A Powergamer's Build Order for your first Spring

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

  1. ShneekeyTheLost

    ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

    Refined quartz is easy to get. You've already got at least Fishing 4 from your first week doing nothing but fishing, right? Okay, a Recycling Machine, and some fishing on your farm (unless you pick river farm) and you're swimming in the stuff. Glasses and CD's both break down into Refined Quartz. It also saves you the coal from not needing to smelt the quartz into refined quartz.
     
    • One More Day

      One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

      Yeah, I'm thinking of 250+ sprinklers by the beginning of summer, and they need one refined quartz each. A handful of CDs and broken glasses hooked while fishing isn't going to make much difference.

      Might have to buy a few dozen crab pots to line the mountain lake, and then empty them every day, and maybe craft a few recycling machines, to make up the shortfall
       
      • Elenna101

        Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

        YMMV, but I don't use that many bombs (as opposed to explosive ammo) during skull cavern runs? Then again, compared to really good players my skull cavern runs are still pretty bad, so IDK. But just using ammo, a few cherry bombs, and whatever bombs you get from serpents/treasure chests you should be able to at least get enough iridium to make more profit than a day of fishing, and blowing up those iridium nodes will get you well past mining 6 for the next time.
         
        • ShneekeyTheLost

          ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

          A handful? Fishing on the farm (unless it is a river farm) is guaranteed trash. I mean, you can't use the Journal to guarantee a piece of trash every 10 mins anymore, but with a high enough fishing skill you can approach that anyway. Call it an average of 20 minutes per catch, because sometimes it might take longer. Let's math that out.

          20 minutes per catch is 3 catches per hour. 6 AM to midnight is 18 hours. 18*3 = 54 catches per day. Of those, you have a 2 in 6 chance of it being one of the two you need, which simplifies down to a one in three. So 54/3=18 per day on average, with a fairly high RNG variance.

          Each crab pot has a chance of these trash items, or an actual catch, which in this instance is undesired. The wiki says the river in cindersnap forest will return freshwater catches, but has anyone tested the lake with the pier in Cindersnap Forest or the lake in the Secret Forest? If they aren't on the freshwater list, they will guarantee always produce trash, and you can't get JojaCola out of the pots, giving you a 2 in 5 rate of getting the trash you want.

          Otherwise, placing pots on the farm is probably going to be the most efficient as you only have three possible freshwater fish caught and it is closer proximity than any other body of freshwater, although you can also proceed to fill in the mountain lake as being the second closest (assuming you've unlocked the minecarts).
           
          • Elenna101

            Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

            You have a chance of non-trash on every farm except the standard farm, actually. But that's not that important, because for the strategy @One More Day is going for he's almost certainly on the standard farm as it has the most farming space.
            (Unless the new farm layout has more? Just looking at it I don't think it does, but I'm not sure. I'm also not sure if there are guaranteed-trash lakes on that farm.)

            More importantly, to get 250+ sprinklers worth of quartz is going to take a whole lot of fishing days if you average 18 quartz a day. Which means a whole lot of time not spent doing other stuff that might get you money. (Heck, even for my semi-casual farm where I only wanted 22 sprinklers by summer, I didn't catch enough trash to make more than half of it from recycling. I probably could have, if I'd spent half a day or so fishing on the farm, but I had other stuff I wanted to do.) Whereas he obviously plans to spend a bunch of time in the mines or in Skull Cavern anyways, so he might as well grab quartz while there.
            I do agree that crab pots on the farm are the best way to make up a shortfall of quartz. Whether there is such a shortfall probably depends on how lucky you get with getting crystalariums or crystalarium materials.
             
              One More Day likes this.
            • squigglyruth

              squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

              That's interesting. A quick try on Wednesday evening showed me I could get the fibreglass rod on day 2 whilst also planting the 15 seeds (13 parsnips, 1 cauli and 1 green bean). However it was touch and go on timing because I'm not used to the ocean fish so I wasn't getting very many perfects. I hadn't considered trying the training rod!

