Planning a "Speedrun" of a sort, would appreciate some Help

Okay, first time posting in the general forum, and in fact it's my first time posting on the site at all in...a number of months. But please, bear with me. Allow me to tell my story...

Back in late March/early April I decided on a whim to get Stardew Valley after seeing quite a bit of it all around the internet. I'd never played a Harvest Moon-type of game before, and I figured it would be a nice way to see if I liked the Farm Simulator genre. And I loved it, probably a little too much.

After getting used to how things worked, an idea made its way into my head. "Hey, that greenhouse sure seems swell. I wonder if I can get it by the first of Winter and grow some crops year-round?" And that's how it started. I started a fresh game and tried to unlock the greenhouse by Winter 1, Year 1. Unfortunately, my first attempt was rendered null by poor planning on my part, but I started fresh again and kept trying... A lot. So much that I quickly burned myself out on Stardew Valley in just a couple of weeks, and I haven't picked it back up since.

And then recently I heard about Update 1.1 that was just around the corner. I looked into it and saw what it had to offer, and now I have the itch to play again and maybe, just maybe, complete my little "speedrun" against the game's calendar. This was the first speedrun-like challenge I ever tried to do, and I don't want to leave it hanging forever without seeing if I can pull it off.

And this, fellow Stardew fans, is where I must ask for your help. I was able to learn quite a bit when I first started, but it's been too long. I'm rusty, and I'm sure there are things that others have learned that I hadn't in the months since that could prove very useful to my endeavor. I would like to ask for your knowledge and assistance in forming at least some kind of plan. Little tips and tricks to advance quickly in the early game, and keep stride through Summer and into Fall... Planning what crops to buy, what to keep and what to sell, what to use for food before having a kitchen is an option...

Ultimately, the plan is to both complete the Pantry bundle by Fall 28 at the latest, while also not falling behind in other parts of the game. Fortunately running only against the game's calendar instead of a real-world clock means that I can - that I must make the most out of every day I have. A bit like trying to complete a tactics game with a limited number of moves. Anyone think we can do it?

 

Just tried to speed the pantry bundle. Got screwed by the quality bundle. Go heavy on wood-chopping and use EVERY last bit of sap for fertilizer. Hard to get them gold star parsnips starting out.

 

Oh, yes! That's what screwed over my very first run! After that I made sure to collect sap as much as possible, that much I definitely remember! Unfortunately, if memory serves, my second attempt was foiled because I focused so hard on getting the gold-star parsnips that I failed to complete the Spring Crops bundle! Thanks for jogging the memory, I'll have to be careful about putting all my parsnips in one basket.

 

In spring start by growing parsnips until you have at least 5 gold star parsnips for the quality crop bundle, then plant potatoes and keep planting more potatoes as you get the money. Don't forget to grow at least one of each of the spring crops you need for the spring crop bundle.
Then comes summer and your focus should be on blueberries and corn, you need enough corn to get 5 gold star ones for the quality bundle (I usually buy 5 corn seeds) and you need as many blueberries as money can buy. And like with spring don't forget the summer crops bundle crops.
And in fall you focus on cranberries and pumpkins. The pumpkins are needed for the quality crop bundle and cranberries as a staple income. And again don't forget the fall crops bundle.
ALWAYS use fertilizer. As soon as you unlock fertilizer, use it. Buy it from Pierre if you must, just always use fertilizer.

That should do it for the crops needed for the pantry.

For the animal bundle you need 2 chickens, one of each color, a duck, a cow and a goat. You can usually start building and upgrading your coop and barn and buying the animals by the first harvest of blueberries.

To speed up the artisan bundle you can always go with fruit bats in your farm cave. Otherwise you'll need a beehouse for honey, a preserves jar for jelly, an apple tree, a pomegranate tree (you have to buy and plant the trees early on in summer so they're ready in fall) and you already have the goat and cow for the cheeses. And that should do it for the artisan bundle. You could also focus on getting the cloth instead of one of the trees, either by befriending Emily (she'll then send you a cloth in the mail if you're lucky) or by recycling soggy newspaper.

