Sundew Farm returns for v1.1

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by SunTide, Oct 12, 2016.

  1. Reddestiny921

    Reddestiny921 Pangalactic Porcupine

    an interesting read :D, I know how you feel I love switching between minecarts, walking, and riding my horse but when I don't have him I can't wait to have what I need to get him or her depending on the name. I have Kingston at the moment.
     
    • StarPeanut

      StarPeanut 2.7182818284590...

      FYI - this is now done. :) Thanks again for the detailed mechanics info!
       
      • Koihime Nakamura

        Koihime Nakamura Ketchup Robot

        The fixed storm days in Summer are the 13th and 26th if you do not check the TV. The TV adds the 25th. (correction.)
         
          Last edited: Oct 21, 2016
        • SunTide

          SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

          Summer 7

          Since there aren't any pressing duties today, I'd like to spend the day making a determined monster hunt. Okay, there's one other task, which is getting the Stables started, but Robin's house is on the way to the mines, anyway.

          There is a storm tomorrow, so I prioritize lightning rod related things. I use my furnaces to process quartz instead of gold, and I check that my iron supply is doing okay.

          Watering is finished by 10:40. I like to keep track of how large of a footprint my farm makes on my day. 10:40 is pretty decent, and that number is going to get lower as my overflow plots finish and especially when my iridium tools start coming in. Animals will make that number go back up, but I'll deal with that when I have to.

          My second crop of radishes come in. I've been holding onto these instead of selling them, since I need cheap vegetables for generic gifts, and I can only give away so many more parsnips before I have to start hard-reserving them for Pam. Once my tomatoes come in, they will take over as the filler product.

          I take the long way to the mines so that I can visit Robin. I have the presence of mind to bring gifts (Salmonberries for the adults, quartz for Maru, a frozen tear for Seb). I get my Stables started. Yay!

          I make a determined hunt for Dust Sprites. I'd like to get the Burglar's Ring this week. It's a significant increase to the income you get from mining. It's also good to get it before the Skull Mines open, since it sucks to spend time in the normal mines when the SC is available.

          For those wondering, I plan on opening up the Skull Mines after my first blueberry harvest.

          I end the day with a grand total of 237 Dust Sprite kills. I also found five diamonds, which is great. Predictably, I also found a green Dwarf Scroll. It has a 0.5% chance of being dropped by the ice monsters, and you encounter swarms of Dust Sprites, so it's an easy one to get. When I get home, I have enough new components to craft three new lightning rods, so I do that.
           
            Last edited: Oct 23, 2016
          • SunTide

            SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

            Summer 8

            It's a storm day, but the TV says that the spirits are very happy. I'll probably farm up monster kills anyway. I want to focus this down and be done with it.

            It's also Gus' birthday, which complicates things. I start out by going to the mines and racking up kills. I take a break at 4:00 and visit the Saloon. That lets me give a diamond to the birthday boy, and visit with all of the patrons. Then I dart back to the mines and go back to it.

            I end the night with 401 Dust Sprite kills. I can finish this on my next trip.

            I make $3200, mostly from forage and random drops.
             
              Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
            • SunTide

              SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

              Summer 9

              I want to farm up monster kills today, if I can.

              I do a loop, starting by heading out north instead of south. I don't have a sturgeon catch yet, so I decide to go to the lake and fish a bit. The sturgeon is an uncommon fish that only appears before dusk in the lake. I catch one right as it's time to head to town. I notice that Willy has a request for a Pufferfish. That's one of the fish that I still need, and you can get it from the ocean, right where Willy lives, so decide to go ahead and just do that. Maybe it's okay if I don't go to the mines today, after all.

              I hit the ocean and fish. I catch an octopus, which I give to Willy (the quasi-rare fish are all loved by him). I eventually catch two Pufferfish, one of which goes to the quest, and the other will end up in the Fish Tank. I'd like yet another one, just in case another delivery quest comes up, but I don't hook one. I decide to stay into the night, since the Super Cucumbers come out then, and they are the only summer fish that I don't have. I manage to catch two. One of those will go to the secret easter egg, the other will be held for any random quests.

