Which "major purchase" should I make next?

[roymaster45]

I'm at the end of summer in year 1, and at this point, I have a pretty good handle on life in Pelican Town (crop planting routines, mining, etc.).

Currently, I'm trying to decide which of the following purchases/expenditures would be most useful:

-Buying the first upgrade for my farmhouse
-Buying the second backpack upgrade
-Buying some animal-related buildings (a silo, coop, etc.)
-Completing some of the bundles in the Vault room at the Community Center

Any suggestions?

[Pixel Peeper]

The first farmhouse upgrade is just a kitchen. Unless you're going for very specific strategies (like Crab Pots) or want to be wooing a particular character with your cooking, this is not an investment that's going to pay off. I would do it when you've got gold to spare.

The 36-slot backpack upgrade is a solid choice just for the convenience, but also actually lets you make a lot more money when mining.

A silo and coop are perfectly fine investments, too. A few chickens don't involve much work and selling four Mayonnaise every day really improves your income.

Bundles usually do not cost any significant amount of money/resources to complete (the Vault being the major exception), just plan for them as you go along. The minecarts are probably the most important early in the game, and it's nice to get a head start on the Greenhouse if you can. The Foraging bundle reward is not significant but it's very easy to complete so you might want to work on that one too.

[NotThatHarkness]

Definitely get a silo. Using the scythe on grass will fill the silo with hay. You'll want to clear enough of your farm so grass grows and cut it back periodically to fill the silo. If you don't, you'll have to buy the hay from Marnie. Each silo holds 240 hay and each animal eats one hay each day in winter and rainy days (they eat grass on sunny, non-winter days if you let them out). Build as many silos as you need to account for the number of animals you expect to own through winter.

If you've been watching the cooking channel and/or befriending villagers to get their recipies, and intend to cook, then the farm house upgrade could be useful. Otherwise I'd start with the animal buildings. I tend not to do much cooking so I put off the house upgrade until I have both a coop and a barn, and upgraded both 2 times to the auto-feed version.

The vault can wait. It can take a while for some of the animal products to drop (rabbit's foot, duck feather).

[Amberia]

If you do constant fish & crab pot, or aiming at an early marriage(not necessay, not profitable, but you know...sometimes you just don't want to be single), go for the house upgrade.

If you constantly go to the mine, the backpack upgrade would be better.

Coop+silo will cost you less than the two above, it only cost you 4100 gold(or 4900 gold if you count the chicken with it). The coop+silo can guarantee 1 egg per chicken, which is 50 gold per day. I hightly recommend build mayonnaise machine if you go for this one. The machine is relatively cheap and can raise the profit of an egg from 50g to 190g, which is a huge boost.

Bundle of the vault room is the most expensive one among all of them. It costs 42500g in total to complete all. Compete the bundle will open the access to Chalico desert which is a new area for nice income. Also if you have any diamond in storage, go finish the vault bundle. The very last bundle in Vault will reward you a Crystalarium, which can let you replicate diamonds. Pretty much one of the best machines you can get in early game.

[DarkStarKnight]

Originally posted by roymaster45:

I'm at the end of summer in year 1, and at this point, I have a pretty good handle on life in Pelican Town (crop planting routines, mining, etc.).

Currently, I'm trying to decide which of the following purchases/expenditures would be most useful:

-Buying the first upgrade for my farmhouse
-Buying the second backpack upgrade
-Buying some animal-related buildings (a silo, coop, etc.)
-Completing some of the bundles in the Vault room at the Community Center

Any suggestions?

Depends, do you want to be married, if so, farmhouse

[The Y'All Of Us]

The Farmhouse can help you out with some things through cooking, but all of the major benefits I can think of which you can utilize within the first gameyear have alternatives. Since it's already summer, you can start building barns and coops- but I'd hold off on purchasing the animals until after Winter has passed, since you won't be able to reliably produce the extra food for them.

That being said, even if you have to buy hay for a chicken every day from Marnie, you'll still be turning a profit from mayonnaise.

The Vault in the Community Center has some really great rewards- you can get a Crystalarium and a Seed Maker much earlier than you'll otherwise be able to craft them. If you're looking for a payoff that'll be worthwhile, but not need you to dedicate much more in the way of set-up resources, I'd go with that.

[Pixel Peeper]

To clarify a couple points:

The silo is dirt-cheap and you should get it before winter to store Hay even if you don't plan on building a coop right away. It'll ensure that your grass doesn't go to waste; just use your scythe to collect it all in late autumn.

Even if you're planning on getting married, you don't need to buy the kitchen long in advance. It takes only three days to build. You can wait until a few days before you actually get engaged.

[feralgal]

As others have said, it really depends on your goals and also what you enjoy in the game. If you like fishing or especially mining, get the backpack upgrade. You can work around not having it by having chests where you fish or at the mines so you can just run and dump stuff in your chest but its a PITA. If you like cooking, either for immersion or bc you want to get hearts faster with someone (check what they love), get the house upgrade (kitchen). It also gives you a bit more room to conveniently put things like furnaces, chests, preserves jars, etc. If you want to focus on animals, get the silo. Bee houses are also good early upgrades IMO.

As others have said, if you have the cash, the Vault upgrades can be worthwhile. Even if you don't do the mine, it's nice to have the seed maker and the crystalarium. Access to Sandy and the deluxe speed grow is good for making money but, since you're at the end of summer, I wouldn't worry about going to the desert until winter. I did it early but my early focus is on mining and making money so it's going to be very different than someone focused on getting married or fishing.