Newbie here who can't figure out how to make much $ in game

Hello!

I have read some articles and done some research... but I still can't figure out how everyone has so much money their first year?!

I'm lucky if I have $300 and people are talking about having over $100,000 into their second season (note: not year, but season!). I am currently on day 12 in summer; so I, too, am in my second season. I did plant some corn, but since I didn't have much money, I could only buy so much.

And the youtubers are saying go collect the shells, the berries, do mining. But there is so little time in a day!

I am enjoying the game, but because of the little money, I can't upgrade my tools. Just a bit frustrated and worried I'm not utilizing my time properly.

OH - and I STILL haven't met everyone yet. I have no idea who I am missing.

Anyway, I still love the game. And the game doesn't care if I'm going as slow as I am. So I'm trying to be good and learn as I go (and read articles/youtube). Although fishing - I still can't figure it out.

Btw, I'm on my cell phone, an android Pixel XL 2.

Thanks! I'm happy to be in this group!

 

Hi!

I usually plant the crops that can be harvest several times, like tomato, coffee, chilly, and many more. That way I don't have to replant it again after harvest, therefore no extra money are used to buy new seeds. It is a pretty good way to pile up money fast.

Or... by having animals, like chickens. It is really expensive in the beginning, but after a while, they will bear some good money. Especially, after you process the raw products from animals, like eggs and milks, in to something more expensive, like cheese and mayonaise. You can sell the final product for a great amount of money (and gifts for your desired partner).

Putting some crab cage at the harbor can also increase your daily profit. Well, of course after you have the access to iron.

To be honest, finding money in Stardew Valley is not my first priority. I prefer focusing myself in making a family in the game (ahem, you know, with Leah). But yes indeed, you can't do much without money (upgrades and stuffs).

By the way, as for fishing, just try to make the fish in the catch area (I don't really know what do they call it) until it fills the bar next to it. After it fills up, you will catch your fish. Just remember that you need bait to start fishing. Better bait and fishing pole will increase and ease your chance to catch the fish.

One last thing, just try to understand the game, like the events, the seasons, and everything. Once you understand it, you will know what to do and not. It's okay, if you waste much of your time on something less fruitful. It is part of understanding the game. I also had that kind of thing in my first try. Good luck! I hope it helps, even though I think the youtubers have a more tricky and faster methods than mine.

If you have more question, we will be glad to answer it. You know, just ask it.

 

Fellow mobile gamer (iOS, here):

My strategy revolves around minimizing interaction due to touchscreen limitations, so the longest-growing, highest-price crops represent my best investment: cauliflower in Spring; melon in Summer; pumpkin in Fall. This gives more time for mining and other activities.

I hate fishing. So, so much. All I can tell you is there's a certain inertia with timing of presses that you'll master with practice. Touchscreen doesn't help with this at all.

I would give lots more advice but wouldn't want to spoil… I played completely blind my 1st 3 & 1/2 years and it was a disaster at least as severe as you describe, but I wouldn't trade it for anything as I wanted to come to terms with the game on my own (though I definitely respect others' choices for themselves in this regard and am happy to share more if you prefer). I now have made roughly a cumulative ~50M gold in-hand (a lot more in "revenue" that I spent on upgrades and such) in ~1500 hours with Stardew Valley.

 

Fishing is generally an excellent way to make cash early on. Fishing does start out hard but as you level it the ‘fishing bar’ will get bigger and thus make it easier

Check the request board often, that’s by the General Store in case you didn’t know, that can net you a small amount of gold if you have what is requested.

Get mining, you’re going to want to stockpile ore and coal anyway.

Fix the beach bridge, it takes 300 wood, and collect and sell the forage items.

When you do get to upgrading your tools plan ahead Clint will keep your tool for two days, so the day you give it to him, the entire next day, then you pick it up the third. If you give him your watering can you can’t water crops the next day and Yoba help you if there’s a festival the day you’re scheduled to pick it up. So plan to turn the watering can over for a day before a rain day, check your tv for a weather report.

