Things you wish you knew as a new player...

1). Start leveling fishing ASAP, use the lake west of Marnie's if you're having trouble with the minigame to levelup. I would even place this on a higher priority than crops in Spring, as none of the Spring crops are particularly profitable except for Potatoes (Green Beans take too long and you won't be able to plant very many on Spring 1 because you only start out with 500g).

2). Start the mines ASAP as well; alternate between fishing and the mines.

3). Do not sell bug meat, ever. Make bait out of them (need a couple fishing levels first). By the time you get to rocky floors, you should have 300+ bait saved up by then. You can't use bait until you get the Fiberglass Rod (I spent several minutes trying to figure out why I couldn't put bait in the Bamboo Pole, lol)

4). Try for the treasure chests as often as possible in the fishing minigame. Sometimes you can get incredibly awesome items out of them (usually just 1 bait though).

5). Always donate to the Museum when it says "Gunther can tell you more about this", EXCEPT for the Prismatic Shard and Fire Quartz (latter goes to the Broiler Room CC Bundle). Use your first one first, and THEN donate a second one if you should ever get another.

6). Do CC bundles ASAP -- particularly the Broiler Room. It will save you so much time. The Pantry bundles will make you a boatload of cash very quickly as well once that unlock has been earned, but might be more difficult due to the animal bundle. Finishing all of the Bundles makes Pierre open on Wednesdays once a cutscene plays!

7). ALWAYS check the Pig Merchant due West of Marnie's Ranch every Friday and Sunday. Always buy one of each animal products for CC bundles if they are sold (L. Milk, Large Eggs, L. Goat Milk, Cheese, Rabbit's Foot, Truffle, Duck Egg, Duck Feather) as that will save you a lot of time and work later.

8). Try to keep 3000-5000g on you at all times in case said Pig Merchant happens to have an Iridium Sprinkler. You don't want to be the guy who has 2,500g on you and end up seeing an IR Sprinkler for 3,000g early-game. Pig Merchant does NOT change their wares if you exit and restart the game.

9). Animals are currently nigh-worthless (except for CC bundles). They will eat up a lot of your time and resources and will produce very little money in return. The CC Bundles are the only reason to ever touch animals, and if you can purchase enough items off of the Pig Merchant, I'd skip these entirely.

10). Krobus (when you get access to him) always sells one Iridium Sprinkler every Friday. Buy them!

11). Fastest/easiest way to make friends with the Wizard: He loves Solar and Void Essence. These can be found by the dozens in Floor 70+ of the mine. Krobus also sells 10 per day.

12). You can get 12 Hardwood per day once you get a Steel Axe by going to the "secret" forest north of the Wizard's house. Two of the stumps are hidden, you must walk through the trees on the bottom to get to them.

 

Some other points that I don’t think have been mentioned...

- Hoe the little sticks. ALWAYS. Some artefacts are dang rare and thus you will need to hoe a lot of dirt to get them

- Hoeing large patches on the beach in winter gifts you with plenty of free clay, snow yams, and winter roots

- Cobblestone path will make traversing your farm a million times easier since stuff won't grow on it so you won't be slowed down. Just toss it everywhere that you walk through frequently.

- Save going after achievements for when you have a bunch of spare cash. It will be so much easier

- Don’t give Gunther your first dinosaur egg. Wait until you have a fully upgraded coop and toss it in the incubator. You will get a dinosaur that produces more dinosaur eggs which are worth more than normal eggs by a lot.

- Sheep are a waste of time. Rabbits are cuter, lower maintenance, and can drop rabbits feet which are needed for a bundle and are a loved gift by everyone (except penny)

- Chickens are fairly useless unless you want to get a void chicken. Ducks are better and their products are worth more. Only downside to void chickens is you cannot turn their eggs into mayo - proved wrong! my mistake :0

- For your first ancient fruit (got from giving an ancient seed to Gunther), plant it first day of spring (will last until last day of fall) and save all of its fruits for when you get a seed maker.

- Ancient fruit wine is worth stupid amounts of money. I recommend filling your greenhouse (when you unlock it) with ancient fruits and then building lines and lines of kegs. I have about 46 kegs now and make over 100k when they all finish

- Fruit wine in general is worth a lot more money. You are better off brewing fruit versus just selling it

- Artisan goods >>>> normal crops for making money.