              EDIT: This worked well. Finished day 2 with fibreglass rod, enough bait, chest in place for catfish, farming in line for community centre speed-gro to use on strawberries, and also 20 spring onions as food cache for starting the mines. Extra bonus: I fished up a diamond, an elvish jewelry, 7 rice seeds, 6 copper and 6 coal in treasure chests. It turns out Clint now comes with blueprints once you have received copper from fishing, which means I'll be able to smelt copper bars on day 5 if I want to rather than waiting for him to come on the morning of day 6. Looking like a good start!
               
                Last edited: Nov 30, 2019
              • One More Day

                One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                18 a day? To get 250+, that's 14 wasted days fishing for trash on the farm, which is half of spring gone without making any money whatsoever, so not exactly an efficient use of time. Crab pots sound better to me




                These are basically free Farming XP. Plant them within three tiles of a body of water, and you don't need to water them. Six days later and voila, 7XP per plant for the time it took to plant them
                 
                • squigglyruth

                  squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

                  Yes, so good!!
                  Entering egg festival with farming 6, 3 quality sprinklers already made, and 42555 money. I guess I'm going to test to destruction the 'buy as many strawberries as you can' guideline...
                   
                  • UnexpectedParole

                    UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                    I don't have any issue getting to level 2 fishing during Day 2. Especially if I use the training rod. What I can't seem to do is earn enough money by 5pm even fishing in the lake with largemouth bass. Certainly not in the ocean. How much did you start day 2 with cash wise from day 1?
                    -And how do you earn it? Or was it the diamond and elvish jewlery sale that funded the rod?

                    If I could start day 3 without having to go to Willy in the AM for the fiberglass rod I think I would be happier with my starts.
                     
                    • One More Day

                      One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                      What you do on day 1 is critical. Basically, I'm selling everything that isn't wood, acorns or spring onions. But parsnip seeds, fiber, stone, geodes, coal, sap, forage, all of it goes in the bin for money. If you are fortunate enough to find more than one artifact, donate the cheapest one for the 250g and sell any others. If the only artifact is worth >250g, don't donate. You really want to wring out every last bit of value from day 1

                      You want to be waking up on day 2 with at least the cost of the rod covered, which is 1,800g. But preferably you want to be well over 2,000g so that you already have banked a few dozen bait. The training rod means you can catch perfects and get the bait by noon or 1pm, at which point you switch to the fiberglass rod, and now you can get gold fish with perfects, which further boosts the value of what you catch before 5pm. This should be enough money for bait for day 3, plus a couple of trout soup, but it's all done from fishing in the ocean, there isn't time for a round trip to the lake
                       
                      • squigglyruth

                        squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

                        Using the training rod, money was certainly more of a challenge than XP. I started day 2 with just 783 gold. The diamond and elvish jewelry were too late to fund the rod.

                        On day 1 I bought a cauliflower and a green bean starter, and planted them with 13 parsnips. I sold all but 100 wood (for 2 chests), plus all the stone and fibre, and the spare 2 parsnip seeds. I kept coal and spring onions, and most of my forage (I think I might have sold a gold and silver daffodil because I had lots of daffodils spare). I could have had more money if I had spent day 1 harvesting fibre rather than greeting everyone.

                        I started day 2 by watering, then collecting a couple of extra items to make sets of forage for spring seeds - I think I made 2 sets but it may have been 3. Most of that forage had been collected on day 1, but you can't craft spring seeds until day 2 since it needs you to level up in foraging. I also found a museum artifact. I managed to time it so I donated the artifact when the museum opened, and sold the sets of forage when the general store opened, so I was on the beach fishing by half 9. I fished until just before Willy closed, then spent all my money on the rod and bait, picked up my chest and headed to the river below Jodie's house. I finished day 2 by fishing there until I passed out.

                        I guess my version is more rounded than One More Day's, but it definitely gains less fishing XP - I didn't hit fishing 4 on day 2. It was still a great set-up for fishing for catfish on day 3, so I'm pretty happy with it.

                        When I tried with the normal rod, XP was more of an issue than money. The more interesting ocean fish fetched me enough to afford the fibreglass rod by 5pm, without donating to the museum or making sets of forage. However, I couldn't reliably hit level 2 fishing in time.

                        On balance, I think the training rod version seems best. But I've only run it once so far, so I don't know how much the money relies on luck.

