Min/max challenges

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by squigglyruth, Dec 23, 2018.

  1. jmababa

    jmababa Orbital Explorer

    Min max challenge try my farm hilltop void mayonnaise farm can do 2 batches per day. It's work no automated but it's worth more than ancient fruit wine. Egg is expensive and hard to get 5k crobus sewers or wait for regular egg to turn into 1 or buy for cheap 500g to 700g in cart which is about as rare as rabbits foot on enemies. Also it requires big coop
     
      Last edited: May 1, 2019
    • Elenna101

      Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

      Firstly, I blame this recommendation for all the productive stuff I've procrastinated on doing in the last week in favor of watching TheHaboo's streams. :p :D
      Secondly, in the stream he did yesterday, he hit floor 100 at 7 30 pm on spring 12, so there's a goal, I guess? O.O
       
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      • UnexpectedParole

        UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

        Frankly, I'm seeing him hit ladders on early rocks way , way, way more than I get. What is he doing different than I am?
         
        • Elenna101

          Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

          If you're looking at the world-record speedrun, I'm guessing that was particularly good luck (real-life luck, not the game stat) which is part of why that was a record.

          If you're looking at his streams... idk, besides using bombs and going on good luck days.

          (Also the early skull cavern is at timestamp 1:01: 35 of https://www.twitch.tv/videos/418630634)
           
          • squigglyruth

            squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

            Wow!
            And there was me feeling great when I just unlocked Skull Cavern and the bus by Spring 13. I don't think I stand much chance of getting to 100 on the 13th, though - it is a bad luck day, and I only have 300 stone and two cherry bombs, plus a tiny amount of assorted food... I was going to collect bomb materials on 13th and then dive down on 14th, but now I'm feeling kind-of inadequate!
            I've got to the point where I can mine 20 or 25 levels a day, and the mushrooms were kind to me this run, but I still didn't have enough mushrooms to raise the 40k for the bus before the store closed on 11th. Not to mention the fact that I was only on 105 in the mines by that point - I stopped descending in order to hit mushroom levels. I guess I will have to up my game a bit further! First some practice in Skull Cavern, though - I've never actually done a run to level 100, so I will need to get my head round the strategy. I find the serpents completely terrifying...

            Now that I've played a lot in the mines, I get the feeling that the ladder generation isn't as random as it used to be in 1.2. I've replayed days after dying and found many (though not all) of the ladders in exactly the same place as they were the first time round. I'm not saying that the player in the video is doing this, but I think it might be possible to up your odds of hitting ladders fast by playing through the mine levels, noting where the ladders are, quitting out and trying the day again. I tried that for one day, and it would have looked pretty magic to someone watching a video of it...
             
            • UnexpectedParole

              UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

              That is a very interesting idea. I'll have to chalk it up to yet another one of those boosts I might try to see if it works, then avoid using it.
              I think that is 3 now?
              1. Staying up until 2am to pass out where-ever instead of getting home to sleep.
              2. Opening the journal while fishing to catch something on every cast.
              3. Playing a day in the mines over and over until I can max levels for the run.

              I'm not a good min-maxer which is why the efficiency stuff really is important to me.
               
              • squigglyruth

                squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

                Yeah, I haven't thoroughly tested it out because the day it tried it for felt quite wrong. I only played through three times, but on the third time I got down 10 levels further than on the first time: 24 rather than 14. Still only 20 levels for the elevator, which I can often manage anyway, but it was a very unlucky day and it felt like further would be possible if I played through a fourth time. It wasn't all the ladders appearing in the same spot each time, but it was most of them - maybe 8 out of every 10. It's a strange feeling to walk past all the rocks in a crowded cave on an unlucky day and get a ladder first hit. It's possible it was still just RNG, but it didn't feel like it.

                I find it interesting that you class the other two boosts together. I've never even tried the fishing journal exploit because it feels like an unintentional bug that offers far too much advantage. By contrast, passing out at 2am seems like it's just part of the choices of normal play. It loses you money and there's a good chance of starting the next day very low on energy, so it's normally not worth it, but I don't see anything wrong with using it.
                 
                • UnexpectedParole

                  UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                  I moved to a new house. Why would I not sleep in it? "Oh because I know if I pretend to be poor (carry no cash) then they'll bring me home for free? And, since I'm totally aware of when I *level up* that is using meta to game the game. I know I will get a free recharge for the level up. Cheap and lame and not an intended feature. So it's an 'exploit' to me, other folks' mileage does vary, and that is ok. But sure I want to be efficient, but I left the rat race, min maxing <like that> seems counter to the storyline and goal.