 

I suggest to you don't rely on those videos because they are severely outdated, people found many ways to break the game (in a good way) since launch, that Stardew even gained its own place among speedrunners.

The best way to make money is with the artisan perk, that even nerfed still is the best way to make money, I suggest that you check this topic, people are always making harsh things and you can learn a lot of things from them:

https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/min-max-challenges.151011/

I would like to know the best crops for the first year as well, because I took a long break and don't played with crops since, but here are some things that didn't changed:

• Fishing until day 5, store all your fish and sell when you have your first fishing skill (Fisher);
• Alternatively you can focus to max your fishing to lv10 before do anything else, if so store most of your fish until you get the Angler skill;
• Hit hard the mines to unlock level 50, in the perfect scenario you can advance 25 levels, worse should be 15, if bad RNG reset the day;
• Do the mushroom cave trick, personally I think that it is game breaking, but how you wish to play its up to you
  

 

This video is also hopelessly out of date for best mushroom floor farming practice in 1.3, because the way the floors reset in the mines has totally changed. The best floors for farming mushrooms are no longer 81, 91, 101 and 111. If you prepare well, the best floors (in my opinion) are now 89, 96 and 118.

I'm not even going to try making a video, but here is a recent post I made about mushroom farming in 1.3. I must point out that I played absolutely no part in devising the technique described therein.

https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/min-max-challenges.151011/page-5#post-3336790

If you're going to try this, then although I already mentioned it in that post, I'd really like to emphasise once again just how important it is to have enough coffee to last all day. Yes, it costs more than 3k per day to maintain that continuous +1 speed buff from the coffee, but it more than pays for itself in all the extra mushrooms you will get because you can clear floors more quickly and re-visit them more times during that day. Finding a food with +1 speed buff, on top of the coffee, will make mushrooms even better still.

Also, don't get caught up in unnecessary combat with slimes. I tend to kill other things, because they die faster and have good drops, but the slimes simply aren't worth it for the time it takes to kill them. One final reminder, don't make the descent from 119 down to 120, even if there is a free ladder, until you are actually going to skull cavern; once you hit floor 120, the monsters get much stronger

Using @MouseyPounds stardew predictor in conjunction with this technique makes mushrooms an absolute killer way to make early money and set yourself up for skull runs in mid to late spring, which can obviously make even more money. A bad day in skull cavern is still worth more than all bar the best mushroom days

If you're going for most money, therefore assuming lots of artisan processing, the best crops are


Spring - it depends. It could be kale, potatoes or strawberries, depending on what exactly it is you're trying to do. It might even be a combination of crops, but this season will probably get sold raw for funds for summer crops, rather than being processed. It might even be that you choose to make your spring money without any crops at all, concentrating instead on mining, mushroom farming and then getting iridium from skull runs

Summer - Starfruit, with Hops second best if you can't afford enough starfruit to fill your field. Hops do require an absurd number of kegs though.

Fall - Pumpkins. Cranberries can technically make a tiny bit more money, but the upfront cost is higher, and they require so much extra processing capacity, that they're simply not worth the bother

 

I have no advice for you other than just try to play for yourself. I know when you first start it's awesome how much advice there is. But try not to feel pressured to achieve everything in the first year. The game is very driven, that's for sure. But just remember the old saying, "it's the journey, not the destination" The money will start flowing in. They're will come a time when you don't know what to do with all the money that you have. Just enjoy making NPC friends and build the hearts with them. Have fun and welcome!!