                        EDIT: I tried from a fresh start. Ended day 1 with less than 600 gold but 250 in my journal from an artifact. Went straight to the beach after watering, stuck with the normal rod and hit fishing 2 early afternoon, so I must have misremembered that as an issue. Money by 5pm was enough to buy 44 bait as well as the fibreglass rod - not enough bait, but maybe I'll get some in chests. I'm sure I can make this work as a reliable start...
                         
                          Last edited: Dec 8, 2019
                        • WilliamZ

                          WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                          Question: for the first year, you make keg jars and replace for kegs later on?
                           
                          • UnexpectedParole

                            UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                            You mean preserves jars?

                            I try to make a few and continue to use them on things like parsnips or beans in the future once the kegs are rolling. -I never have enough kegs for the hops and fruit I turn up. So it would be nice for something for the vegetables for later. But I don't have tons of coal ever especially year one, so I don't make that many. I think maybe I've ever built 4 max at one time.

                            With the tree fertilizer though, it might be easier to get enough wood/ coal to make them later via a charcoal kiln? Or if I get my economy going maybe buy the coal from Clint.
                             
                            • WilliamZ

                              WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                              Yea Preserve jars, sorry :X
                              But with the money that you guys made, purchasing coal from Clint still is expensive? I'm asking that because I'm read many guides about the spring but nothing specific about the summer and fall.
                               
                              • UnexpectedParole

                                UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                                I'm not one of "you guys" with the tons of money I make. I never have enough money. My big spent all day 3 and 4 fishing to get to level 5 fishing totals are like 3.5k. (I can't catch catfish) Which is pretty much gone with the back-pack upgrade and plants on day 6.
                                The there are strawberries to buy and tools to upgrade. If I look into it, maybe buying coal first and making a few jars pays off quickly and delays only a little bit on those things. But I dunno.

                                I just need to play/work efficiently. It's not about profit for me.
                                 
                                • One More Day

                                  One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                                  It's easier to make a detailed guide for spring, because the initial conditions are known, and are always virtually identical. As you play through the first few weeks, the amount of variation created by following a certain plan will be quite small, even though you might get different luck, weather, forage, drops, mining RNG etc. But as you get further along in the season, or the year, you start having to make choices based much more on what has happened on previous days, and eventually it reaches a point where a specific plan for a specific day is at best impractical, if not, to all intents and purposes, actually impossible.

                                  Shneekey's guide in the OP of this thread is certainly very generalised, it doesn't give an itinerary for each day, and you'll notice that, even in Shoukry's very detailed walkthorough, although most of the first two or three weeks are quite regimented, the last week is already starting to generalise on what to do, because not only are specific instructions starting to become not much use due to natural variation of results in game, but in a game like SDV you also need to allow for such things as individual creativity and preferences.

                                  The point of these spring guides are to lay the basic foundations for
                                  • generating a little bit of money
                                  • upgrading your tools
                                  • getting basic essential infrastructure
                                  • advancing your skill levels in a fairly balanced fashion
                                  • developing the social side of your character

                                  By summer and fall, you should be stamping your own identity on your farm, so aside from some generalisations about how to go about getting kegs or animals or whatever, there's much less benefit to guides that go beyond that first season while still trying to be very specific about what to do.
                                   
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                                  • ShneekeyTheLost

                                    ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                                    Kegs and Jars aren't an either/or, it's an 'and'. You want both kegs and jars to process different things. So early jars made will still be useful and relevant throughout your play.
                                    The real key with charcoal being more viable is the fact that the charcoal kiln's price dropped from needing a gold to a couple of copper, moreso than the fertilizer. However, there's still one more problem with Kilns which has kept them from being viable, even though they were STILL cheaper than buying from Clint even before the 1.4 update (10 wood @ 10g/ea from Robin is a 33% savings in costs over Clint's price of 150), and that is time and micromanagement.

                                    Kilns take a half hour (in game) to produce one coal. And generally, when you want coal, you want a LOT of coal. A Preserves Jar takes 8 coal per craft, and I typically don't bother with batches less than 30 if I can at all help it. 8*30= 240 coal. So, example time:

                                    Say that because Kilns now only cost a couple of copper instead of gold, they're more attractive to make, and you have eight Kilns set up for yourself. That's still 30 iterations to make your Jars. Which is going to take 15 in-game hours, or roughly a full day. Assuming very precise micromanagement and no time loss. So you've spent a whole day to get nothing more than 30 coal. Womp womp.

