Summer 19 Sam wants me to go to his concert The concert can be a pest. It doesn't actually take up any time, but the requirement to be at the bus stop in the middle of the day can interfere with your plans. The biggest problem is that it prevents you from visiting the Skull Mines. But my pick is in the shop right now, so this is probably the perfect time for this event to trigger. There is another storm tomorrow, so I make yet again more lightning rods. I do a bit of thinking. It's Friday, but I want to go to the SC tomorrow. That means that I should pretend as if the Saturday reset happens today. I'm way ahead on gifts. Krobus is the only one that hasn't been double-gifted yet. But I should go ahead and loot the tidal pool. It's Demetrius' birthday, so I pull out a gold star strawberry that I had been saving and give it to him for 800 points. Nice. I'd also like to get started on raising animals. I have piles of extra cash right now, but not much wood. Without my pick, it will be hard to explore the wilder parts of my farm where the remaining trees are, so I don't bother. I just chop trees in town. There's a nice patch near the CC that I like to harvest when I need lots of wood fast. Unfortunately, I overcommit to the idea. I get more than enough wood for the barn, but it's too late to place an order with Robin anymore. Oops! I also add Sam to the Love Jenga Tower, since he apparently hit 8 hearts yesterday. Sam's concert is kind of weird The venue is literally just an empty lot, and not even a well maintained one. The crowd is mostly just us Pelican Towners. It's not rare for a very small band's crowd to be mostly personal friends, but still. And there's Linus, who doesn't even pretend that the music is interesting and just spends his time staring at the trash bin. Sick burn there, buddy. I get home and do some minor fishing to kill time. I have more wood than I will need for the barn tomorrow, so I make kegs and tree taps until I run out of non-wood resources for them. I made $8500 today, about a third of which came from selling battery packs from the storm yesterday.
Summer 20 Today I want to grab my pick and then just dive as deep into the Skull Mines as possible. I don't have the usual Saturday obligations, so nothing is holding me back. It's even a rain day, so my chores are negligible. I stop by Robin's and order a barn to be built near the greenhouse. I'm not 100% committed to this location, and might use SVDE to change it later. I hop the mine cart and get my pick from Clint. It's time to go! I do a quick check fro forage in the desert, visit Sandy and give her a sweet pea, and then go underground. I briefly contemplated fishing in the pond for the sandfish and scorpionfish, but that's a task better reserved for when my iridium needs aren't so sharp. I dive into the mid-forties, a very successful run. I get enough iridium for one more tool, and come home with $15,000 in assorted loot.
Summer 21 So it turns out that Pam doesn't work on Sundays, so I need another time filler besides the Skull Mines. I figure that I'll do a little gift work and then go to the (normal) mines. After some thought, I decide to upgrade my axe to iridium. This was actually a complicated decision. I do eventually want to upgrade all of my tools, but right now, the absolute number one priority is the watering can. My whole field was designed around that thing, and I still don't have it. But, I can only upgrade on the eve of a rain day, or I'll lose some harvests. Fortunately, I got a hot tip from a reader upthread: If I have a guaranteed storm day on the 25th, I just need to make sure that I can pull the trigger on the upgrade on the 24th. So I can safely upgrade my axe now without being in danger of getting stuck. In other news, I'm starting to get along with Emily, aka the my (first) girlfriend's older sister. The other day I stopped by her place, and she had this primo shit, I mean like weapons-grade merchandise here. But it wasn't like the Wizard's stuff, which was pretty harsh. I actually think that stuff perma-fried me a bit, because I still see little dancing apples every now and then. No, Emily's stuff is both strong and mild, if that makes any sense. Seriously, we were tripping balls together. I think she came down slower than I did, because she was wandering the street talking to the birds all day But that's not all. This other time, she wanted to do some kind of private dance for me. I wasn't sure how to take it, and I was even less sure how to take it when the dance turned out to just be straight twerking That's uh, kind of a weird thing to do alone in front of your sister's boyfriend. Is she telling me something? It turns out the answer was "yes." I pull another bouquet out of the Love-o-matic and she's happy as a clam about it. The weird thing is, I did it right in front of Haley. I'm no idiot, I didn't do that on purpose, she just walked in on us. But she didn't even spare a second glance or anything.I was nervous for a few days, expecting to get The Talk from Haley, but it never happened. People here just really don't care. Anyways, I spend the bulk of the evening in the mines. I focus mostly on monster kills and resources. I especially need to rebuild my stone stock so I can keep building staircases, so I bust every boulder I see. I clear $18k today, about a third of which came from battery packs. I also brought the Void Spirit kill counter to 108/150. I can probably finish it in two more trips. There's no urgency, the reward is so weak that I don't even remember what it is, but completionism etc.
