Is it just me or is the greenhouse completely overpowered?

[bustling bungus]

So this is my first playthrough and I'm in Autumn year 3, but I got the greenhouse like early/mid year 2 I think, and ever since I can't get over how overpowered it is. So once I realised exactly what it was (a place where you could plant any crop year round), I immediately thought to fill the whole thing with cranberries, bar the spots used for sprinklers, as cranberries are the most profitable crops I have access to in bulk, and since they yield berries continuously, and can be planted in any season, never have to be replaced.
This has been completely game changing for my farm, so much so to the point that I entirely stopped planting crops outside of my greenhouse almost immediately after unlocking it. And why wouldn't I? I had already had most of the crops needed for the community centre, so that wasn't an issue, and since cranberries are already the most profitable crop for me, nothing I can plant outside the greenhouse is really worth the effort of tending too, especially since they'd need to be replaced at the end of the season.
Thus, my schedule, for lack of a better word, in my playthrough has shifted from tending to a variety of different crops over the course of the year, with much of my behaviour depending on the season (i.e. not being able to plant anything during winter, and having to change out crops and whatnot seasonally), to every single day, waking up, getting the products from my animals, putting them in their respective machines, walking into the greenhouse and watering the 12 cranberry plants that aren't watered automatically (as I haven't gotten Iridium sprinklers or whatever yet), and like once or twice a week harvesting 120 cranberry plants for a massive profit, and never having to replace them at all, regardless of the season.
This has made the game kind of repetitive, as I just to the same ♥♥♥♥ every day, as there's no reason to plant anything else, too much effort for too little profit. But if I stop using the greenhouse, i fear that I will abandon planting crops almost entirely, since even though getting like 240-480+ cranberries a week is huge, I already make hundreds of thousands of dollars per week from my animals already, so any farming outside of the greenhouse is, again, way too much work for comparatively infinite effort, since profiting from my animals literally just means petting them all, getting everything from the Auto-Grabber, and putting everything in its respective machine.
All this lead me to wonder if anyone else has similar problems, and if, hence the title, if it's just me or is the greenhouse completely overpowered? Like the greenhouse (plus the sheer profitability of animals) led to a complete disinterest of farming crops normally, took away from the dependency on the seasons the game had for me at the beginning, and honestly just made the game really repetitive. Maybe they should have removed the greenhouse, or if not then made the space inside like really tiny as opposed to the 12x10 it is, as well as made farming crops more profitable as to even compare with the amount of money I make from animals. Though maybe it's just me having this issue idk.

[BCD]

Disclaimer: I hardly ever play past grandpa's evaluation, which limits how much use I get out of the greenhouse. Anyway...
I don't feel that way at all. The greenhouse is very good and you can get waaaaay more out of it than you're getting (the ultra meta is something like filling it up with ancient fruit watered by iridium sprinklers and planting fruit trees on the side), and than what I was getting too. In my last farm I actually planted a small variety of stuff, even suboptimal stuff, some grapes some strawberries and some ancient fruit which I used as barrel/keg fodder. But the greenhouse isn't that big, and you could be getting a lot more out of your farm.
If you want to keep making money, the greenhouse is much too small. Farm animals aren't the be-all-end-all either. They make for a nice, steady, very low-maintenance stream of income, but crops are much more profitable.
I think you might have a different problem. It's not that the greenhouse is op and makes too much money, but that you have no projects to spend the money on. Playing on year 2 for me is more like a victory lap. I built my cool farm and I became Pelican Town's MVP, so I just chill keeping the barrels and kegs running while waiting for grandpa to pat me on the head and say I did good. Once he does there's nothing coming up for me and the next time I boot up SDV it's to start a new farm.

[I Kinda Fail]

Yeah, to me it seems like it'd be slightly more balanced if you had to set it to 1 season... but profit-wise that wouldn't be a huge deal. The 3 most profitable crops all grow in Summer, I believe?

Sometimes what I do is put ancient fruit in the greenhouse, and keep rotating the crops outside. It's more fun that way. It might be unbalanced, sure, but sometimes the player needs to have SOME responsibility towards not breaking their own game.

