Does anybody know the exact effects of skill levels / food buffs?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Xenonex, Jan 7, 2017.

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  1. Xenonex

    Xenonex Void-Bound Voyager

    So I've been searching around for several days now without any luck, but am very interested to know exactly how the different skills (Farming, Foraging, Fishing, Mining, Combat) work.

    The wiki pretty much mirrors what the game tells you outright; that each skill level gained increases your tool proficiency for that skill (reduces the energy-per-use for the associated tool by 0.1), gaining certain skill levels unlocks new crafting recipes, and each skill level of Combat grants +5 HP. One other point that seems universally agreed upon is that increasing your fishing skill also increases the length of the green fishing bar.

    However, outside of these effects, there are a lot of speculations, rumors, and conflicting information out there. This old reddit post seems like a good starting point for finding out information, but half of all the claims made in it are admitted to be guesses/conjecture.

    To take the Farming skill as an example, some people claim that it affects your harvested crop quality. The Crop Planner has a slider to show the exact % of gold/silver quality chance with each Farming skill level. However I've also heard people claiming that Farming Skill level has no effect crop quality level. Additionally, how would this interact with Basic/Quality Fertilizer? Does the fertilizer override any effects of your Farming Skill level, or do the two stack together somehow?

    Essentially I'm looking for a breakdown of the effects of each of the different skills, since in at least some cases (Fishing), it appears they can do more than just reduce energy usage. I'm especially curious because right now some of the food buffs seem to make no sense.

    Looking at Farming Skill again as an example, let's assume that the only effect of the skill is to reduce watering can & hoe energy usage by 0.1 per level. The food "Farmer's Lunch" gives a +3 buff to Farming Skill for 5 1/2 minutes, which should mean that it reduces hoe & watering can energy use by 0.3 each. This seems to imply that the intended use for "Farmer's Lunch" is right before using your watering can / hoe a bunch, which for most players is done right at the start of the day, when their energy bar is full. However, "Farmer's Lunch" also restores 200 energy when eaten. This means that, assuming your energy bar is already full, and unless you are going to use your watering can / hoe more than 666 times in 5 1/2 minutes (200 / 0.3 = 666.667), you are better off eating the "Farmer's Lunch" after you do all your farmwork, since you will wind up with more energy in the end. And in that case, you may as well eat any food which provides +200 energy, since you aren't using the buff anyway.

    The same point applies to all the other food buffs: if all they do is reduce energy usage for their associated tools, but they also restore energy, why not just eat them after doing your work, or eat any normal food after doing your work? The exception would be the + Fishing skill food, assuming that the Fishing Skill does indeed increase the length of the green fishing bar, which would make fishing easier. I'm just confused now since if all the "+ Foraging Skill" foods do is reduce the energy use of my Axe by 0.1~0.3 per swing, it's completely pointless to eat them, but if they did stuff like increase quality of harvested forage plants, etc., it might be worthwhile.

    tl;dr:

    What exactly do the various skills do when increased normally / buffed by food? Is it merely just a reduction in energy for the various tools, or are there other benefits such as bigger green fishing bar, better quality harvests, etc? Is there a point to using + Skill buff foods if your skill is already at 10? And if Farming Skill does affect crop quality, how does it interact with Basic / Quality Fertilizer?
     
    • Xenonex

      Xenonex Void-Bound Voyager

      Update! This was really bugging me, so I ran a few simple tests on the Farming Skill, which... have made me a little more confused? From what I've tested, it seems there is a definite difference in your chance to harvest gold/silver quality crops at the start of a fresh game (with 0 Farming skill) and my current character (with 10 Farming skill), presumably due to the difference in Farming Skill (0 vs 10). However, it also appears eating + Farming skill foods has no effect whatsoever on the quality of harvested crops. In fact, nothing at all that you do on the day of harvest seems to affect the quality of your harvested crops, as their quality appears to be set by the RNG when you go to sleep. IE, reloading the same save file over and over yields exactly the same ratio of gold/silver crops every time, and eating + Farming skill food (or anything else you might do) doesn't change it.

      I also thought perhaps your Farming skill at the moment you plant the crop might affect it's quality later when you harvest it, but when doing a set of tests for this, the average of all 6 tests, with 150 samples each time (over 900 Parsnips plucked :p), the quality percentages were within 1% of each other, so I'm thinking that's not a factor.

      So the takeaway is that:
      • Leveling up from Farming Skill 0 to Farming Skill 10 has a large, significant increase in your crop quality.
      • The crop quality for any harvests that day is already set when you go to sleep, meaning + Farming Skill foods / buffs have no effect whatsoever when it comes to harvested crop quality.
      On the one hand this proves that other skills besides Fishing can have beneficial effects aside from the 0.1 less energy per tool use, but on the other hand, in this particular case, buffs from food have no real effects.

      My question now is what possible effects do the other skills have, if any, and are Food buffs useful for them? Hopefully someone has already looked at the game "under the hood" to check on some of these things so testing by hand wouldn't be necessary?


      Below is the methodology of the tests, if you are interested:

      Each test was conducted on a day that the Fortune Teller TV Show predicted "Spirits feel Neutral" so as to eliminate Luck as a factor. Each time I wanted to re-roll the same test conditions in order to take an average, I had to continually sleep until I got another Neutral Luck day. This is because just reloading the save from the same day always yields the EXACT same harvest, so to re-roll the RNG I have to sleep into a new day.

      150 Parsnips planted at Farming Level 10 without buffs, Harvested at Farming Level 10 without buffs, Neutral Luck

      Round 1
      74 normal 49.3%
      49 silver 32.6%
      27 gold 18%

      Round 2
      64 normal 42.6%
      49 silver 32.6%
      37 gold 24.6%

      Round 3
      71 normal 47.3%
      48 silver 32%
      31 gold 20.6%

      AVERAGE
      normal 46.4%
      silver 32.4%
      gold 21.06%




      150 Parsnips planted at Farming Level 10 without buffs, Harvested at Farming Level 10 with a +3 farming boost, Neutral Luck

      An exact copy of the above results. Once you go to sleep / save, the quality of any crops harvested that day is apparently already set by the RNG.



      150 Parsnips planted at Farming Level 10 with a +3 farming boost, Harvested at Farming Level 10 without buffs, Neutral Luck

      66 normal 44%
      52 silver 34.6%
      32 gold 21.3%

      70 normal 46.6%
      48 silver 32%
      32 gold 21.3%

      70 normal 46.6%
      49 silver 32.6%
      31 gold 20.6%

      AVERAGE
      normal 45.7%
      silver 33%
      gold 21%




      50 Parsnips planted at Farming Level 1 without buffs, Harvested at Farming Level 1 without buffs, Neutral Luck

      48 normal 96%
      1 silver 2%
      1 gold 2%
       
        Last edited: Jan 8, 2017
        CyanBlueFarmer likes this.
      • Tigerle

        Tigerle Subatomic Cosmonaut

        Persomally i prefer to go into skull caves with +Luck stat (+1 with Fried Eel (inclusive +1 Speed) or +3 with Lucky Lunch)
        I think, it is better but i`m not sure.
         

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