Summer 22 I need a little more iridium if I want to get the watering can upgrade on the 24th. It's also the Dwarf's birthday, which I absolutely cannot miss. I need that extra 640 points. I also have an unifinished delivery quest to Shane for a hot pepper that I shoudl probably take care of. I get a luck value of exactly zero. I've never seen this message before: Blueberries, flowers and mushrooms mature today, so I spend a non-trivial amount of time on the farm. I take the cart to town so I can give Shane his hot pepper, and then use the cart to go to the mines and deliver a topaz to the dwarf. Then it's off to the bus top for the mines. I love the cart system. It's a late start with mediocre luck. I clear the desert of forage and visit Sandy like normal, but once again decline to try for the desert fish. I'll do it later. I end up getting 18 iridium ore and one presmelted bar, which will be enough when combined with my existing leftovers. I get $36000 today, about $10k of which was mine related. I also have a fortune in unsmelted gold ore that I haven't been counting towards these totals. Farming hits level 9, which unlocks the strategically vital seed maker.
Don't forget with 1.1 you can move that barn ingame! I am a little curious about how many lightning rods you have been building. I don't feel like I get enough storms to warrant the space, though I suppose if you prefer them instead of fencing it's actually quite efficient space usage. Though collecting will be a little slower than a compact area of them. Also, I've never been able to chop the trees on the actual town map itself, is that something that changed in 1.1, or do you have a mod for it? (or maybe my game's buggy)
Summer 23 The barn is finished. Robin's time is starting to become an important resource, so I would like to go ahead and re-hire her to build a coop as well, but I don't think that's going to happen today. I have to buy cows for my barn from Marnie, which is on the other side of the map from Robin's. That would be okay, but I don't have anywhere near enough wood, and there's just not enough time to do all of those chops and traverse the map. It's even worse than that, because I don't even have my axe yet. It's due to be picked up from the shop today. I start by going to town and picking up my axe. The iridium upgrade is very strong. In absolute terms, it's not different from the other upgrades. Felling a tree takes two less strokes, and breaking a stump takes one less stroke. But proportionately, it's by far the strongest. You go from needing 4+2 strokes to remove a tree to 2+1 strokes, which is double the speed. Wood gathering is now mostly a matter of having trees available. The labor is no longer the limiting ingredient. I buy four cows from Marnie. I might end up selling one eventually, just so that I can have exactly three of each animal in a single barn, but for now I'll start out by filling my barn with the only animal I'm allowed to buy. While I'm there, I buy a full set of tools and two heaters. I'll need this stuff anyway, and money has stopped being a problem for a while. I hit the Secret Woods for the 150 Forage xp, and head towards the mines, chopping as I go. There are very few wild trees left. I do a bit of mining, mostly for the monster kills. I close out with the Void Spirit counter at 128/150. Pretty good. I'm not going to bother recording income anymore. If I need something, I can just buy it. Cash flow isn't an issue anymore. The only thing that matters now is gaining credit towards the achievement stars. Mining hits 10. I take the Excavator perk, for completion. I kind of prefer Gemologist, just because it's a lower maintenance perk, but I gotta get those minerals.
