appears that fishing is once again the early game moneymaker until you can fund a trip to skull cavern. I think it might also mean that day 5 mining is no longer imperative, as there is no incentive to push down to the mushroom floors; if you get bad luck on day 5, it might be better to go fishing and leave it a day or two, as you'll probably need the best part of two weeks fishing anyway, to repair the bus and then fund a skull dive. You'll also save the best part of 3k per fishing day from not needing to drink continuous coffee

                                  Once again, all of this is with the caveat that this strategy has a massively unbalanced focus purely on generating extreme wealth
                                   
                                  • Pangaearocks

                                    Pangaearocks Big Damn Hero

                                    This thread kinda gives a headache of sighs, but I do also understand that people who have played the game for years with maybe thousands of posts in the forum will go for extreme strategies like this. That said, I see the wiki has already been updated with an image of the upgraded shed, which is said to have a capacity of 137 kegs, one more than the deluxe barn. That's a huge deal, and considerably cheaper (and quicker) than the double-upgrade to deluxe barn.
                                    https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Shed
                                     
                                    • kidkid123

                                      kidkid123 Phantasmal Quasar

                                      i hate that update...was hoping for another room. Now, i have to redesign my sheds, and they look so cool :wut:
                                       
                                      • Elenna101

                                        Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                        Yeah, I think optimal early game strategy now is save mining for good luck days and just fish until you hit 42,500 for the bus plus food/ammo/coffee money. Definitely can't get to the desert as early as you could with mushroom farming, but warp totems should make up for it - an extra 3+ hours a day should add up quickly. Plus stuff from the desert merchant.
                                         
                                        • One More Day

                                          One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                                          Yeah, skull key should now be possible in two and a bit days of actual mining. First day is just about hitting floor 40 to be at the slingshot, there's no point settling for 35 any more. Then unless your first two days are back to back, you kill slimes on an off day, fish for more cash, and with the extra money you should easily be able to afford enough ammo to go all the way to the bottom, which is easily achievable in a single day. You might need a bit of extra time after that just to get Mining 6 though, because there's not much point in a SC run without being able to craft bombs, and using cherry bombs would suck because then you have no copper ore for furnaces.

                                          I think the real problem is going to be fire quartz for quality sprinklers, and now we sort of get double nerfed there; first, you're not picking up a few per day while mushroom farming, and second you're not getting the 20% double forage when you do see them, because your foraging skill isn't going to get to Level 5 any time soon. I think you really have to make an effort to go out of your way in SC to pick up both fire quartz and regular quartz. And the first thought I had for a workaround on that was going back to pigs and truffles for rain totems, but of course that strat is now totally out of the question because you're not getting Foraging 9 ever.

                                          Perhaps it makes pushing for the Galaxy Hammer more important, despite its high price tag, to kill iridium bats efficiently for battery drops for crystalariums for the missing fire quartz. The down side there is that with monster floors also not refreshing, it's now harder to farm dust sprites too, making the burglar's ring harder to get. Whatever, it'll be fun working it all out again
                                           

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