                  I'll stay out if I lose track of time. If I pass out, then stuff happens. Sometimes I'm not charged , sometimes I just hit a level and it doesn't give me the engery penalty. That is chance and 'ok' for me. Knowingly exploiting a loophole in the game mehcanics/logic doesn't cut it.


                  cheers
                   
                  • UnexpectedParole

                    UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                    I have always heard about farming mushroom levels and since I don't see them very often I didn't know what that really meant. Most times I'll see a mush room or two on the level and "wow, seems like a poor idea to me" and every once in a while (like 3 times in 850+ hours) I'll see one with lots of purple mushrooms and lots of red mushrooms.
                    So I figured people were just finding the bigger levels for the large amounts of money.
                    Nope, just finally watched a video and see the exit and re-enter to trigger a re-spawn of the levels.
                    That makes the list of things I can't do.
                    My brain can't wrap itself around going on a floor more than once a day since I was just there and it was not only different, but cleared. I have a hard enough time with the mine being different each day, but at least for me that is a play sacrifice for the random generation of a mine.
                    I can cope. To specifically manipulate that randomization feature to regenerate profitable situations is too meta for me.

                    guess my hope of every finding a really big cavern floor with 10k worth of mushrooms on it when I finally get down to the lower levels has been crushed.
                    Off to find better ways to be more efficient at making money. lol
                     
                    • squigglyruth

                      squigglyruth Pangalactic Porcupine

                      Until I read this, I was completely unaware of any connection between leveling up and the effects of staying out to 2am. I thought the effects were just a bit random.
                      I never had a problem imagining my character getting caught up in mining or whatever and losing track of time. 2am is an artificial cut-off, so it seems fine to sometimes miss it if you're into an activity. The penalty the next day shows that this is a choice that we are meant to be able to make.

                      I agree. Which makes me sad that you pointed out the loophole! Now I will have to make sure I keep track of time and always get to bed. Its sad not to have the choice to risk the penalty if I'm near to the next elevator checkpoint :(
                       
                      • One More Day

                        One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                        Streamer luck, obviously

                        Seriously though, he's a speed runner. This means he has worked out a route, which contains everything he needs to do, and when, and which he follows slavishly; it has certain milestones which must be done by certain times to stay on track to beat the target time. Then he runs that route dozens or even hundreds of times. But.... most of those runs die, either because he takes too long to do something, or forgets to do something, or dies in the mines, or just runs bad on RNG (eg no rain in Fall for the Walleye). And all those runs that die obviously never make it onto youtube, so all you see is him in god-mode going down the mines that one time it all fell into place. I mean, obviously he's still better at the game than most people, but it's a really good run even by his standards. So, in answer to your questions, what he mostly does different is he plays it a lot more times, which not only makes him more skilful, but gives him many more opportunities to get really lucky

                        If you want to see the extreme lengths speed runners go to, google Super Mario Bros speed running; it was released on the NES in about 1984, and 35 years later still has people trying to shave off fractions of a second as they try to execute five minutes of literally pixel perfect play. Some of them might not get even one competitive run per 1,000 attempts, but they still keep trying

                        Yeah? Hadn't checked his channel for ages, so didn't see that. I thought I did OK to significantly improve on my previous effort and get there late in the day on spring 15, but now it feels a bit crap in comparison. I should really have been able to do it on spring 13, but I had bad luck every day from days 5 to 8 as I descended, which meant I started mushroom farming later than planned and as a consequence I couldn't quite afford enough explosive ammo on day 12 to go on day 13. And obviously I couldn't buy on day 13 because everything is closed for the festival, so I couldn't do the dive on day 14 either. But no way even good luck could have got me there on day 12, he's a beast in the mines.


                        Basically this. Explosives break rocks fast, and don't use energy

                        Explosive ammo in the slingshot is probably fastest/cheapest way to acquire what you need to get down. It's 100g a pop at the guild, so just 30,000g, or one really good day of mushrooms, should get you enough ammo to last a day in skull cavern, much faster than mining hundreds of iron ore and dozens of coal to craft bombs. Plus the ammo explodes immediately, saving time, while bombs have a delay. As for food, if you've been picking purple mushrooms, just keep back 30 or so, and pick up whatever cactus you forage on the day, and you should be good to go.