 

Here's a better mushroom farming video:

 

Yep, he's the guy I saw doing this on twitch a while back, that made me realise how good mushrooms could be. I couldn't remember his name, but I definitely remember the distinctive voice

 

• Spring: If I purchase strawberries seeds I still will make more money if I straight planted potatoes all the time during spring? I managed to replicate the 90+ strawberries seeds from the min/max challenge without problems before;

• Summer: I believe that I will finish summer with way more hops than kegs, so how do I farm resin efficiently? I know that its something that you guys do all the time, but I never cared to play with kegs;

• Fall: Looks that I need to finish my kegs and not bother with crops, what should I be doing efficiently on fall? Seems that I will have lots of time on my hands;

 

From my experience, and I don't really have much, yeah you end up with a lot of hops but if you're constantly building on your keg farm you'll catch up with them quickly. It takes about 45 kegs to process 800 pale ale in a month. Once you've got more kegs than that it's like you can watch the processing speed up every day. The last few hops go really fast.
(edit: 800 hops is what 50 starters will produce in a season.)

For the oak resin, I plant oak trees north of Joja, then also tap the oak trees at the bus stop, as indicators to show when the others are ready. I try to get at least 20 planted before the end of spring, and hope to have 30 by the time I think it's enough.

 

I found that using the crop planner (http://exnil.github.io/crop_planner/) helped a lot! You can set a schedule for the season so you know when to harvest certain crops, how much money you'll be getting, if you can harvest that strawberry in time for Maru's birthday, etc. There's also this link to a spreadsheet (I forgot who made it) that shows the profit/selling price/buying prices of crops, as well as for food that you cook - but I'm not sure if the values are up to date or not.

In my first playthrough, my priority was getting my house upgraded - if you have a kitchen, you can cook simple meals like sashimi, and they're good presents for a lot of the villagers. The more friends you are with someone, the more gifts they send you, which you can use to make new things, collect new recipes, or you can just sell whatever they send you.

One of my strategies was to a LOT of casks and put them in the basement of my house, gather goat cheese from my goats, and put them in the casks. This probably isn't possible within the the first year and is quite costly (upgrading the house, obtaining wood/hardwood to make the casks, buying an upgraded barn + several goats), but you'll get a lot of money for selling iridium cheese/wine/ale.

In the beginning I just fished a lot and tried to sell as many crops as possible, and then saved up for my house/backpack/buying animals - becoming friends with the villagers wasn't really my priority, but it's good to talk to them to get new recipes and gifts through the mail. Just have fun playing it the way you want to!

 

What was that? Someone asked about how to make money in this game?

Well then...

First off, we need to talk about infrastructure. You're going to want Sprinklers as soon as possible. Like, a lot of them. But they require gold, and Farming 6. Diving the mines down to level 80+ to get the gold necessary can be challenging, but rewarding. You can fit 20 3x3 plots around a single scarecrow. That's at least enough to get you going.

Second off, let's talk profitable crops for your first year.

Spring: Potatoes are a staple first spring cash crop. They've got a small chance of a second potato for bonus cash, and only take just under a week to grow. However, you're going to want numbers, like plots of 40 of them. It's a fine line between stamina for watering your crops and for descending into the mines. Salmonberries really help, especially if you can get Foraging 4 before berry season.

Summer: HOPS! The problem is that a) you need kegs which you probably don't have yet, and b) they are a Trellis crop so you can't walk over them so you have to worry about placement. Melons are also pretty decent cash. Ideally starfruit, but you likely won't have the Bus unlocked in Summer (without powergame strats that you're probably not familiar with).

Fall: Unfortunately, it really kinda sucks. Other than what you need for your bundles, Cranberries are going to be your best bet for pure profit.

Third off, let's talk about the wonderful world of Artisan Goods. Basically, the road to financial success is processing produce into Artisan Goods. Any produce you sell without having processed it first is money you have effectively lost. Well, not quite that bad, but seriously... Kegs and Jars pave the path to wealth.