 

I have tried to plan out a one year run to complete the bundle and even finishing Qi's quest, and getting married. Here's some rough outline that I wrote down. The succeed will depend on how the cart play out. I have never tried it out, so here you go

 

Just curious if anyone has ever succeeded at this? It kind of seems like you're not meant to have the greenhouse that soon, like the game is designed so that you to are forced to go through the hardship of at least one winter before you get it. There are so many items you need that are super hard, if not impossible, to obtain in the first year (unless you just get stupid lucky) I sort of wonder if its possible. If someone has done it, how did you pull it off?

 

Oh yes, definitely, I've done it a couple of times too. It's even possible to complete the entire CC in year one (albeit with luck from the traveling merchant), although I've personally not done that and don't plan to do it either.

 

Wow, congrats on that! I think I'd get tripped up with the Quality crops bundle, if not the animal one. I could see pouring lots of money into a barn and coop and getting all the animal products by then but getting 5 gold star parsnips the first spring would be hard. I guess if you plant TONS of them though you'd have better odds of harvesting more gold stars, I always have such a small garden in the beginning and I tend to grow a little of everything instead of specializing. Maybe on a future playthrough I'll give it a go.

 

Yes. In may last play through (5th Game) I had my Greenhouse up and running by the third week of Autumn. In play through 2-4 it was usually the end of Autumn or first couple of days of winter. (My first play through was just for learning the game as I never played Harvest Moon or any other game like Stardew Valley.) If you plan it properly, you are never at risk of having to push it to the point you are spending money on passing out. Usually my character is in bed by midnight.

 

In order to get the Greenhouse in Year 1, You need to focus on only crops needed for the Green House, Making Money, Fishing (Making Money early) and The Mines. Wild Onions and Salmonberrys should not be sold but used to replenish energy in the mines. When you go to mines, you just need to focus on getting to level 81 as soon as you can. Don't get sidetracked, keep pushing for levels. Also, Only go to the mines when luck is above neutral, fish instead.

 

It's actually the pumpkins I worry about. Parsnips takes 4 days to grow, if you don't get them in your first few harvests (and you definitely don't get enough gold stars from your initial 15 seeds, you're lucky if you even get a silver from those) then just grow more. More parsnip harvests equals more cash which you can grow more parsnips for, I have no problem getting 5 gold star parsnips in year 1.
And the corn grows for two seasons which is more than enough time to get 5 gold star corns in, and I more or less ignore melons in year 1, it's far more important to grow blueberries and then bet on 5 gold star pumpkins instead of the melons.
But then you also need to get those 5 gold star pumpkins and pumpkins take ages to grow. You need as many as possible on day one but not so many that you can't buy a decent amount of cranberries. And if your first pumpkin harvest fail, you'll have one more harvest and only one more.

The rest is fairly easy to get in year one. As long as you farm big you'll have no problem affording both buildings and animals for animal products as well as a couple of fruit trees.

 

See I looked back over the requirements for the greenhouse bundle and I kinda realize maybe it wouldn't be so hard if one was focused on those particular items. I've just never zoomed in on one bundle, I have just tried to work on them all at once because my aim was less for the greenhouse and more for the CC overall. But yeah, I forgot about the corn too - so parsnips might not even be an issue if you can do the other three. Fruit trees and the rest can be bought early, money isn't usually too big of an issue for me cuz of the timespeed mod (more time for fishing and mining) so it's probably more doable than I was thinking.

 

Wow, glad to see this topic got so much traction while I was asleep. Thanks for all of the advice everyone, I'll be sure to write it down when I get a pen.

In addition to what Minimanta said, Luthien, I've also gotten the Greenhouse rather early, just not by my set goal. The closest I got was the third or fourth of Winter, I think? Still, I'm so stubborn that even that wasn't good enough at the time. Though La Chair mentioning having the Greenhouse by the third week of Autumn got me thinking about something else...

