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

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by daisymaisy, May 17, 2019.

Tags:
  1. WilliamZ

    WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

    Just to add, with the recent strategies I also believe that water can should be upgraded to copper only, pickaxe to iron and don't touch your axe at all, upgrade your axe straight to iron for help cleaning your farm when you have spare money (usually during the fall for me, or late summer), it's better to convert that money into seeds and buy the materials from Robin, since it's cheaper in the first year and you need to raise your farm level anyways.

    I'm still not sold on the Preserve Jars, I was thinking if is better to invest in kegs on the second year, for a less stressful and newbie friendly gameplay.
     
    • UnexpectedParole

      UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

      If you can get to gold in the mines and build quality sprinklers, then yes I think a copper watering can is more than enough.
      I'm not sure what you mean about not touching you axe at all then upgrading ti straight to iron.?

      Getting the stables is a huge game changer. Which requires hardwood and at least a copper upgrade to the axe. I've rushed stables before and wow! the ability to travel that fast really lets you get more things done in a day. But that was way too advanced for this thread I figured.

      Either way the reduction in time and energy spent getting the wood and sap and seeds you need makes at least the copper and iron axe upgrades a good investment in my opinion.

      -
      Wanted to also point out to Op that I left out advising fishing for cash since I can't recall how you were situated in that regards. Some platforms are not good for fishing and some folks don't like fishing.
      I struggle to catch catfish even in summer while level 7 fishing, and read daily about guys who catch multiple on day 3. So I don't fund things with fish quite as often as many of the mega millions guys. (Which is why I don't make millions.) :)
       
      • BentFX

        BentFX Cosmic Narwhal

        I disagree on the axe. My main focus is usually the CC and I always upgrade to iron during the first spring, to get access to the secret woods. In general, in this order, I do copper pickaxe, iron axe, then copper water can in the first Spring, then just work with that, and upgrade everything to gold, at least, during the winter.

        I've never been a big fan of preserve jars but plan to go over the top on them, soon. Kegs are limited by oak resin, but you can just purchase the materials for preserve jars. I want to see what can be done by just going silly, dumping everything into a jar farm.
         
        • WilliamZ

          WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

          I forgot that you guys are saiyajins lol, to be honest 7,5k for upgrade the axe never was a problem for me, not counting that I play on unorthodox ways, so a straight money maker like jars or kegs should be piece of cake. I like to have my pickaxe to gold soon as possible and then I upgrade my Axe to iron, the extra energy spent on the lava levels using the iron axe really bugs me, but I know that a lot of people are fine with the axe to iron only.
          @UnexpectedParole stables are a luxury that I afford later on, I'm more than happy with the mine carts alone.

          I not bother with battery packs anymore after the skull cave update, I find better to raise money and purchase Iridium Sprinklers directly from Krobus.

          I made some math to see how many materials I would use for a resonable run into the caves:
          • 20g stone x1.000 = 20.000g (10 staircases, probably you have +500 stones from your trips by now)
          • 220g salad x50 = 11.000g (vs 6k from the barn + 1.5k from one cow, if you save the cheese only for this purpose)
          • 600g bomb x20 = 12.000g
          • 300g coffee x20 = 6.000g (or 3k for 10x coffee, I believe that you're safe with only 10)
          Now with one Iridium Sprinkler, you spend 10k and receive 5.040g (210gx24) if you're using blueberry jam, or 10.080g from Pale Ale without stars (420gx24, so it should net you more).

          Edit: I compared salads to cows because It's reasonable to purchase the barn and have one cow at the end of summer, then plain your trips to skull cavern in the winter, you're going to want one barn for your kegs/jars anyways, but chances are that until the winter you will be swimming in cash already.
           
            Last edited: May 20, 2019
          • ShneekeyTheLost

            ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

            I... would not necessarily agree here.

            Once you get sprinklers, hoe and watering can upgrades are only going to be effective on the first day of each season that you didn't have things in every slot (which should only be spring, generally). And that's $4k that you can put elsewhere, including a bag upgrade that would not go amiss. The only really critical upgrades are your Pickaxe to descend the mines faster and the Axe so you can chop stumps. Axe upgrade is only particularly viable if you are on the forest farm map and have the renewable stumps to grind foraging xp on to hit Foraging 4 before Salmonberry season (doubles your number of berries you get) and Foraging 6 before your first Spring so you can get at least a few Lightning Rods down for the summer storms.

            So, barring the pickaxe, I'd consider tool upgrades secondary at best.


            In my latest run, I did two plots of 160 squares, your math is correct, I was sleep-deprivation posting.
             