              I leave at ten, because I'd like to visit the Wizard. There's a festival this week, so I need to be a bit more aggressive about getting my two gifts in with everyone.

              I end up making $11,000, $6000 of which came from battery packs generated from yesterday's storm.
               
                Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
              • SunTide

                SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                I've run into a problem. My game is all the way up to Summer 14 right now. I thought something was odd about my experience progression. I did some measurements, and something had completely turned my xp gain off. Nothing was granting xp at all. What's more, it had been happening for a while. I finally narrowed the problem down to a recent-ish Entorax Framework update. It looks like the author discovered the problem about the same time I did, and has since fixed it, but I'm still missing eight days of experience, which really throws the whole experiment off. I could just hack in some compensating xp, but I don't really know what would be fair, and that also compromises the integrity of the experiment.

                Fortunately, I've been behind on my write-ups, so the damage to the thread isn't so bad. I've also kept near-daily backups of my saves, so reverting is pretty easy. The problem begins with Summer 7, which is a long time ago in actual game days but not long at all in thread days. I'll just replay from day 7 and totally rewrite the corresponding posts via edits. Things will progress slowly here for a while because my backlog of game notes have all been obsoleted, but it's not a a disaster or anything. It's all just part of the risk that players assume when using mods, and you have to have a good attitude about it.
                 
                  Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
                • SunTide

                  SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                  Okay, the previous posts have all been re-written to reflect the new game state. The big change was a more narrow focus on getting Dust Sprite kills. New posts will be coming soon.
                   
                  • SunTide

                    SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                    Summer 10

                    It's Maru's birthday. I have a gold star strawberry that I've been saving just her for. But this also means that I can't just go all in on monster hunting today.

                    I make a point of riding into town and taking care of what business that I can. I do more gift work, making sure to hit any villagers that haven't been touched this week. I stop by Clint's and turn in my hoe for an upgrade. I'm starting to need wood, which is why I upgraded my hoe instead of my axe.

                    Wait? What?

                    Yeah you heard me. The Luau is tomorrow. I'll have this weird half day where I can't really do anything. It's the perfect time to chop wood, so I don't want my axe to be in the shop. The hoe upgrade is almost-but-not-quite gratuitous. A high tier hoe is the only practical way to hunt for some of the artifacts.

                    I go to the mines and get my 500th Dust Sprite kill at 1:00. I also picked up a useful number of bat, slime, and skeleton kills.

                    Mining hits level 8
                     
                    • SunTide

                      SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                      Summer 11

                      It's luau day. I do my basic chores, and then chop 300 units worth of trees. This goes towards three tree taps and two preserve jars. I'd make more taps, but I'm out of copper. That's fine, because copper ore will be a natural side product of hunting for the red dwarf scroll.

                      There's not much else to say. I take a strawberry to the luau, "winning" the event.
                       
                      • SunTide

                        SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                        Summer 12

                        It's Friday. I want to just go to the mines and get that last dwarf scroll already, but there are some complications. Most directly, I don't really want to do any more hunting until I have Burglar's Ring in my hands. I've finished the quest, but the Guild doesn't actually open until 2:00. I'd also like to pick up my hoe from Clint's, so it makes sense to do some chores and run the clock a bit. I do the usual loop through the woods, hitting the Secret Woods and giving the Wizard his second gift of the week from the autofeeder, meaning that I won't have to worry about him at all tomorrow, when the reset comes. The secret woods are more about the 150 Foraging xp that you get from the stumps than from the hardwood itself.

                        I end up reaching the mines much later than I had intended. I do my best, quickly popping in and out of the elevator at floors 15 and 25, looking for monster clumps. I don't get the scroll. I try using the golden hoe on the dirt. This produces many, many copies of some of the lower level artifacts. I'll probably have to dig elsewhere to find the higher tier stuff. I do find one of the Strange Dolls, a very rare artifact that can potentially spawn anywhere. In a completion run, finding this thing is a big deal, so I'll count today as a win, in spite of not accomplishing my stated goal.

                        Farming and Forage hits 7
                         
                          Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
                        • SunTide

                          SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                          Summer 13

                          It's another storm day, which means big money tomorrow.