                                    The other problem is that it takes Wood, which is EVERYTHING. Let's continue our example from Preserves Jars. The 240 coal needed to make 30 jars is 2,400 wood (that's just shy of two and a half stacks). Preserves Jars normally cost 50 wood (among other things) already and 8 coal. So if you take 8 coal and turn that into 80 wood for your Kiln, each preserve jar is now taking up 130 wood. EACH.

                                    So you've already taken a stressed resource, and doubled down on the demand. Not... particularly useful.

                                    HOWEVER...

                                    Tree fertilizer may well be extremely useful in mitigating the cost of lumber purchases from Robin, especially in year 2+ when she gets greedy. For example, those 30 preserves jars we were talking about. At 50 wood each, that's 1500 wood, or 15k in cash from Robin. If that 15k of wood can instead be obtained by a tree stand with fertilizer constantly going, that's 15k that can be put to other uses. This goes double when you're trying to get the 116 kegs for your ancient fruit in your greenhouse in the Fall, assuming you don't want another 210 kegs for Hops production if you're doing the more 'optimized' greenhouse layout. Not to mention Barns, Coops, Sheds, and upgrades thereof all require wood. Wood is a MAJOR expense in getting your infrastructure established. Mitigating this cost is extremely useful, irrespective of its use as a coal replacement.

                                    Tree Fertilizer may be, low key, one of the most valuable additions to my style of gameplay since the Artisan perk. And in combination with the Forester change, may actually change up my Foraging perks. Foraging/Lumberjack may become my default instead of Gather/Botanist, just for the extra wood. I'll have to run the numbers on viability.
                                    If you've been at all involved with the Starcraft 2 tournament community, you may be familiar with a 'build order'. These are a set of early-game rote things to do to get yourself established for a particular strategy. For example, the old-school 6Pool build order involved not building ANY drones, and immediately dropping a Spawning Pool for a 6 'ling early rush.

                                    However, these rarely covered more than the first couple of minutes of play because as Clauzwitz said: Plans never survive first contact with the enemy. Now, we aren't playing against another *player* in SDV, but there's still many random events that can occur in this game that will substantially affect the viability of a guide such as these. You need to be flexible enough to realize when RNG has dropped something in your lap and take advantage of it. For example, being able to purchase a Truffle from the Cart Vendor means avoiding the Big Barn upgrade entirely (for purposes of the Year 1 CC completion challenge), which means you can put that off until much later, saving those resources for other upgrades or infrastructure. That's not something a guide has the flexibility to be able to do.
                                     
                                    • WilliamZ

                                      WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                                      I'm been reading everything but I believe that I will have to re-read this topic again since it was long time ago that I last played, I want to give a try to this keg and jars business because I never tried before.
                                      Say, for someone that is planning to complete the greenhouse in year two, I could skip the repair of the bridge completely right? Also I think that it's less stressful to aim for kegs and jars at the same time, I believe that I can manage to work exclusivelly with jars in year one and prepare trees and tappers for the kegs in year two, by the end of summer I believe that I already will have enough money for cover my expenses, I made some math and 100 strawberries isn't going to cut to have a substantial amount of jars by the end of the spring, especially with all the upgrades that we need to do.
                                       
                                      • ShneekeyTheLost

                                        ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                                        Can you skip the Bridge (assuming you mean the one on the Beach to the Tidal Pools area)? Sure. Do you want to? That's a different question.

                                        Technically, Tidal Pools are entirely optional. The only uses are:

                                        * Getting Married (ancient mariner is here)
                                        * Coral for making Deluxe Speed Gro
                                        * Sea Urchin for dye bundle completion and selling for a good amount of gold
                                        * Catching one of the Legendary Fish.

                                        If these are things you feel you can put off a year, then by all means, don't bother rushing it!

                                        However, sea urchins are worth 160g/ea, which is pretty decent money early game. That's the equivalent of 16 wood purchased from Robin, and quality only goes up from there. It won't take more than a dozen or so to 'pay back' your bridge building. The Coral, in my mind, is the better score, as it lets you craft Deluxe Speed-Gro for your summer and fall crops, which can yield more profits. Specifically, with Deluxe Speed-Gro, you can get three harvests of Melons, making them pretty dang profitable, especially if you have kegs or jars to process them in. You can also get a fifth harvest of Blueberries, or an extra three harvests from Hops. In theory, it also gives you a third crop of Starfruit, however I am operating under the assumption that you won't have the Oasis unlocked by your first Summer.