Jars are good for Vegetables and low-cost fruits like Blueberries, Cranberries, and the like. Kegs are good for Hops and more expensive fruits like Starfruit, Ancient Fruit, and Melons. And you are wanting them in bulk. I tend to build 30 in a batch every week or so, that's how many you're ideally going to be wanting. However, Kegs require Oak Resin, and Jars require just lots of stone, wood, and 8 coal. So you're going to want a grove of 20-30 Oak trees somewhere with tappers on all of them so you can start grinding out your kegs.

The other plant I haven't mentioned yet really is the Ancient Fruit. You can't get it from Pierre's, or from Joja. The only ways to get it are a) Purchase from Cart Vendor, b) As an Artifact either dig spots in the mountains OR as a drop from the insects in the upper floors, or finally c) A roughly 0.5% chance of it randomly being the result of putting something through a Seed Maker. If you don't luck into it through methods A and B, then when Summer rolls around, plant tons of Blueberries, and run them through Seed Makers. Not only will selling the seeds be worth more than the berries themselves, but eventually you will get that precious ancient fruit.

Ancient Fruit goes in your Greenhouse, do NOT plant it until then, unless you find it in Spring, because it takes a full season to grow to full maturity. The low-effort way to use your Greenhouse is to fill it with 116 Ancient Fruit (you'll need 6 Iridium Sprinklers, of which 4 will be on the dirt and 2 will be on a wooden border tile). That means you're going to want 116 Kegs somewhere (I typically use a pair of Sheds, but you can also use a Deluxe Barn if you want) to keep up with them. However, 116 ancient fruit + 116 kegs = a WEEKLY profit of 267,960g or just over a million per SEASON. That's typically more of a Year 2 thing because it requires the Greenhouse and it takes time to iterate your Ancient Fruit to fill your Greenhouse. But this is pretty much why everyone who wants tons of money either go Joja or try to rush the Kitchen bundles for unlocking the Greenhouse as soon as possible. It's generally acknowledged to be possible on Fall 12, or sooner depending on what you can find from your Cart Vendor and use of Deluxe Speed-Gro.

So the tl;dr version:

• Big Plots, like 40-80 crops if you want to get your money rolling in
• Kegs and Jars are critical to multiplying your cash flow
• Sprinklers save your endurance and are extremely useful
• Spring brings Potatoes in year one, and Strawberries or Rhubarb in Year 2
• Summer is a mixture of Hops and Blueberries for your first year (hold onto your Hops until you get Kegs), with Starfruit and Hops for Year 2 and beyond
• Fall is mostly just going to be fields of Cranberries which are put in Preserves Jars

Also, once you get a full greenhouse of 116 ancient fruit, you can save a harvest to run through the seed maker and plant them outside instead of the seasonal plants on Spring 1, since they will produce until Winter comes.

 

Lol what took you so long?

I was confused about potatoes vs strawberries because in all the Min/Max challenges that I saw, people was abandoning potato for use strawberry when available.
I find Preserve Jar somehow more difficult for make than Kegs, sounds like a waste to heavily invest on them for not use anymore in year 2.

 

If you don't have any kegs/jars, or if you have enough to process all the cranberries you'll get, this is true. But if you have a relatively smaller number of kegs/jars, pumpkins might be better.
(Side note: Pumpkins sell for slightly more when processed as juice, but it takes four days, versus three for pickles. Without Artisan (the level 10 farming perk), the prices are 720 for juice or 690 for kegs. Really, either one is probably fine. Cranberries are in a similar position, selling for 225 as wine or 200 as jam, but wine takes 7 days versus about 3 days for jam. I'll just use pickles/jam prices for the rest of this post.)

Hard numbers
In one farming space, you can plant one cranberry plant, which will cost 240g from Pierre. Over the course of the season, this will produce five harvests (this number is not affected by speed-gro or deluxe speed-gro). Each harvest gives you 2 cranberries, "with a small random chance for more Cranberries" according to the wiki. Not sure what that chance is but let's assume one of the harvests will give you an extra cranberry, so you get 11 cranberries total. Each cranberry sells for 75g (assuming normal quality) or 200 as jam (quality doesn't matter when processed). Total profit is 11(75)-240 = 585 for selling raw, or 11(200)-240 = 1960 if you can process all of them.