                          My first melon crops comes in today. Of the 18 fruit, 4 of them are gold star quality, meaning that the quality crop bundle is very close.

                          It's Alex's birthday. It's also Saturday, so any socializing needs to be done now. It turns out that Gus is the only villager missing a gift. I decide to go to the mines first, and then hunt down Gus and Alex midday. I end up finding the red dwarf scroll at noon, so I immediately stop what I'm doing and head to town. I visit Gus and Alex, and then go to the museum and turn in my scroll, earning the Dwarven Translation Guide. I go back to the mines and meet the Dwarf. I'm even able to hand him a Topaz. That's 100 friendship points right there that I wouldn't have been able to get if I had gotten that scroll ant later than I did.

                          I spend the rest of the day in the magma levels. The Burglar's Ring helps a lot here, since the higher level enemies have good drops.

                          I make about $5500 from the melons, and another $6000 from the mines. Combat hits level 8.
                           
                          • SunTide

                            SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                            Summer 14

                            It's blueberry day. This will be a very big day for me. By tomorrow morning, I expect to have enough money to completely buy the Vault and gain access to the Skull Mines.

                            Clutter is becoming an issue again. The problem is that many of my products are loved by specific villagers, and I've been hoarding them instead of selling them. This is the outgoing chest:
                            [​IMG]

                            The problem is worse than it seems, because my spangles, sunflowers, and poppies are being stored elsewhere, even though they really belong in outgoing storage.

                            Some of this is just simple clutter. The Starfruit belongs in deep storage (awaiting the seed maker), those warp totems belong in active storage, etc. But a lot of the problem is from me not being sure how many copies of loved items to keep. I sit down and do some math.

                            Assuming that you give two loved gifts a week to a villager, and further assuming that you never talk to them on any other occasion, and assuming again that all goods are of normal quality and that there are no quests, you can set a hard ceiling on the level of stock that you need to keep to reach ten hearts. In one week, as described above, you would gain (80*2 + 20*2 - 2*5) = 190 points, which means that we can say that each stored gift is worth 95 points in the minimal case.

                            It takes 2500 points to max out a villager. If we allow for birthdays (and we should), and again make the worst case scenario that the birthday gift replaces one of the normal gifts instead of supplementing them, we can subtract 560 points from this total, for a grand total of 1940 points required. That means you need 21 gifts in total, maximum.

                            So what I do is that I look at the hearts that I already have for each villager, and calculate how many items I need to be keeping for each one. The remaining stock is either sold or moved to the processing chest (the heretofore unmentioned chest where I store items fated for kegs and jars). This cleans things up quite a bit, and also generates a nontrivial amount of money.

                            After the harvest, I loop through town, trying to stay on top of gifts. Several villagers will hit the cap this season, and this task will become easier and easier as they begin to drop out.

                            I make $33,000, totaling in at $54,000. I need $42500 for the Vault, so I'll have some leftover spending money.
                             
                            • SunTide

                              SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                              Summer 15

                              It's time to buy the Vault. Since I'm going to the CC anyway, I load myself down as much as possible. I figure that since I'm going to town anyway, I may as well chase down as may villagers as possible. I'd also like to upgrade my axe, since I ended up with more money than I was expecting.

                              I notice that Haley and Shane are both at 8 hearts. That means you can't progress any further without dating them. Well, this whole fucking town is swinger central, I may as well go native. I go to Pierre and declare that I would like to buy a bouquet for someone special. Ten someones special, actually. Might as well bulk rate this shit while I'm at it. Shane takes the news with uncharacteristic enthusiasm. Haley, uh, well:
                              [​IMG]

                              Whoa. That's one hell of a first date. Right there in the kitchen too.

                              These shenanigans take up lots of time. It's 9:00 when I reach the mines, which is way too late to do anything useful. I decide to take a potshot at catching the Lava Worm from the lake on floor 100. I end up catching it, actually. This checks off the single most annoying fish on the whole list.

                              When I get home, I set up the Crystallarium that I got for completing the vault, and go ahead and get it started working on a diamond.

                              I hit Farmer 8, which unlocks the almighty keg. Too bad that I'm low on wood and just turned in my axe.

                              [​IMG]

                              Skulls Mines tomorrow!
                               