                        Nope, that's not how the game works out how ladders drop; they aren't fixed in place, and any similar positions you may have seen is purely coincidental.


                        I agree with this 100%. My feeling is that the fishing bug is a bit of a game breaker, because you can hit Fishing 10 in three days, whereas the 2am thing is just a small edge to push. Obviously there are different views on this though; some people use the fishing bug as well, because they take the view that if the game code allows you to do it then it's OK, while some people always make their own way to bed before 2am. But nobody is right or wrong about their choices, it's totally about how you want to play the game.

                        Once you have Foraging 10 - Botanist for iridium quality forage, on top of the double dip chance from Foraging 5 - Gatherer, it's probably possible to pick up 10k in one visit if you luck into a really good spawn on one of the really good floors (89, 96, 118). Not likely, but not impossible either.

                        ******************************

                        I've set myself a challenge, to see how much gold I can get in a single year. I happened to check thehaboo's twitch earlier this afternoon, for the first time in quite a while, and I saw he's aiming for 40 million in hand! I rather doubt I'm going to be able to do that, but I'm going to try for 20 million instead, which might be more achievable for me. I did 11 million recently, and that was only selling what I was able to get processed in kegs, and I had about 1 million more in unprocessed crops, resources and other stuff left over that I didn't actually sell even though I could have, eg. I think my sprinklers were probably worth at least 50k if I'd sold them, and I had stacks of unsmelted surplus gold ore at 25k per stack.

                        Also, having done that and hopefully learned from it, I now know how I can do much better in each of the seasons, particularly winter and how to get a lot more stuff processed. I'd also not bother with mixing in hops with the starfruit in summer, even though it has great money making potential, because it just needs too much daily attention and too much processing. Instead I'll just stick to getting as much starfruit as possible. I'd also expand everything a lot faster too; I was simply too caution and took too long with expanding both my sprinklers and my kegs. This is going to be fun :)
                         
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                        • Elenna101

                          Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                          For what it's worth, he got 24 million in hand earlier, and XianjiTV is probably going to end the year with close to 40 million in hand soon, but both runs involved a lot of resetting days. (As in, Haboo's current run was on 17 resets by Spring 13.) So that may or may not be a difference from your current playstyle.

                          Edit to avoid double post:

                          BTW, my last attempt at the Summer 16 CC died because I messed up some inventory/time management stuff and didn't get enough mushrooms to open the vault in time. I could try again, but I'm kind of more interested in challenging myself to get all the Grandpa evaluation points (except the museum, obviously) by the end of year 1. (Which will probably be significantly easier than the CC thing, tbh. :p )

                          Also in possible challenges, XianjiTV apparently intends to try to marry Haley in Spring year 1? This requires a) completing the vault by the 11th for coconuts as a loved gift by week 2 and b) getting foraging 10 early in the third week for iridium quality gifts in weeks 3 and 4. Plus the good luck of getting gold quality gifts before hitting foraging 10, getting enough coconuts, and getting at least one quest from Haley that you can fulfill. But I can see how it would be theoretically possible, although I don't think I could do it myself.
                           
                            Last edited: May 29, 2019
                            minervamaga likes this.
                          • One More Day

                            One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                            Oh yeah, definitely a difference. I doubt I reset that much in the whole year, never mind the first two weeks.

                            Obviously, dying in skull cavern is almost always a reset, unless it is already almost 2am, and I don't lose anything important from my inventory. But I'm not as aggressive as haboo, because I simply can't pull that style off successfully, and so I don't die as often, the trade off being I don't get as deep as him or being back as much shiny stuff as him. I usually top out around floor 150 and 500 iridium, even on the best luck day, while I've regularly seen him bring back twice what I usually get, which is 350 to 400.

                            I also don't expect to be below floor 80 and mushroom farming by day 7 or whatever, because I can't descend that fast, so I won't be so resetting days 5 or 6 to get down 30 or 35 levels a day either, I'll happily settle for 20 to 25 levels.

                            I might have to reset day 3 if I miss too many catfish, because both money and the XP for Fishing 5 are important there. Also there are days where I cut it really fine to visit Clint or Pierre just before they close, or catch the bus to Oasis at 4.50 pm, so missing any of those deadlines is also a reset. But otherwise I will take what the RNG gives me, and only otherwise reset if I do something ridiculously stupid
                             
                            • BentFX

                              BentFX Cosmic Narwhal

                              Just curious? Has anybody put any thought into speedrunning the slime charmer ring? I've got so many irons in the fire right now. I'm getting about 1/3 competent at mushroom farming, and struggling with learning to get proficient with explosive ammo. I'm trying to work both of those into my game plan, and something that's been stirring in the back of my head, is after finishing spring, getting sprinklers down and hopefully a few starfruit, how long do you figure it would take to farm slime levels to get the ring before heading to the SC.