                                        300 wood is a substantial investment, especially in the early game. I will be suggesting it in my guide primarily because it is more foraging for more xp and more cash for having done so, since my new guide is going to be placing a heavier emphasis on Foraging skill. However, if you're doing a more casual playstyle, it may not be worth your time and effort to unlock in your first spring. I mostly unlock it to save up enough Coral to Deluxe Speed Gro as many things in Summer, but if you aren't looking at doing that, then there's no real point in repairing the bridge, and that 300 wood can go to other useful projects (such as chests in major fishing spots like the mountain lake island or arrowhead island, a chest in the mine entrance, and such).

                                        Ultimately, there's no 'wrong' way to play the game. So decide if it fits your personal play style, and if it doesn't... then don't!
                                         
                                        • ShneekeyTheLost

                                          ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                                          Running into a conundrum on my guide in the first week and wanting some input on the best practices to suggest to guide followers for the new guide.

                                          The new guide will be assuming that players are not proficient in the fishing minigame and will be using the Training Rod in the first week, including Day 3, and that they won't have the ability to obtain Catfish or Eels on Day 3. However, I'm running into a rather severe monetary handicap.

                                          I'm wanting to suggest a Copper Axe ASAP. The earliest we can anticipate a Copper Axe to be obtained is as follows:

                                          Day 5, mines unlock. You'll want to head to town to vend for 40x potatoes, but NOT selling your parsnips to get it. So that's 2k cash there. Considering we can effectively guarantee the player won't be getting Catfish and their amazing cash returns, do you even think this is reasonable? On the one hand, they won't have purchased the Fiberglass Rod on Day 2/beginning of Day 3, or any Bait, so that's one expense they won't have. But on the other hand, that just further reduces the amount of fish they will be catching on Day 3.

                                          Day 5 is also (barring weather) when the cutscene for the Community Center unlock happens, visit the CC and check the stone so the Funky Cowboy sends you a message on the following day. We're going to need 20x copper ore to make at least one Furnace, then another 25 copper ore for the 5x copper bars plus yet another 2k in cash for the copper axe upgrade, AND we need to have 4k in cash by the time Spring Festival rolls around for our 40 Strawberries.

                                          That's going to be an awfully tight timetable for the cash if you aren't leaning on fishing as your money-maker. Especially since I'm strongly suggesting focusing on donating to Gunther as many minerals and gems as you can for the 9x Cauliflower seeds for free to have them in the ground prior to the Egg Festival so they can be harvested by the end of the season. Not only is that 200 farming xp, which is nothing to sneeze at, but it's also 1500-2000 g depending on quality, which is also going to be useful, and far more useful than the gems would otherwise be.

                                          Granted the Spring Forage bundle completion on the 6th nets you a cool grand in spring seeds you never want to plant, that helps some, but there's still a money crunch here.

                                          Since I'm placing a far higher emphasis on mine diving, it will leave less time for incidental fishing for monetary gains. And furthermore, there's another 5 copper bars and 2k to upgrade the pick just after the Egg Festival coming up during salmonberry season.

                                          Anyone have any ideas for where a newer player is going to be able to bring in that sort of cash? I mean, your potato crop is going to come in just in time for the egg festival for a cool 3ish grand, maybe even 4 grand depending on quality and bonus taters. I could guarantee it with Kale instead of potatoes if I could make sure the player could afford the kale, and it would still mean at least one potato planted for the bundle regardless so that you can get the 20 speed gro for the strawberries. 3 Farming is going to be tight, but should be doable by the egg festival, you'll need another 4 tappers on pine trees for the pin tar and 4 clams from the beach to get the extra 20 speed gro, which is another 8 copper bars down by the 7th... that doesn't really seem doable if I'm also upgrading the axe at that point. So I may have to completely rethink my strawberries, and settle for only twenty of them being on speed grow.

                                          Anyone have anything to add to this rambling?
                                           

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