In the same one farming space, you can plant two pumpkins over the course of the season, or three if you have deluxe speed-gro. Let's assume no speed-gro since Pierre only sells it year 2 onwards. You can buy it from the Oasis at 80g each, but opening up the bus before fall seems unlikely for a first-time playthrough. Crafting it a) requires farming level 8 before fall 1 and b) uses oak resin that could be used crafting kegs.
Seeds cost 100g each, so 200 total. Pumpkins sell for 320 each, or 690 each as pickles, so total profit is 2(320)-200=420, or 2(690)-200 = 1180 with processing.
If you open up the desert and spend 80g on deluxe speed-gro, profit becomes 3(320)-3(100)-80 = 580 or 3(690)-3(100)-80 = 1690.

So it seems like profit numbers are better for cranberries. But say you only have one jar. Processing both those pumpkins only takes about 6 days, while processing all 11 cranberries takes 33 days, more than a season. This is okay if you only have 11 cranberries, but you'll probably plant a lot more than one cranberry plant. Let's say you want to spend no more than 5 weeks (35 days) processing your fall crops (after all, you have spring and summer crops too, and the summer ones will be more valuable). This will take about 1 jar per cranberry plant, but only 1/6 of a jar per pumpkin plant. E.g. if you have about 60 crops like Shneekey recommended, making them all cranberries will take 60 jars to process them all in 5 weeks. Making them all pumpkins will only take 60/6 = 10 jars to process them in about the same time.

I'm pretty sure strawberries are better after the 13th, although it takes a bit of planning (which probably won't happen on a first-time play through). I'll back this up with numbers if you want, but not now, it's almost 2am here. (That's also my excuse for any math or logic errors in the above )

 

In my more profitable setup with 30x Pomegranate Trees, I use Jars to process them until I get the extra 210 kegs, because I'm only losing around a hundred or so per fruit to jar instead of keg, but still making more than enough money to be worth the initial investment. Also, they're critical for your first Fall, because Cranberries in Kegs are only 25g more than Cranberries in Jars and take over twice as long. Considering the bulk you typically plant by fall, 60 or so Jars can be extremely helpful in getting them all processed during the winter season.

As far as Jars worth making... I can generally find something profitable to go in them, even in worst case scenarios. I mean, you don't want to jar salmonberries or blackberries anymore if you get the bear's gift, but there's still going to be plenty you can do around the ancient fruit that can still be modestly profitable.

As far as year 1 goes... Strawberries in Year 1 is still a debated topic. Because you can't start off at the first of the year, you lose several harvests, only able to get two harvests, or three if you use the 20 Deluxe Speed-Gro you get from completing the Spring Bundle (possible with a Day 1 Cauliflower that doesn't get eaten by a crow), and more importantly... do you sell them or do you run them through a seed maker for the next year? On the one hand, you really need that cash in your first spring, because everything you're wanting to do involves lots of money and other resources that can be had with money (namely wood and stone for a barn, a coop, and upgrades to the aforementioned). On the other hand, Strawberries are, bar none, the number one most profitable thing you can do in Spring (technically even moreso than Ancient Fruit since that only gives you a single harvest in Spring assuming Deluxe Speed Gro was used), so do you wait for year two profits or do you get what you can short-term in year one?