- Pepper poppers is such a valuable recipe. One cheese + one pepper. Gives you speed and farming but the speed helps so dang much and it lasts a hell of a lot longer than coffee

- You can drink coffee and eat a pepper popper or spicy eel for double speed

- Spicy eel is also a very valuable recipe for mining (+1 luck, +1 speed). I got it from befriending George and you will need hot peppers and eels (caught during rainy spring and fall evenings at the beach)

- Crab pots are such an easy way to up your fishing level. Fill them with bait from bugs killed in the 20-29 level mines. Also are great for making the upgraded fertilizer when you learn to craft that.

- Save sap for fertilizer. Chop down every tree in Cindersnap forest (the one below your farm) if you need to. You also get a lot of tree seeds which are great for early-game

- Once you get a recycling machine, start putting glasses and CDs in them for quick 50g pieces of refined quartz

- Pomegranates are liked by everyone. Elliot loves them. Perfect as gifts.

- Fiber is great for warp totems once you can learn to craft them which makes staying in the mines until last possible second so much easier

- Iridium is best used for sprinklers once you start getting it, then get crystalariums (put diamonds in them), then craft an iridium band, then update your tools.

- Choose to get extra ore and then to increase chances of geodes. It pays off more.

- For mining, bombs are really quick way of clearing things out and getting geodes. Great tip is that you can place a bomb and immediately choose to eat something which "pauses the game" but the bomb will still go off leaving you completely unharmed next to it. This saves you a lot of time and can even push enemies away while you heal up.

- Fishing-wise, you can fill your quickly fill your inventory with fish and treasure with a treasure bobber and magnetic bait. Don’t bother putting bug-meat bait on your pole, save that for crab pots.

- Forage and forage and once you can craft the seasonal foraging seeds, stop selling anything you get that doesn’t have a star, turn the forage into seeds and plant them. You pretty much get 6-7 free foraging items from them.

- Before you get married, woo and give bouquets to all single people (so you can get them to 10 hearts and see all the cut scenes

- Once you get the recipe for lightening rods, build as many as you can and bung them on the ground. Battery packs are needed for a lot of high-level crafting stuff) and can be sold for a nice bit of money

 

This is actually 100% false. No offense.

1 Duck Mayonnaise Sells for 300g.
1 Mayonnaise sells for 150g or 225g.

These are both assuming no Artisan perk.

Even if you get NORMAL eggs out of your chickens, you're breaking even with a duck, because a duck only lays eggs every other day. If you get a Large Egg, then you are making 375-450g per 2 days instead of 300g that you make in 2 days with the Duck Mayonnaise. This is assuming your Duck doesn't leave a feather (which is only worth 110g!) or nothing at all. Remember: Duck Mayonnaise is never, ever, ever Gold Star because Ducks cannot lay Large Duck Eggs.

Sometimes chickens leave nothing at all, but if a duck leaves nothing at all, then that means you need to wait another day or two to get back into the rhythm, whereas Chickens can give you products every single day.

Unless you need the items for the bundle (just get 1 duck and get rid of it after it lays the egg and the feather you need), chickens are superior in every way.

 

This is less a "thing you wish you knew as a new player" and more "thing to do if you want to be the biggest asshole/slut/gigolo of the village by making romantic advances towards EVERYONE and than breaking everyones heart except for one.

 

I don't remember if I read this here yet but after getting four hearts with the wizard. maybe less if you talk to him everyday which I don't lol, he will tell you that you can go in his basement and there is a little shrine down there if you choose to pay the 500g you can change your character's appearance. I was thinking about as a feature for the dressers...without paying of course but since it's in the game I'm good with that.

 

* Don't make a bigger farm than you can spend about half your energy when you are watering the first spring. You'll need the energy on other things.

* Cut as little grass as possible before you've made a Silo. Make 2 even 3 before winter. Cut all the grass the last day of Autumn.

* It's a good idea to make 7-9 furnaces.

* Make a stable as soon as possible. Walking around takes too much time. You'll need to upgrade your axe to iron to get enough hardwood.

* For getting lots of cash the first two years, honey is your best bet. A quality sprinkler with flowers (preferably the most expensive and on the best speed grow avaliable) around them and 15 Beehives around those with an opening to enter the flowerbe. Make sure you can walk around them. Harvesting honey on the inside would lead to picking flowers instead 5 "sets" like that and you can cash in 20 000 gold every 3rd. day. Takes a lot of resources, but worth it. If you do, dont use wood to make coal. You'll need LOTS of wood. Buy coal at the smithy.

* You can collect Salmonberries 15-18th. of Spring on the red bushes. Shake them. Collect them, they'll give you enough energy to clear your farm and everywhere else. First day you collect, bring along your schythe, pickaxe and axe and clear out any debris in the forest and the mountains at the same time. Use what's left in the mines along with Spring Onions to replenish your health or energy.