Summer 24 Tomorrow is a storm day, as expected. I need to turn in my can for an upgrade today. It's also Willy's birthday. I have a gold star octopus that will be perfect for him. I also want to hire Robin for a coop. Inventory is getting out of hand again, so I do a bit of reorganizing. I expand my furnace pool and relocate it, and dedicate a new chest just to holding ores, metal, and coal. I also build some of the new machines, now that I have lumber again. I set up a seedmaker, several ore kegs, and a worm bin. I go to town and give Willy his birthday present. 800 points, nice! I go ahead and buy an iridium fish rod, mostly just because. While visiting Korbus, I realize that I can easily afford both his Stardrop and his void egg, so I buy both for $25,000. I still have plenty left over to commission a coop from Robin and to get my watering can upgraded. My can will be ready on the 26th, which means that I will just barely be able to squeeze in the iridium hoe upgrade before Fall, if I want to. I do want to, as it turns out. Having maxed out tools by the beginning of the third season sounds badass.
Summer 25 The storm arrives. It's my second (and final) melon harvest. This yields enough additional gold stars for the quality crops bundle. The bulk of the melons will be kept for processing into wine and jelly. Oh yeah, I get my first giant crop I'd like to go to the Skull Mines today and ensure that I have enough iridium for the hoe upgrade tomorrow. There is very little to do on the farm. I'm done at 9:00, so I take a quick peek at the bulletin board and see that Linus wants a sunfish. I have one stored away. I don't want to deliver it now, since this is a Skull Mines day, but it's good to know about. I'm able to race back to bus stop before Pam is even ready to drive. This will be the last time that I go to the desert this season, so I make a point to buy some beet seeds from Sandy. I'm not sure how many I want, so I end up buying 3 sets of 18. The idea is that I can either make one 3x6 stripe of the things and have enough backups to replace them, or I can make a huge section of them if they turn out to be competitive and buy refills later. Either way, I'm prepared. I want to just dive into the mines, but I really, really want to catch that Scorpioncarp before the season ends. I burn several hours trying, but I finally hook one. I enter the caves at 1: 30, which isn't great. After many bombs and staircases, and reach floor 50. I come away with a mediocre 18 ore and one bar, which will still be enough for me to get that final upgrade tomorrow. Amusingly, I pass out right in front of my bed. Combat hits level 10. I take Brute, which is the best of a bad lot.
I count 37. They took up most of the border space along the NE corner of the map before I repurposed them as fencing material. They were starting to get in the way, so I'm glad they've been moved. I don't really worry about collection efficiency with rods, since there is very little time pressure. A rod will hold its charge forever. The only issue is that you want to harvest them before the next storm. I don't think my mods are changing anything WRT the trees, and I think I was able to chop town trees in 1.0 as well. The thing is, some trees are choppable, and some aren't, and there is nothing that graphically represents this difference. In general, unchoppable trees tend to be close to map boundaries, and choppables are not.
Quick question for you, SunTide. Like I mentioned in an earlier post, you inspired me to try and do a more completionist playthrough of my own. Usually I devote the 3rd of spring to fishing in the mountain lake before 7PM and then at the beach (eel comes out) after that. However, your 8 catfish looked so tempting I thought I'd give the river a try for a change. The thing is, I consider myself a pretty decent fisher but catching those catfish at fishing skill 2/3 is impossible for me. In a trial playthrough to test some setups I just reset the 3rd of Spring about 15 times and all I did was try to catch those catfish (I immediately escaped if the fish weren't catfish to maximize practise time). Yet after a few hours (irl) of practising and trying different tactics, still nothing works. I am pretty good at controlling the green bar, but there are 2 problems when I try to catch those catfish. Like you mentioned in your own post, if you over-pursue you end up fighting the bars momentum when the fish jukes again. However, when I try your drift approach, I do not get enough "uptime" on the catfish. They juke so often and so violently (from top to bottom and back) that by the time I drifted to the fish (usually get there after the 2nd juke), it is about to do another juke. Catfish catches last forever for me and in the end I always lose because I simply can not get the green bar to rise high enough on this drifting method and the longer the catch lasts the harder it gets (at least for me, also due to concentration I suppose), yet chasing the catfish faster results in aforementioned issues and that makes me lose it even faster. Arguably the two hardest fish to catch at the beginning of the game (apart from the catfish) are the largemouth bass and the eel. Both of those I can catch 10/10 times at level 1 with my bamboo rod, I would even consider both of them quite easy. Those catfish however? They are not just harder to catch in my game, they are infinitely harder to catch where I feel the difficulty level is not doubled or tripled but at least 5 to 10 times as hard. What on earth am I doing wrong? Is there any other tips you can give me? I use a mouse and simple clicking for control, I tried using "c" on the keyboard but I find my mouse gives me more control. Or is it perhaps time for me to conclude that I am a worse fisher than I thought I was and just leave catfishing to when my fishing skills hits 6ish (which is when I tend to start catching them consistently). I'd hate to lose a whole day of catfishing if I can help it but right now it seems pretty hopeless
The difficulty of fish is largely related to location, season and time of day they can be caught. Spring fish are the easiest, winter fish are the hardest. Town and river fish are easier than ocean fish and day fish are easier than night fish. Rainy day fish are harder too. Better bait, trap lures, better rods and skill boosting food for fishing can lessen the difficulty curves and make for an easier time with difficult fish. Luck plays a role in bite frequency and getting rarer fish to bite. Hope that helps.
Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. However, I already knew all of this. I am simply inquiring if there is any other tactics I can try to consistently catch catfish at fishing skill 2 or 3 (so I can get some major cash on spring 3rd of year 1), or if I should stop trying and conclude I am not a good a fisher as I thought I was
It's most likely your fishing skill level ingame rather than your skill with the mouse. I discovered the hard way that trying to get your fishing skill up from level 1 in winter is an excercise in frustration. I couldn't catch a single fish all month. Spring hit and then I could actually catch fish.
There's no easy answer, unfortunately. I played a lot of hardcore twitch-style games as a kid, and I think that gives me an edge here. Please do not take that as bragging. Skill at video games is probably the least impressive thing that I can think of. At lower fishing levels, the bar is small and even the twitchiest player can end up in unfair situations. If the catfish opens up with a hard juke, you have to hard pursue, like you say. There's a good chance that the fish will double back on you, and then you're screwed, but until you have some progress in the bar, you have to chase. Your first rain day is going to involve lots of escaped catfish. The good news is that things get easier somewhere around level 4. That's only 1300 xp. A smallmouth bass gives 12 base. That doesn't sound like much, but add in three for each star, multiply by 2.5 for each perfect catch, and by 2.2 for each treasure chest, and you can easily hit that threshold midway through your second day of fishing (which will be your first rain day). Also keep in mind that I had terrible luck with the weather. I think I only had two rain days: the hardcoded one on the 3rd (which was largely spent getting the fiberglass rod), and a late season rain day that was mostly spent chasing the Legend fish and some eels. Having even one normal rain day will more than make up for any escapes and put you on even or superior ground to my playthrough.
A good alternative to trying to catch harder fish for money is to fish in one of the gold star fishing spots. The fish are worth more money and xp there with no appreciable increase in difficulty. The spot 7 left and down from Leah's door is good for that.
Don't worry, I did not take it as bragging Thanks a lot for your reply, it pretty much confirms I am doing the right thing but should let up on those impossible catches and just accept them. Last day I played (again Spring 3rd ) I caught 4 catfish at fishing skill 2 and 3 and saw 5 escapees. It is like you said, if they open with a hard juke and then double back you need a lot of luck to salvage the situation, else it is lost. You do need that initial progression that allows you to start drifting after the fish and ignore its hard jukes. When I start my official play through, I will probably also try to do a bit more fishing on Spring 2nd so my fishing skill is a bit higher than it is right now. I do have to say though, these past few hours practising catching catfish did help as it becomes easier to recognize some of the movement patterns they have and counter them accordingly. When you fish for them at a high skill level you have a lot more leeway than when you just start out. PS. Last play through I had 1/3rd rain days in Spring so I am thinking I might pay for it on this run with very few rain days Unless there is a hotspot somewhere I always fish in gold spot locations. The problem is you can not reach them yet at low fishing skill. You start hitting them around fishing skill 4, but only when you hit max rod range, and get some more leeway once your fishing skill hits 6
Summer 26 Today is another storm, right on the heels of the last one. I expected this, because of what Koihime Nakamura told me. Double rain days are weird, because your lightning rods are still processing the charges from the first day. Ideally, you would return to your farm after ten hours or do and clear what rods that you can, hoping that they'll have time to catch another bolt. As it stands, though, I probably won't bother. It's my last blueberry harvest, so that takes a little bit of time. I decide to use most of the day taking care of minor tasks that have accumulated. -I need to commission my hoe so that I can have it by the 28th -Linus wants a sunfish (learned by checking the board yesterday) -Many items need to be carried over to the Community Center -There all still four villagers that haven't been double-gifted yet. It's only Friday, so it's not urgent, but I may as well do it today -I've