                              I don't want to sound pessimistic, or sound like I've got a self defeating attitude, but... Chasing the min/max big dogs isn't a viable strategy for me. The SC eats me alive. I watch guys like XianjiTV and know it's foolish to try to copy what he does. My mind doesn't even work fast enough to watch sometimes. On a decent luck day I can usually push down to floor 100, with a minimum of staircases and a inventory full of purchased resources, but death is always just a floor away. Usually, it's in a flurry rush of serpents with a slime between my feet.

                              Getting the slime charmer ring early could be a game changer for me and I've got it on my radar. Just curious if anyone's really pushed that before? Thoughts?

                              EDIT: I just looked through my save files. I've actually got one, Spring 19 of year 2, where I've got the galaxy sword, 443 slime left to go, and slimes are on floor 16 today. I'm just going to go do this. Still, thoughts are welcome.

                              EDIT AGAIN: With spicy eel, coffee and the savage ring, I killed 334 between ~7 am and 2 am. Just need 109 more and can see that it will be easy to do. Day after tomorrow I'll ladder down and farm floor 14, which should be just a slime bath, since there's no stones to get in the way. Just run and slay, then wait for the guild to open.

                              EDITING STILL: Just dawned on me, floor 14 is a big floor with lots of hiding places... but you don't have to clear the floor. You can get out and back in on any clock tick.

                              LAST EDIT, I PROMISE: I gotta delete that day. I realized I left 224 speed-gro starfruit in the lower 40 that have got to be harvested. But as proof of concept it was a success. After pushing down through the mine, with a decent sword, it should take 4 days at most to finish off 1,000 green slimes.

                              OKAY SO I LIE... but you'll find I'm stupid too. I was tired, deleted files, renamed _olds and went to bed. First thing on looking at this again, with fresh eyes, I realized that date was Spring 19, not Summer 19. I didn't have speed-gro starfruit hiding off screen. I replayed that day and got within 2 slimes of the same kill total. Then the 14th I went back and finished out the slimes by 2:20pm. Got my mind back into this save. It's my CC+ challenge; The Community Center and Return Scepter (2M in hand) by the first cabbage harvest. The way it's rolling - 1.6M cash, ancient fruit greenhouse fully planted and starting to produce, plus 340 kegs - I may have to sell some of my first starfruit harvest, rather than keg it, but I'm sure it'll get done. Plus if the infested ice levels, early next month, turn out the way I hope, I should have the monster eradication goals met too. With the slime charmer ring, farming dust sprites should be a walk in the park. Just ignore the slimes while I run and gun sprites. Only need 195 more.
                               
                                Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
                              • One More Day

                                One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                                Never even considered speedrunning it as such. I used to make it something to get, but now I think it's really not worth the bother for me.
                                Not until long after I want to be in skull cavern. I'd rather farm mushrooms than slimes. Without slime floors I'd make a wildass guess at it taking two to three weeks nonstop grinding to get 1,000 slimes. Even if you got slime floors with good layouts for farming you might be able to pump those numbers up and do it inside a week, but it's a lot harder without a galaxy sword, because it takes more time to kill the slimes without it, and much more time than to pick up a mushroom. If you're going to pursue this line, this might be the only occasion where it's worth buying the lava katana as part of a strategy, but the down side is that you need to get to floor 120 to unlock it at the guild, and of course once you reach floor 120 the monsters get stronger and harder to kill.

                                Yeah, I totally agree with this, my eyes hurt just trying to follow what he's doing, never mind getting my fingers moving fast enough to try replicating it. I used a really old farm, which I basically use as a sandbox now, which has chests full of resources and mountains of spare cash to buy a backpack full of stones, to actually have a go at what he does. I staircased down to about 200 (and by the way, even that took me half again as long as it took him) and then started with the slingshot and explosive ammo, and I only got 1,700 ore by the time I collapsed at 2am. For comparison, he reckons getting 4,000 ore is just about the bottom limit of acceptable for him, and he prefers 5,000+

                                After expenses for 400x ammo (40k), 50x salad/10x coffee (14k), 340x coal to smelt the ore (51k at Y1 price), and 20 stacks of stone (400k at Y1 price) my costs were around 505k. After smelting it all into 340 bars, it sold for 510k (with Blacksmith perk) so I barely broke even on the iridium and the profit only came from gems. I got 23 shards, worth 46k and about 15k of other gems, so my total profit was only 60k, and that was hard work.