* Go down 5 levels every time you are in the mines. This takes priority over getting ore, but it's entirely possible to do both. Reach level 100 as soon as you can. After that you can focus on getting ore and other goodies.

* Getting a backpack is good, but with a bit of organizing it's entirely possible to go without until you've got a decent income. Chests are your friend there. And spending money to get more money is better.

 

Only make one silo. Once you've got a coop, put a box beside the hopper, pull all your hay out, and put it in the box. A box is WAY cheaper to make than a silo, and has 36 slots, each of which holds 999 hay - over 4 silos worth (240/silo).

 

• Modding is a thing!

there are mods available that do anything from conveyor belts and automated machines.. to easier/harder fishing... to giving female farmers skirts.
if there's one particular part of the game thats really annoying you, there's probably a mod for it.

 

I'm not sure if anyone said this yet, but save your sap! Turn it ALL into fertilizer, especially for the quality crops bundle at the community center! It may not be a huge boost, but since it's so easy to make, its really worth it imo. Also don't clear out your trees! If you chop em all down they will take FOREVER to grow more (not really a beginner idea but still, maybe others do that idk).
DEFINITELY second the silo. I had no clue and now I'm Living On The Edge because I cut the grass (the tall stuff you that makes you run slower) before I got the silo.
PLANT FRUIT TREES. They are expensive but the community center bundles need them and theyre pretty alright money too. When you plant fruit trees, make sure nothing is sitting around them!!! Even paths!!! I had a path laid out next to the trees and they just. didn't. grow. I was so frustrated and then I was like oh. The paths.
Also, I wouldn't say to hoard everything, but 1 or 2 of everything (other than artifacts) is REALLY useful when there's quests and birthdays!
Also, befriend the people you don't like. Pretty much everyone eventually becomes nice or relatable, and I think that the change in character is always fun to watch!
OH and a VERY important lesson I didn't learn until VERY recently: the cutoff for friendships for the marriage candidates is 8 hearts. You literally cannot get them higher than that, for some stupid reason, unless you give them the bouquet. It's the most FRUSTRATING thing in the entire freaking game imo. Do you know how many valuable resources I wasted trying to get them higher than 8????? It's misery. So yea don't worry about them after 8 hearts, they're maxed out as far as the stupid game thinks.

Idk, maybe this stuff is common sense to most people but these are just some mistakes I made, so yea.

 

Wait, so can you (or anyone else) confirm that Artifacts are used for nothing else but the Museum? It's not even used for random quests?
(Barring the special Artifacts like the Dragon Egg or the Prismatic Thingy)

 

I'm pretty darn sure!!! I'm in Fall year 2 and I've never gotten a quest for them, so I'm preetty sure they're useless. I think the dino egg and the prismatic shards are the only artifacts that are actually useful, but pretty much, if it's labelled as "artifact" it can be sold. Some of them are items everyone likes/loves, but it really isn't worth it to use them for that imo. There's usually a much easier ( and cheaper) item to give, so personally, I say sell the artifacts.

 

Eh, I play for completion and it kills me that I got married too soon and can't see 7/8ths of the final cut scenes for the characters and they are always chilling at the bottom of my social list with 8 hearts just taunting me
I think I've seen people say that you can do it POST marriage but it is kinda even more of an asshole move and your spouse gets jealous.

Also I second xFishbone. Mods are great and you need new saves for many of the more game-changing ones.

 

I recall the dwarf likes dwarven items (scrollls first since they have a selling price.) so that is an option if you don't have enough or do want to spend gems on him.

 

Plant blueberries in the summer and cranberries in the fall for excellent, repeatable harvests. Don't sell these. As soon as you can, build preserve jars: plenty of them. Through that long, cold winter you can use the berries to make preserves which will sell for quite a lot. And the resources required for preserve jars are quite reasonable, becoming much more so once you reach Foraging 4 and can build a charcoal kiln that turns 10 wood into 1 coal.

Don't neglect planting a little of everything else in any given season, however! And with all that sap you get from cutting down trees, make fertilizer so you get some gold star harvested crops. (Note: farm a great deal. Buy cheap seeds, like peppers. Raise your farm level quickly with these. Starting at Farm 3, I was able to get a fair amount silver and a few gold star crops.) Save a few of each. In fact, save a few of each crop plain, too, so you can ultimately use them in health-giving and temporary skill-raising recipes. (I sell the silver starred ones.) Don't use silver or gold-starred harvest goods in recipes; it doesn't make them any more valuable.

Hope some of that helps.