had an outstanding quest from Jodi for a Large Bass for a while (the infamous "large crispy ass" episode from last thread) -I need to be gathering wood in anticipation of future construction -any left over time can be spent running up the kill counter in the mines Things go mostly as planned. I get a mailbox quest from Demetrius for a melon, and a bulletin board quest from George for a hot pepper, so that adds to the back and forth a bit. I just chop trees as I find them. I have nearly nearly hunted my wild trees to extinction here. It's okay, because they grow back on their own, but I'm glad that I'm doing this now and staying on top of the problem. Monster hunting is okay but not great. Bats end at 144/200 and Void Spirits at 132/150
Elysiia: I am glad to hear that my adventures have gotten other people interested in this particular style of play. Let me know how it goes. I think that you have an excellent chance of exceeding my own personal results. WRT catfish, I'm not sure if you've studied the fish chart on the wiki, but if you sort fish by difficulty, you'll see that the catfish has a difficulty of 75, which turns out to be very, very high, just a notch below some of the legendaries. The smallmouth bass, by way of comparison, has a difficultly of only 28. Now, I don't think that we can naively compare these numbers and figure out just exactly how much harder each fish is than the other. The real way to measure that is to record your win/loss ratio for each fish. I agree with your remark that the catfish is not just 3 times as hard as the bass, but many, many times harder. Honestly, I don't think CA thought that people would be able to catch them at all during the first season. If you look at the way that the legendaries are distributed, it looks like he thought that the first one players would catch would be the Summer one (crimson fish), and that the Legend fish would be the very last one, even though it emerges in Spring. I think Spring was intended to be the learning phase of the fishing game, but there will always be people like us that will try to break the intended curve, just because we can. So if you are catching catfish at all right now, your'e already beating CA's expectations.
Summer 27 Today is mostly spent organizing for the upcoming Animalgeddon. The coop is finished and I need to get things ready for the chickens. I collect all my my sundry lightning rods and lay them out to form the bulk of my new grazing area fence. I have several ideas about how to arrange my animals, and I'll post pictures after I've got a better handle on the design. I go south and visit Marnie, buying four chickens from her. I also want to get a barn started today. Robin's time is going to become a limiting resource, so I want as few idle days with her as possible. I [is]still[/i] need more wood, so I visit the old spring onion island for almost the first time this year, because it's almost the only place left that still has trees. I'm able to reach Robin's in time to place an order. I get this message, which I've never gotten before: Makes sense. I'm not especially bothered until I realize that the festival might also interfere with the timing of my hoe. If Clint closes up shop tomorrow, I won't be able to get my hoe, which means I won't have it at the start of Fall. That won't be a disaster, but it will be annoying, since I'll have to twiddle my thumbs for a few hours waiting for the shops to open instead of just breaking ground on my field. The Midnight Jelly festival is a different in that it happens late at night, so maybe it won't be a problem. We'll find out tomorrow. I do a little bit of monster hunting and have terrible luck. I close out with Void Spirits at 139/150, which isn't a big improvement. By the way, progress on this thread might slow down for a while. I'll post my progress report of the end of Summer soon, but after that, there are problems. Animals are starting to become important. If you saw this thread, then you know that Starpeanut and I discovered that the animal mechanics are completely and horribly borked. I'm hoping it will get patched, but I'm not optimistic that CA is even aware of the bug at all. The broken mechanics aren't all that fun and hurt my enthusiasm for the project. We'll see.
SunTide, since you mentioned being unhappy with the animal bugs, I'd love it if you could help me test out a mod I just whipped up that should fix those issues. More details here: http://community.playstarbound.com/threads/happy-animals-1-0.126655/ I've learned a lot from following along with your farm. Maybe this will help bring it back to life!