                                By comparison, if he "only" gets his bare minimum 4,000, his expenses are 120k for coal, maybe 80k for ammo if he burns through most of a stack, and the same as me for stones and food/coffee, total say 620k if he has a bit more food than me. But his earnings are 800 bars worth 1.2 million, for a profit around 600k, plus over 100k more on top of that for gems because he regular gets 50+ shards. If he gets 5,000 ore then it's almost pure profit bar the extra coal cost to smelt it, and he gets near 1million profit for the day.

                                Yeah, I do always like to make sure I have a few hundred stones spare to make an emergency staircase to get out of trouble, and still have some left over in case I need two or three more in quick succession. Even if the floor has stacks of iridium, I think you're better of going down to escape the swarm rather than risking dying, because there'll surely be more good floors to pillage. I do very little fighting anywhere, running is much better. Speed are more important than anything in skull cavern imo, so I want a continuous +1 buff from coffee, and if I don't have any spicy eel then I think it's worth killing a few iridium crabs early in the day to get a small supply of crab cakes for another +1 speed. When you're +2 you can actually outrun the serpents quite comfortably.
                                 
                                • Elenna101

                                  Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                  Yeah, I have no clue how Xianji does skull cavern as fast as he does. It's pretty amazing, but also hard to follow.

                                  I do probably need to use more coffee in Skull Cavern. My problem is that I somehow fail to notice when it runs out, and then I realize I've been working without it for the last few in-game hours. (Yes, it is a fairly obvious difference in speed. No, I don't know how I miss the change in speed. :p )
                                   
                                  • One More Day

                                    One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                                    I've just got into the habit of checking how much time left on my speed buffs every time I eat to heal my HP, and as soon as it gets within ten seconds or so, I just chug back another coffee to avoid even one second without the buff. It'll only add up to an extra one or two more coffee during the course of the dive, but if it gains me even a fraction of a second at the back end of the day to break one more iridium node, then it has paid for itself.
                                     
                                    • Ziggz

                                      Ziggz Tentacle Wrangler

                                      I used to be pleased to get 200 ore until I watched Xanjitv, now I feel a failure lol
                                       
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                                      • BentFX

                                        BentFX Cosmic Narwhal

                                        Okay, was spurred on by that other conversation. Got farming 10, unlocked the bus and sewer, 224k earnings and 86k in pocket, on the forest farm. It's no record breaker, but by far a PB.
                                        Only had 2 part days of mushrooms and only got 1 Legend, from five bites.(level 9 with fish soup sux)

                                        My oak farm never really got built like it should but next time will be better. Did get 2 ancient fruit in the ground on the 10th and another on the 14th. Only ended up with 40 sprinklers but that's enough to get the existing space watered and I've got Krobus now.

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                                        • BentFX

                                          BentFX Cosmic Narwhal

                                          Hey, @One More Day, chat me up about your game, would you? Given the goal of pushing agriculturist and the bus in Spring, what do you consider are some good conservative milestones, and pinch points?

                                          You know me. I don't even really want to be a min/maxer, but after realizing how easy (It's lots of watering but F.) it is to get farming 10 and the bus in Spring, I can see it becoming my new 9x9. I've done it four times now but ran into bottle necks in early Summer. In my most recent game, I discovered the Luau/Oasis collision on Summer 11. I know you've mentioned it, but still, I didn't plan for it. I deleted the _old files so I could get seeds at least on the 10th but am looking at restarting, with the plan to buy extra DSG on the 4th.

                                          The SC still treats me badly and without investment in huge amounts of resources, it isn't really an option for me in early Summer. But I can do about 7-8k daily fishing sturgeon and super cucumbers. I've got ~190 blueberries that start producing ~35k, every four days, on the 12th, which I figure will fund buildings and my keg farm. I've also got 50 hops, for buffering new kegs, to keep the wine mostly all on the same schedule, which coincidentally, given the two extra harvests with agriculturist, pays for using the statue.

                                          I am on the forest farm, can't change my mind on that. For me it's not about breaking any records, it's about tweaking what's available, for optimization.

                                          Any input is appreciated.
                                           

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