 

@Borodin : Basic Fertilizer with a Sub-Lv5 farming skill almost never produces Gold-Star crops. I've done several tests with this, and out of a field of 20-30, say, parsnips, I routinely got nothing but 1-2 silvers. If I was *extremely* lucky, maybe one gold plant.

The CC bundle that wants all the gold-stars? I'm convinced that it is nearly impossible to get the 5 parsnips they want before the end of Spring 1.

Now, by Spring 2, you probably have Lv6+ farming and then it is much more reasonable (especially since you surely have at least a few sprinklers by then) to plant a larger field, and you've had some resources and maybe even T2 Fertilizer.

As for your suggestion of Cranberries, keep in mind that 1 Preserves Jar takes 2 days to make pickles (or jelly). So, however many preserves jars you can afford to make, multiply that times 14 and that's how many cranberries you need to keep for the winter. So my suggestion, is to sell all Silver/Gold Cranberries, and then of the normal Cranberries, hang onto Jars x14 Cranberries. Hopefully by the Fall, you were able to get at least a few sprinklers and are able to sell some cranberries to get cash ASAP as well as prepare for the winter.

As for what else to do during Winter... Fishing is an awesome way to profit if you're any good at the minigame (or if you cheated with the mod lol) and/or actually leveled your fishing ahead of time. River fishing is particularly good in the Winter with all the Lingcods that are constantly biting... but I hope you are either good or you got the mod, because they are difficult to reel in.

 

@Xylia-- I cannot speak to your experience. I've been playing the game for only a week, 1.06 until yesterday. It sounds like you've played it a great deal more than I. Yet using basic fertilizer on every bit of tilled soil, I routinely acquired quite a few gold crops. That's the only fertilizer, in fact, that's I've used throughout.

I'm not making this up. Maybe my game is bugged. I'm not using any mods (didn't even realize they existed until tonight! edit: Started using a new font as well as Smartmod last night). Lots of silver star ones. I'd say this started at Farm 3 for me. I also found quite a bit of gold and silver star forage with only Forage 2. Been my wife's experience, as well: both of us built chests early on just for the starred content. Now, I'm up to Farm 9, so of course it happens a lot more. But it started very, very early on. Clearly, I should have mentioned in my post that concentrating on raising farming levels early brings silver and gold stars rewards, and I thank you for reminding me of this. I will change it accordingly, for accuracy's sake. But it was as early as Farm 3 that I saw those stars regularly, and I will state as much.

Yes, I am aware of the figures. I might also mention that it's useful to preserve blueberries. Quite a lot of them; though my strategy involved beginning with a cheap crop first, harvesting and preserving peppers, to get quantity going in my farm, so as to create a decent cash reserve, and raise Farm levels themselves quicker. I sold the silver peppers, kept the gold, and just made preserves with the rest. I was able to buy a lot of quality sprinklers come Spring 2 to cover all my crops, just from preserve making (and mining) that lasted through all of that first winter. Mining plays synergistically as you know into quite a lot else: better tools means less expenditure of energy for greater results, more ore, more ore bars, making those quality sprinklers and so much else, etc. I'm into Fall 2 now, and I've added five bee houses with appropriate flowers. What I haven't done is expand into animal raising, and will probably just ignore that. Or do it in a second game. Your opinion on this reflects a fairly general consensus, I've found. It doesn't seem at this point to be worth the effort.

Regarding fishing: I've put that off. Got to Level 1 (my wife can't abide it; didn't even get that), and plan to work on it over Winter 2. I'm not criticizing it; the idea of a sub-gaming system with inverse difficulty is very clever, and it seems well done, here. I just don't have the time to become competent at this gaming sub-system when focusing on tasks that have a lower learning curve, such as farming and mining, as well as some social advancement in town for recipes and the like.

But that's one of the joys of SV. So many distinctive ways to proceed forward successfully, with a bit of care and effort. Thank you for your comments. They are genuinely appreciated.

 

i can confirm u can get the 5 gold parsnips if u plant enough with fertilizer..

 

There's such a small window that fertilizer actually makes a difference that it's a pretty useless function. Once you've nailed farming and got into a decent berry cycle and/or are using preserving jars and kegs you should be bringing in so much money that the difference between generating basic or gold star crops has minimal impact on your income.

 

I wish I had known I could put tappers on the trees down in the forest below the farm. I ended up not having as many trees on my farm in my primary playthrough and man it was making getting oak resin a pain. X_x

 

Absolutely agreed. Once the jars become numerous enough the point wasn't a matter of income, but the question was whether the gold stars were (or weren't) happening with basic fertilizer at a low level.