Personally, I lean towards getting Strawberries, planting them, and selling them ASAP (or maybe processing them if you have anything capable of processing at that point) because of the snowball effect. You want a huge farm plot going into Summer, and seeds ain't free, yo. Since you're basically paying Abigail's tuition second-hand by buying from Pierre, you're going to need a bankroll to do that with, and Summer is really when your cash can either explode or fizzle depending on what you plant and how much of it you plant. I typically go for a minimum of 40 Melons (for 5 gold star bundle, as well as for profit), 40 Hops, 16 Corn (again for 5 gold star bundle), the rest of the bundle requirements (Poppy for the Chef bundle, hot pepper Tomato for the Summer Crops, Sunflower for the dye bundle...), and fill in remaining space with Blueberries. All planted around 20 Deluxe Sprinklers. Maybe some Wheat as well, for the fodder bundle. Point is... it's going to be around 30k total costs to really get your summer off on the right foot, and failing to do so can really slow your roll.

 

Ok. These big number posts are of course amazing and I have nothing but respect for a lot of the posters here.

Both numbers / planning, and posting wise. I myself have also crafted some pretty seriously detailed plans/expectations for newly started farms taking things I have learned from these folks myself.

But what I was hoping to see in responses to the original post was less
"optimum strategy that needs started at day 1" or "buy more plants than an upgraded tool costs then..x" or "here is an extreme edge case"
and more
"if you've not upgraded any tools and are still at only level 7 in the mines by mid summer your first year; some ideas for how to make more money are:"

so I'll give that a go.

1st. While most folks who make tons of money either go one of four ways 1. Diamond Crystallariums 2. Greenhouse production of pomegranate/hops/starfruit then Mass keg (and maybe cask) those into wines. 3. Iridium truffles or 4 Fishing. - Nearly everything in stardew valley makes money. I say nearly everything because I'm pretty sure buying sunflowers from Pierre and trying to only farm those in season without any outside inflow of cash will lose money. But pretty much everything makes money.

So my first piece of advice would be for you to decide what you want your farm to be, and how you think you'd like to make your money. Do you want lots of animals? Lots of crops? A mix? etc.
And then steps can be taken from where you are now, to where you can make money to get there, and then make money from there.

2nd. Upgraded tools make life easier.
a. Sometimes you spend less real time doing something which gets you more things you can do in the same hours in the day.
Chopping trees (axe) and breaking rocks (pick) reduces the number of strikes required. More squares watered (can) at once means less time watering.
b. With upgrades energy expended on each use is also reduced. Doing the same amount of work with less energy used will also let you do more things in your day.
c. Upgraded tools can give you access to new resources or areas cleared. The copper axe allows you to clear the large hardwood stumps from your farm which allows more money generation via tillable land or area for buildings and yields hardwood which is useful too. the steel pick allows you to break the large boulders on your farm for yet more area. The steel axe allows you to remove the large hardwood fallen logs for yet more land and hardwood.

So you will want to upgrade your tools. to do that, you'll need money and bars. $2000 and 5 copper bars for a copper upgrade to the axe, pick or watering can. I'd suggest on the first play through and all non themed or planned min/maxes that need different, going with the pick upgrade first. Time spent in the mines is precious and limited, so the easier it is to get more ore for later for the other bars and other upgrades the better. -In my opinion.


3. Increased ranks in each category unlocks new items and perks. Especially the farming levels getting you the artisan production. The mayo machine at 2 is great, but only useful if you have chickens in a coop, which is expensive. The beehive at 3 is better, but that requires iron and syrup and that involves tappers and copper; so mining is required anything around level 45 should be enough though. The preserves jar at 4 is a good one I think. It does require coal which you have to mine for or buy from Clint. but this one has a better rate of return I feel than the others. It can take cheap crops and turn them into much more expensive jellies or pickles in a short amount of time with only needing to descend into the mine to 45 or so if that deep . The cheese press at 6 is great, if you have a barn and cows and it requires hardwood, so an upgraded axe will be required. The loom at 7 requires upgraded barns and sheep to really work. A much longer term profit goal is required in my opinion. The kegs at 8 really shine, especially if you have hops. Pale ale is ready in two days and sells for a bunch. It really only requires level 45 in the mines.