                                Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
                              • Dzelda

                                Dzelda Parsec Taste Tester

                                Wait, you can give people multiple Bouquets before marrying them? I didnt know that.
                                 
                                • Elysiia

                                  Elysiia Aquatic Astronaut

                                  Just finished reading your adventure so far and there is so much good stuff in here.
                                  One of the things I really did not know was that you can place chests outside your own farm. That's golden! I tend to hoard a lot and have permanent inventory troubles.

                                  My current game is a modded one with timespeed (set at 14s, so x2) and regen (x2 total stamina to match the extra time) but you have inspired me to start a new vanilla save with only some QoL mods (experience bars, item sell price and NPC map locations I can no longer play without). While I may not go as "completionist crazy" as you are, I am thinking it will be a nice challenge... even though I will likely make at least some aesthetics over optimization choices because I can't help myself.

                                  One question for you, though. At lvl 10 fishing, did you take the 50% fish value increase or pirate for increased treasure chest chances? In my last save I took the latter to make finding those fishing-only artifacts easier but perhaps in a more achievement focused game the value increase might be better, especially because I tend to fish a lot, it is my favourite activity in the game (un-modded).
                                   
                                    Last edited: Oct 24, 2016
                                  • SunTide

                                    SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                    I never mentioned my perks! I meant to, I just forgot.

                                    Fishing: I took Fisher (+25% fish value) and Pirate (+15 percentage points chest chance). Pirate is probably a weaker perk overall than Angler, but any extra chances at rare artifacts are important in a completion run. People do overestimate Angler, though. It replaces the bonus from Fisher, so you get x1.5 the base value, not x1.75 or x1.875. Fishing also becomes less important once you can mine efficiently, so the extra money from Angler doesn't matter too much.

                                    Mining: I took Geologist (33% of doubling gems). I think Miner is better, especially if coupled with Blacksmith, but I'm probably going to want to take Excavator for completion purposes. I also appreciate that Geologist is lower maintence than Miner, since you don't have to do a bunch of extra smelting. Not a huge deal, but just enough to annoy me, sometimes.

                                    Farming: Tiller, and planning on taking Artisan, like pretty much everyone ever.

                                    Forager: Gatherer (chance of doubling foraged goods), and an eye towards Botanist. Tracker is a stone cold terrible perk that is mostly obsoleted by knowing how the resets work and timing your searches accordingly. Botanist is a wonderful perk that both improves forage and reduces annoying inventory clutter.

                                    Combat: Fighter, with an eye towards Brute, but the real answer is "who cares" :p
                                     
                                    • SunTide

                                      SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                      Summer 16

                                      I quickly take care of any farm chores and then dash for the bus stop. I want to spend as much time in the Skull Mines as possible. The goal here will be to get enough iridium to make an iridium pickaxe. I already have on bar of the stuff from a lucky drop, so that helps a lot. I also have a Prismatic Shard and the Burglar's Ring, two very big assets.

                                      I get this in the mail:
                                      [​IMG]

                                      dafuq!? It's an open container of Pale Ale. Or I guess it was, once. It's now just an empty stein in a soaked and smelly box.

                                      I also get this in the mail:
                                      [​IMG]

                                      OMFG

                                      GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER PAM, JESUS

                                      Well, I head for the bus stop, and of course I meet Pam there, because she's the driver. I give her the remains of the package she sent me, and sure enough, she accepts it without blinking. She loves it. We're best friends now or something (I cleared ten hearts).

                                      The bus drops me off at Calico Desert. I quickly scour the area for forage. There are some area-specific artifacts that you can only find here, and the coconuts and cactus fruit are good gifts for Haley and Sam, respectively.

                                      I stop by the store to say hello to Sandy. I've been collecting sweet peas for her. I set up the customary chest and load it with sweet peas for future visits.

                                      On the way to the caves, I make I point to do this
                                      [​IMG]

                                      I don't know if it's the Burglar's Ring or just good luck, but the first slime I kill drops a smelted iridium bar. I get another bar from a slime on floor 3.