            • UnexpectedParole

              UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

              I've run many a farm without upgrading the watering can. Either having sprinklers by the end of Spring 1st year, or replacing wheat daily with the sprinklers during the first week of summer. The watering can is then relegated to the bin. I can't say any of them were a peaceful relaxed game like this original poster was referring to. I have also not been able to rush sprinklers starting in mid summer from near scratch.

              Sprinklers are sadly not 'easy' for all. Especially if you did not start on day 1. And if you have issues fishing which is a very common occurance.

              So back in the non-max run in which I was taking about, getting the watering can upgraded at least once for the extra capacity and time saving issues for late summer or early fall has merit.
              Hopefully over the winter there will be time to build up the sprinklers to be ready for Spring Yr 2.

              I'm only speculating as to the conditions of the farm and trying to keep it broad and generic. I'm not even trying to begin to edge case cc completion or something else more complex than continuing to play along as they have been with small suggestions for things to do to improve cash flow. Heck I didn't even get into what to do in winter yet.

              I did not advocate the upgrade of the hoe. I too think it is not necessary. Especially from summer to fall when many of your crops will hopefully be blueberries which will preserve the ground or wheat or corn which will carrry over. that 2000 worth should be put into crops to plant in summer and fall to make money.

              As for the cost discrepancy, Twice 13k is much closer to 30k, fair enough.

              @WilliamZ . This farm I'm talking about doesn't have access to skull caverns. And doesn't have the mining carts either.
              In fact, in my own farms I've only accessed the skull caverns in 3 farms of my 850+ hours of play throughs. If you want to play a game where you do a lot of deliveries, forage a lot, and need to get around to visit with the townsfolk like I do, the stables are a viable option. I'm throwing out suggestions for a new player. I certainly don't think your way is wrong.
              I'm just saying I followed a strat that got me stables in early spring (before coop and barn) and it was insanely helpful to have that extra movement. I don't usually go for the stables early because right now I'm pushing for early sprinklers for watering freedom and those two things are not compatible <yet>

              Back to original poster, if fishing is an option, I would recommend upgrading the pole at least once and using bait as quickly as possible and that will increase your monetary rewards for fishing too. I hope at least some of the information provided by everyone is helpful. welcome to the group.
               
              • Elenna101

                Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                Yeah, but that assumes you can get sprinklers relatively easily, which may not be true for a new player. (In my first playthrough I don't think I had quality sprinklers till year 3, because the mines scared me.) If you don't have sprinklers, watering can upgrades are definitely super helpful.
                (But like I said earlier, gold watering can is super pointless when you can use that gold to make sprinklers. Iron watering can may not be worth it either, depending on how fast you're getting down the mines. Consider how long the first few iron levels take you (if you didn't know, you get copper in mine levels 1-40, iron in 41-80, and gold in 81-120) and think about how long it'll take to get to gold and whether it's really worth spending 5000g on an upgrade just for it to go unused once you get gold for sprinklers.)

                Yeah, you can absolutely do a scarecrow's worth of crops with a regular hoe. A larger plot might need a copper hoe, depending whether the crops need to all be planted day 1. There's a few uses for higher upgrades but they're all edge cases that won't apply to the OP:
                a) you're doing mega crops (like, significant fractions of your entire farmland)
                b) you want a large plot of winter seeds so you need the hoe to dig up a bunch of winter roots (which can come from any tillable dirt in winter, not just worm spots)
                c) you're hunting for one last artifact and it can be found by hoeing dirt in the mines (*cough* bone flute *cough*)
                 
                • One More Day

                  One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                  I'm going to try and steer clear of powergaming strats, and stick to my thoughts on casual (ie normal) play and upgrades, based on how I began playing

                  Pickaxe can easily wait to be upgraded. If you're smart about taking energy supplies into the mines with you, the marginal benefit of reduced hits per stone in the mines probably isn't worth the cost, either in copper bars or in Clint's fee. TBH, I'd rather have the 24-slot backpack in the mines, as it will quickly help bring items worth far more than 2,000g out of there. The bigger backpack also makes other aspects of life much easier for the casual player, not just in the mines, to have more stuff on hand, or more space for stuff they find. On every new farm I start, I tend to quickly reach a point where I ignore forageables, or just pick them for the XP and then immediately eat them or dump them, because they aren't worth enough to me to justify using the space as I try to do whatever extreme thing I'm trying to do. But beginners will tend to keep forageables for selling, gifting, eating later, or simply because they want to hang on to one of everything "just in case".