Increasing farming rank requires harvesting plants. In the summer I recommend the melons, hops or blueberries. Corn sadly is one of the weaker profit generators which only makes its money if harvested through all of the fall. I'd look for things to sell and plant some melons if you still have time to get a harvest of those in. Blue berries really shine if started at the beginning of the season, but can provide nice input into preserves jars if you have access to them, planting some of them will help if you can process them. If you have access to kegs hops are nice, otherwise maybe not this year.
Peppers are also cheaper than melons and are easily process-able for a profit, they might be an option for you.
Things to sell. Fiber that is laying about. Forage. (if you can craft wild seeds from the forage do that and sell seeds instead of selling the forage by themselves) Fish. Gems and Minerals. Monster remains like slime. All of those things can be easily replaceable once your farm is generating money.

Start with about 20 to 40 fields or so if you can. One full basic watering can has 40 charges so one time through that watering is a decent chunk of energy and time for crops. You'll want the rest of the time to push the mines to get yourself the ores for the upgrades and artisan goods above.

sorry it's long and 'spoiler-ish' and maybe unwanted . But this is my attempt at adding value to the conversation.
any questions feel free.

cheers

@schneeky. I agree strawberries especially speed grown sold immediately works very well to influx the capital required to jump start summer and thus the rest of your farm. I'm struggling to find the balance between watering requirements and getting to level 80 for sprinkers, but my personal best is 35 speed grow day 13 strawberries with another 30 regular.
Question though since I was just about to sit down and plan my next summer planting very much along these lines - :20 quality sprinklers is 160 fields. And by my math on your 40 melons, 40 hops 16 corn, 2x poppy, 2x sunflower, 2x pepper and 2x tomatoe then 56 blueberries I get only 13,160. This is a less than half of your quoted 30k cost.
What am I missing?
-edit to say I realize for some reason I totaled 176 crops, not 160. I believe I got my notes crossed between his number at 160 and my plan to get 64 blueberries since I have 65 speed grow.
and goofed it all up. so I've fixed the math.

 

I saw your post in the min/max thread and it was like a light bulb going off. I went back and tried it on a hilltop farm save and it was really good. Managed to get to 100k in Spring. (update here) That's a PB for me.

I've seen Tooshi stream and some of his video's, but hadn't watched him from the start of a challenge. His day 3, copper pickaxe inspired me but my attempts came down to me losing too many catfish. Getting the pickaxe into the shop on day 4 is the best I could manage. It put me a day late getting into the mine, still, the chase had begun. Hit mushrooms on floor 107, the figure 8 level, on the 12th. It was slow getting there, but that one day funded 100 strawberries and put me back on track for sprinklers by summer.

 

Pretty sure that's only true for the watering can? regardless, upgrading is definitely good. I'd lean towards not upgrading the watering can past copper, iron at the most. If you've got gold, use that to make sprinklers instead. Pickaxe and axe likewise probably don't have to be upgraded past iron. Copper hoe is probably plenty unless you're doing really big crops, since you're only really using it once a season.

 

With the watering can breaking it down to each "click" as a "use" is obvious since you are actually intending to water that square or squares and maybe will walk away since you are done. The purpose of the tool is to water that ground. One use and it is watered. But breaking rocks and chopping trees I think "use" is more aptly applied to the broader application of removing the object, not a click. No-one strikes a tree with an axe just because. Same with breaking the later rocks.

When I chop a tree with a regular axe it takes 10 strikes to drop the top. 2 energy for 10 strikes is 20 energy. When I chop the same tree with a copper axe it takes 8 strikes to drop the top. 2 energy for 8 strikes is 16 energy. The tree is down and I've got 4 more energy than before. While the strike is not itself reduced I would argue that the use in chopping the tree and harvesting the lumber is correct. If an in-elegant way to phrase it.
Breaking rocks in 1 strike instead of 2 halves the energy expended clearing them.
You save time and energy both. -which is the two points I was intending to make.

cheers