                                      I get a ton of Spicy Eels from the flying serpent monsters. It looks like I can eat two per visit and still come out ahead, on average. The speed and luck bonuses will be very useful. The ring is paying off already.

                                      I leave the mines at midnight, having reached floor 22. I have exactly enough ore to bring my bar count up to 5.

                                      I make $7600 in assorted loot.
                                       
                                        Last edited: Oct 26, 2016
                                      • SunTide

                                        SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                        Summer 17

                                        A storm is coming in tomorrow. I keep that in mind as I do my chores, shunting furnace capacity towards iron and quartz instead of gold so that I can squeeze in a few more lightning rods. It's getting to the point that I'm running out of good places to put the damn things. Once I start building animal structures, I'll start redeploying my rods as fencing material, an electric fence, if you will. That will get them out of the way, and also provide maintenance-free fencing.

                                        I have enough iridium now to get my pick upgraded. A better pick will let me go deeper in the Skull Mines and get even more iridium. It's also Sam's birthday. Up until now, he has been one of the harder villagers to please. Now that I have access to the desert, that changes. He loves cactus fruit, and I have a nice stack of that in storage now.

                                        I go to town, doing gift work. Alex is at eight hearts, so he gets added to the sex pile
                                        [​IMG]

                                        I wonder if he even noticed that the "special bouquet" I gave him came from a case of ten that I'm just carrying around.

                                        Abbie wants a pike. I don't have one, but it's trivial to fish one out of the river. I don't have my rod on me, but I can do it tomorrow, no problem.

                                        So it turns out that I don't have enough money for the pick. It costs $25000, and for some reason I thought it was $15,000. Not even close. It's not very late, so I hop the cart and go to the mines. I can probably raise most of the missing cash by working the magma levels. I also need Void Spirit and bat kills for completion.

                                        I notice Maru standing by the lake. She's also at 8 hearts, so I pull another bouquet out of the Love Dispenser TM. She seems a little more perspicacious than Alex

                                        [​IMG]
                                        [​IMG]

                                        Yeah, the guy pulling romantic gifts out of a Valu-Pak that he carries with him on all occasions maybe isn't all that serious. But she still accepts. This whole town is like that, it's probably not even an issue to her.

                                        So anyways, I hit the mines just like I hit Alex and Maru and spend the balance of the night there. I still really want the iridium pick, so when I get home, I toss 20 gold bars into the shipping chest, just to make sure that I make enough money to buy it tomorrow.

                                        I make $10,000 almost exactly. Mining hits level 9.
                                         
                                          Last edited: Nov 14, 2016
                                        • SunTide

                                          SunTide Scruffy Nerf-Herder

                                          Summer 18

                                          I get a visitor. Gunther feels like being useful
                                          [​IMG]

                                          The big draw here is that I get to start earning hearts with Krobus. I've been storing up Wild Horseradishes from last season for this very purpose. I'll set up a chest in his lair and move them all there. It'll be good to get those things out of my outgoing storage box.

                                          It's a storm day, as expected. It's also blueberry day again. I still don't have enough for the pick upgrade, so instead of shipping my berries, I just carry them with me to town and sell directly to Pierre. That's over 20k right there. I hastily fish a pike out of the river and hand it to Abbie, completing her quest. I notice another request from Lewis. It's an extermination quest for 4 red slimes. I don't like these as much because they don't award friendship points, and that's the biggest benefit, but I need to complete 40 quests for the Big Help star, so I accept. It's a bit awkward because I need to turn in my pick, and there's no way I'll have time to go to the mines, hunt the slimes, and get back before Clint closes. I have to hand my pick over now, and then go to the mines pick-less. It's not so bad, really. I just bounce between floors using the elevators and pick off any slimes that spawn nearby. No need to break rocks. I turn in the quest the same day.

                                          Not sure what to do with the rest of my time, I fish in the ocean a bit. Around 9:00 I suddenly remember about my new key and Krobus' lair. I run back to town and meet the little shade

                                          [​IMG]

                                          I also do this
                                          [​IMG]

                                          I only make $3000 on the summary screen, but keep in mind that I sold $20k in berries to Pierre directly. I also chose to keep the Mutant Carp, so that's another few thousand not represented.
                                           

                                          Share This Page