What's the fastest anyone's ever completed the Pantry bundles? Purely considering that you need one pumpkin even if you complete the Quality Crops with just Corn and Melons, without getting lucky with the traveling cart I guess the second week of Autumn would be the fastest possible? With luck from the traveling cart, first week of Autumn maybe?

 

You still need the Fall Crops bundle which includes a pumpkin so unless you get real lucky with the traveling cart, or make deluxe speed grow, the 15th of Autumn is the quickest you will get the Green House.

 

Hit up the gypsy wagon every Friday and Sunday -- that's usually been my key to finishing the greenhouse before winter year 1, especially the animal bundle (you can find the large eggs there frequently especially if you have trouble getting both a brown and a white chicken, and I've found the large milks there as well. Befriend Emily quickly and she'll send you wool (for the animal bundle) and cloth (for the artisan).

Late fall Year 1 is the earliest I've finished the pantry -- that's if I've gotten lucky with the fruit bats and planted both apples and pomegranates by mid-summer (so I can get in a few harvests in Fall). Earliest I've finished the entire community center is 10 Summer Year 2 when the red cabbages come in. Sometimes you'll see red cabbage show up on the cart but I don't want to finish too quick because then it's a bit of a drag till Grandpa comes back with the verdict.

 

I've been able to finish quality crops without even having to worry about getting 5 gold star pumpkins -- I usually plant 18 corn plants, 16 if I've got sprinklers already, because corn makes a good gift for most of the villagers and you can make oil from it.

 

Now that I've been through a few playthroughs, I can frequently get the greenhouse by Year 1 winter. I've done it by picking the fruit bats for the cave, and that helps with getting the fruits for the artisan bundle. Salmonberry jelly doesn't sell for much, so I use one salmonberry to make the jelly for the artisan bundle then the rest I save for replenishing energy in the mines, where I'll find the amethyst to befriend Emily for wool and cloth gifts. If you get lucky with a monster drop you might get an iron bar before you hit level 41 where iron ore starts popping up, so you can make your bee house quicker -- one wild honey for the artisan bundle then keep some for making farm warp totems (take one to the Skull Cavern and you can mine till 1am and still get to bed before you pass out, or if you get in a tight spot with the monsters you can get out fast). Once you get the cows and goats, you can get both the large milks for the Animal bundle and the cheeses for Artisan. And the gypsy wagon comes in handy on occasion. I always try to get at least an apple tree in the ground by middle of Summer Year 1, since you need 3 apples for Marnie's friendship bundle and finishing that gets you an extra heater for your barn/coop, so I like to finish that before winter.

 

Well thank you! I had no idea you could make your own oil. Over 500 hours of playing and I still feel like a Newb.

 

You can also make oil out of sunflowers but they only grow in fall -- I didn't know that either until I saw a friend of mine do it on his Twitch stream of SDV. Worth making an extra oil maker to keep in the house as well as the one used to make truffle oil; takes a few hours so if you start the oil when you go to bed it'll be ready in the morning, so it's handy if you need it for presents (I usually lavish George with fried mushrooms because I like the old geezer).

 

Spring tends to be the hardest season since there's so much you need to do, but most of it is time gated. Here's a few tricks I learned through the first spring multiple times.

• You generally don't want to plant anymore parsnip along your first batch. You need at least 1 level up before scarecrows and every seed that gets eaten hurts a lot. You're essentially only making 15 gold profit per crop that makes it and you lose 20 gold for each seed you lose. Also keep in mind the more crops you have, the more energy you lose from watering which could be used for other things like mining, fishing, or gathering sap to make fertilizer for dem gold parsnips.
• Do a lot of fishing for early cash, save a decent chunk of money for strawberries on the 13th
• Rush level 6 farming before end of the season. Starting the summer with an automated blueberry farm will allow you to focus your efforts on other areas of the game.
• Remember get decently far in the mines so that you'll have the quartz, iron, and gold bars for those sprinkers.
  
• After the blueberry money starts flowing in, check the traveling cart every friday and sunday. Buying artisan goods, tree fruits, and animal goods can save you lots of effort.
• Always go fruit bats if rushing CC is your goal.