                  And there's definitely no need to rush the pick beyond copper. If you're starting out in SDV then you're unlikely to have filled all the available space with crops by summer, and therefore have little need to break the large boulders on your farm for fall, so steel pickaxe can probably wait until well into year 2. The copper upgrade is the one that makes the biggest single difference to the ability of the pick to break nodes, halving swings needed on almost everything except copper nodes, but even that isn't really much to the newbie. They aren't hitting floor 80 by day 8 or 9, and smashing out 100s of gold and iron ore for sprinklers. Instead, they tend to take time to make it even to floor 40 for quite a while, meaning most stones only require one hit with the basic pick anyway, so it probably only makes a difference of a handful of swings per mining day at the start, energy which can easily be replaced with a quick snack of salmonberry, cave carrot or parsnip, or some other really cheap food items.

                  I think the first upgrade for a casual player should be to the can, which is used every day it isn't raining. Manual watering usually won't quickly be abandoned in favour of sprinklers even when Farming 6 is reached, because mines are deep and descending is typically difficult for the beginner. Using the can for the whole of the first year is absolutely fine, so if you're going to have more than a handful of crops, then upgrading is probably quite important and should be done at the first opportunity. If no other suitable chance comes along in Spring, it can be done on Spring 27 to be available for the first day of summer.

                  Second upgrade I'd recommend is the copper axe, because casuals tend to chop their own wood rather than buying several stacks at a time from Robin, as lunatics like me tend to do. It also makes the large stumps accessible for a bit of early hardwood for cheese presses. I know 5k feels like a lot of money when you begin, but if you can scrape together enough to afford the fee, and obviously get the iron ore, I'd probably say Steel axe for the third upgrade, to make ordinary tree chopping much faster, as well as chop the large logs, open the secret woods, and with the steady supply of hardwood that that offers, bring the possibility of building a stable into the picture.

                  After that, I'd probably say it's time to do the copper pickaxe, but that can wait for late fall, so that mining can be done in earnest in winter for sprinklers for year 2, and a copper hoe upgrade can be done in late winter for the start of year 2. If mining goes well, a steel pickaxe might be a good idea now too. Note that in most normal cases, as long as items are planted on the first day of spring in year 2, no harvests will be lost even if they aren't watered until the next day by sprinklers. After that I'd say upgrades really can be in whatever order


                  Obviously experienced players will probably do a completely different order, according to their priorities, but I think this is balanced opening to start with.
                   
                  • WilliamZ

                    WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                    I found min/max to be a very enjoying way to play, granted that I'm not good as you guys are, I would label myself in the middle between casual and min/maxer. I don't think that new players should be scared to try to min/max if they wish to take the challenge, Stardew attracted many casual players but there are long date gamers like myself that enjoy Stardew a lot, the only difficulty of Stardew in terms of gameplay is know what the heck are you doing (lol).

                    But play the game first at your pace, screw your farm a lot, then come back lol.

                    If the hints are for someone that didn't played long and wish to make money I would suggest to forget kegs and jars, sell all your crops raw and build a barn when you reach farm level 6 for the cheese press machines, buy only cows and don't count with animal pregnancy, I never had any cub during 3 months with 4 barns full of animals (with the space left for the cub of course). Animals save your headaches to need to upgrade too many tools, you would need to have watering can to cooper only, pickaxe and axe to iron, you do not need to touch the hoe :kitten:
                    Your investment will be to upgrade the barn, get deluxe barn before of construct another, because you need to have to deluxe to unlock all the animals, then you can start a new barn with pigs if you wish for example, don't let curiosity bites you and have only cows; goats, sheeps and pigs are profitable but requires level 10 in farming or foraging.

                    If you're on PC you can use this quality of life improvement mod, Better Ranching, it doesn't change the game in any way, you just need to unpack the files in the mod folder in your stardew valley folder.

                    You can safely advance 5 levels in the mine everyday, ignore monsters as well, unless you're lucky with drops, you're always underpowered to fight monsters until you get the Obsidian Edge in lv90 of the mines, I forgot to mention, probably you already should know, but you can get wild onions (full of fleas, sorry I cannot unsee this anymore) HERE:
                    [​IMG]

                    But serious, ignore monsters, don't waste your time fighting them.
                     
                    • Daikon Ocelot

                      Daikon Ocelot Spaceman Spiff

                      Oh, my! You guys really have a well prepared plan and strategy! Unlike me, who are just playing the game in normal, not so productive strategy. I personally just try to enjoy the life with my partner.

