Ladders will spawn under the same rocks if you restart the day. This means you could pre-check to quite a large extent and then restart. Some rocks will have a ladder under even if they're the first rock you hit on that level. Others will only have a ladder under after you have hit a certain number of other rocks. You can see this chance of spawning a ladder represented visually in MrWint's demonstration of manipulating luck to get the community centre bundles: www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8HWa6eL6qA It is definitely possible to do this after checking the mines and restarting the day. I tried it out when I realised it was possible. It looks quite supernatural, and definitely feels like cheating. Even if a player was happy to feel that way, I don't actually think it's worth doing except as a proof of concept. It's very time-consuming to check and make notes on the mines, and it took me quite a few restarts as sometimes the rock I had found was one that needed other rocks to be broken first - so going straight to it on a restart doesn't work. I think it only got me to level 30 anyway...
Oh, right. That explains it. I had just saved at the start of the level, gone around whacking rocks til I found a ladder, reloaded, went to that rock, no ladder. After seeing MrWint's demonstration of how clay behaves (I only watched that far), it should have been obvious to me that ladders might have used a similar codeblock. If you know what rock it's under when you enter the level, all you have to do is go there. Just as with digging a single clay, if you whack a single rock, the exit is shuffled. Oh, well, to me it's still random. If day 5 is a crappy luck day, I'll deal with it or start a new farm. It's still pretty much essential that be a mining day, what with the rest of the calendar not rearranging itself to suit me. Does strike me as a why bother, though. One could flog the "RNG" by using MrWint's mods to prepare a perfect speedrun. Bash a few rocks that make sense until the ladder materializes close you you. Screenshot it. Maybe do a few levels "legit" so it doesn't look too suspicious. Heck, there's probably even a fishing mod that shows no indication on-screen, or one could be so adapted pretty easily, so even that could be faked. ------ Back to rapidly descending, though, I've been having good luck with buying as much ore as I can on Wednesday so as to drop off the axe when I retrieve the pick Friday. It's only another 2k, which is typically too much for 3pm Wednesday, but there's usually a couple diamonds or rubies or emeralds or SOMETHING to get me partway there. The balance I can pick up and smelt Friday morning before heading to the mine, costing me another hour or so, but saving a couple hours of running back to Clint's in the middle of day 5 or a couple hours of day 6 until he opens. That way I can skip ALL ore/gem nodes in a mad dash to 40, then milk the levels as needed at my leisure. Downside? That's enough cash for 50 strawberries. Probably not a big deal since I'm going to have to go fishing again to get enough food to sustain the mining. It may put 175 strawberries out of reach, but 125 should be do-able. Still not 100% convinced that's better than spending part of that cash on salad and mining my own copper, even at the cost of working around Clint's banker's hours. What I'm seeing might instead be a consequence of the amount of improvement I've made in my mining skills. Question: When getting the axe on Sunday, what's the best choice? Steel axe or steel pick? Or something else? If Sat & Sun were dry, I probably need to spend Monday fishing, regardless of what the weather is supposed to do...
To me, it would depend whether you need ore or wood/hardwood at that time. If you want an early stable, the Steel Axe would probably be better, as that will give you a few extra days in the Secret Woods. I like to have the Steel Axe before Salmonberry Season so I can get into the Secret Woods for extra Salmonberries, and so harvesting wood is faster while foraging for berries. I don't find the Steel Pick a necessity until I hit level 80.
I use both keyboard and mouse to play SDV. Left hand on the arrow keys right hand on the mouse. Number pad is convient between both hands. I usually am using the mouse to click and the arrows to move. However I also have the enter key [to the right of the number pad] as left click and the + key next to the number pad as right click so I don't 'need' the mouse to fight. If the combat situations where switching pick to sword is required has me moving, my left hand is working the arrow keys and I will either use my right thumb to reach the inventory number key, or abandon the mouse to use my right for the swap. Either going back to the mouse for the clicks, or staying there on the number pad. if the combat is a stationary combat then I'll typically shift one/two two/one with my left hand while keeping the right on the mouse. I never learned wasd. I always customize the keybindings. The arrows are pretty much the same configuration as wasd anyway. Does that make sense?
Good point. L6 farming is quite a ways off, so I'm just milking for tappers and sprinklers. No point in pushing to gold level until I get a little closer to strawberry harvest. Never been a huge fan of early stable because it always meant I was forcing things, but being a whole upgrade ahead of usual, plus one slack day (can't pick up on Egg Festival) means that's an easier option. Yeah. I always used arrow keys until my kids bought me a gaming keyboard. So do you leave all the rest of the hotbar alone? Is the now extremely convenient Num - 0 mapped to anything? Your primary edible slot, maybe?
What does a gaming keyboard look like different from a reg keyboard with num pad? num 0 is the escape /inventory/pause check button. I use that a ton so it is in the perfect place. The hot bar is the num pad. <num> <slot> 0 escape/inventory 1 = 1 sword (or scythe if I am able to leave the weapon at the mine and carry the scythe with, or if harvesting crops) 2 = 2 pick 3 = 3 hoe 4 = 4 axe 5 = 5 primary edible 6 = 6 watering can when needed / fishing pole (rarely carry both at same time) 7 = 7 primary ore 8 = 8 secondary edible 9 = 9 secondary ore if need be. misc thing to do like seeds to plant. / = 10 typically things to do today like bait for crab pots/ trash for recycling. * = 11 typically things like tappers to place, kegs to place, seeds, fertilizer - = 12 raw goods for processing. etc. My scroll wheel is not consistent enough to rely on, so I hot key 95% of the time. The other 5 I just mouse click the slot.
The keytops are shaped a little differently on WASD. A little more concave, and the right side of "d", left side of "a" and top of "w" a little taller, so you can tell which is which by feel if you get shifted, rather than finding "f" and shifting over. The model I have has LEDs with adjustable color and brightness under each key; the next model up, each key can have its own color and brightness. And any key can be set up as a macro key, so, for instance, the animation cancel sequence Elenna101 was talking about could be programmed to "f". And why not? The journal shortcut might as well be in my garage for all I need it. And then there's a whole set of keys for storing alternate keybindings, so with one keypress, I can switch to my Dwarf Fortress binding. I'm starting to think I want a different binding for mining than for surface; hey, there's a key for that. Downside is once I get used to that, I can't play on the road anymore unless I haul along my gaming keyboard. For what it's worth, I always thought WASD was poorly thought out. ESDF would have served just as well and left some keys for the pinkie. Oh, right. "E" is a must have. And that is a great place for it. Might have to try out your mapping. At the very least, using Numpad - Enter is a lot more comfortable for right-handed fishing than "c".
The journal shortcut does let you skip cutscenes slightly faster than waiting for the "Skip" button to pop up, for what that's worth. (Probably not worth much, tbh)