                      By the way, I think this thread has become a thread where people share strategies and tips... just a thought.
                       
                      • WilliamZ

                        WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                        Well there are high level and average player advices, personally I love those meta discussions ^^
                        He could plant the most profitable crops and sell, while preparing his casks for the next year or he can try to min/max the game, but I think that we scared him away because he didn't answered anymore.
                         
                        • Daikon Ocelot

                          Daikon Ocelot Spaceman Spiff

                          Yeah, I wonder if he even read all of this.
                           
                          • Lew Zealand

                            Lew Zealand Orbital Explorer

                            I generated a strategy to get all 6 contenders to 10 hearts by Fall Y1 and married in Winter, and while farming and money was doing OK it was a bit of a hodgepodge until I got the greenhouse.

                            And weirdly enough by the end of Y2 I ended up with a greenhouse full of Ancient Fruit and Pomegranate with the Ancient going into Bins and the Poms to Kegs. It just made sense— strike that, it made money. I needed low maintenance as I'm too lazy/annoyed to replant and they're highest G return in non-replant crops. So once I had quality sprinklers, AF, and Poms, I realized I didn't need anything else. Upgraded to Iridium sprinklers later.

                            But I don't know how fast you can get to this point as this is my only SDV run so far. I assume that the greenhouse and sprinklers might take a bit of time because I don't remember all the prerequisites.
                             
                            • The | Suit

                              The | Suit Agent S. Forum Moderator

                              One trick, don't farm in the beginning. Sounds crazy.
                              But just fish non stop.

                              You will be raking in thousands per day. Especially on days where you have "good luck"
                              Only plant the minimum amount of seeds to do collections - though you could save time and just buy JoJo Membership card.
                               
                              • ShneekeyTheLost

                                ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

                                I would actually suggest Poms going into the bin and Ancient going into the kegs. You'll make more profit that way. If you can afford, get some Jars for the Poms, as it is still a value-added and Jars can handle more throughput.

                                My strategy starts Spring 1, year 1. The trick is that in the first couple of months, early mistakes can snowball. It's the old 'for want of a nail, the army was lost' thing. The stronger your first couple of weeks are, the better off you will be heading into summer.
                                While absolutely true, there are some caveats here. Primarily, this only works if you are good at the fishing minigame. If you are bad at fishing minigame, or just don't understand how it works, this isn't as viable.

                                But yea, fishing can net thousands per day, even early in your first spring. However, luck has precisely zero to do with the fishing minigame, from a mechanical perspective. Or rather, the only thing Luck impacts with respect to the minigame is chest spawning. So luck isn't nearly as relevant. Just fishing every day is going to net you thousands.

                                It won't, however, grind up your Farming skill, and you're going to want Farming 6 by Summer 1 for Quality Sprinklers so you can transition. Because even fishing isn't going to be able to compete with fields of melons and hops. And you really, really want Farming 8 for brewing kegs, because Pale Ale.
                                 
                                • WilliamZ

                                  WilliamZ Phantasmal Quasar

                                  There is no way to rush farm level with money? For example: fishing hard in the beginning, then go in the mines using low quality fish as food, gather materials and go upgrading your watering can to copper.

                                  I'm thinking here, aside for the backpack there is no much need to have a lot of money early on, as for the tools you can naturally level them planting potatoes, according to this reddit potato and blueberry yield 14 experience peer harvest, so you need to plant 236 seeds costing 50g each (50x236=11.800g really not much if you're just fishing) for reach level 6. The stamina cost will be 2 energy (found here), a copper can increase the costs to 4 (fully charged), since it cover 3 titles we can divide the 236 seeds/3 titles=79 effective titles to water (rounded up), 4 energy spent*79 titles=316 energy used, we start with 270 energy and get more 34 in the mines.

                                  And I don't know anymore why I'm making all those calculations.

                                  Edit: @Elenna101 I know, I'm just intruding myself and raising a question, I don't think that fishing on the lake is hard by any means for anyone, unless you're terrible awful bad at the minigame, places that fishing can be hard is on the sea after 4PM (eels) and river in rainy days (catfish).
                                   
                                    Last edited: May 27, 2019
                                  • Elenna101

                                    Elenna101 Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                    BTW the experience values for all plants can be found at https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Farming

                                    And yeah, level 6 by spring is not hard if you can get seed money from fishing (which, as Shneekey mentioned), is probably not true for a new player). I think Shneekey was responding to @The | Suit saying you shouldn't farm at all. Fishing is the best early game money, but farming can eventually get way, way more money than fishing.
                                     

                                    Share This Page