I would definitely understand if they made it that ancient fruit doesn't grow in the greenhouse, for balance reasons, but... like you said, pretty much any of the decent crops will do well in there. I like to do hops and a variety of berries - blueberry, cranberry, strawberry, and ancient fruit. I'm too lazy to replant the greenhouse. But I do enjoy the mad scramble to get everything planted on day 1 of the new season. I just wish Pierre sold Spring seeds on Winter 28, so I can save a 2 hour trip to the store on a day when I need to plant 1000 crops...

[bustling bungus]

Originally posted by BCD:

Disclaimer: I hardly ever play past grandpa's evaluation, which limits how much use I get out of the greenhouse. Anyway...
I don't feel that way at all. The greenhouse is very good and you can get waaaaay more out of it than you're getting (the ultra meta is something like filling it up with ancient fruit watered by iridium sprinklers and planting fruit trees on the side), and than what I was getting too. In my last farm I actually planted a small variety of stuff, even suboptimal stuff, some grapes some strawberries and some ancient fruit which I used as barrel/keg fodder. But the greenhouse isn't that big, and you could be getting a lot more out of your farm.
If you want to keep making money, the greenhouse is much too small. Farm animals aren't the be-all-end-all either. They make for a nice, steady, very low-maintenance stream of income, but crops are much more profitable.
I think you might have a different problem. It's not that the greenhouse is op and makes too much money, but that you have no projects to spend the money on. Playing on year 2 for me is more like a victory lap. I built my cool farm and I became Pelican Town's MVP, so I just chill keeping the barrels and kegs running while waiting for grandpa to pat me on the head and say I did good. Once he does there's nothing coming up for me and the next time I boot up SDV it's to start a new farm.

I'm sure I'm just being weird in how I play, but like how is crop farming more profitable than animals? like the main reason animals are so good for me is because I can turn all of the eggs/milk/wool/truffles into mayo/cheese/cloth/truffle oil, and the conversion of all of that stuff takes only a couple in game hours, while making pickles/jam/wine/juice from crops takes several days, I don't see how the difference in production speed can be balanced by crop farming, and plus like even if you had such a huge field of crops that it beat out using the space for animals, and it was all being auto watered, I feel like it would take so long to harvest it all that it wouldn't be worth the effort? (also i don't really have iridium sprinklers and I've only managed to get my hands on 2 ancient seeds)
Also like the greenhouse is pretty big I think, at least compared to the field I was planting crops in before unlocking it (which was only ~9x8 I think compared to the greenhouse's 10x12)
I do have one active project my money's going into, which is the community centre. The only item I have left is fire quartz, and I kind of suck at the mines, so I've been grinding money to buy enough stone to make 80+ staircases to literally stair my way down to get fire quartz. Other than that at some point in the future I want to make my farm look like, nice, instead of looking like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but idk

[pcdeltalink]

The main use for it is money of course but I usually keep a variety of crops in there for a few reasons.

I keep 16 hops in mine to be used for energy/pale ales.
I have some cranberries (and/or maybe a few other regrowing crops).
I have a few ancient fruit because long term money.
Some empty space for growing whatever I may need that’s out of season. Usually occupied by a short growth crop like wheat in case I need the squares back for something more important.
I also use it for growing anything certain villagers love if needed (ex. Strawberries for Maru and Demetrius).

Personally, I don’t think it’s excessively op. Then again I also don’t fill it with ancient fruit cause that sounds boring to me even if it’s a lot of cash.

In normal seasons of course your farmland can net you potentially way more money than the greenhouse just by the size of the fields you can plant outdoors. And by year 3 you should have tons of iridium sprinklers to use as well.

There are mods that change the items used in the community bundles needed to unlock the various upgrades so maybe consider one of those if you think it’s too easy to unlock such a building.

[BCD]

Originally posted by Mr. White Blood Cells:

I'm sure I'm just being weird in how I play, but like how is crop farming more profitable than animals? like the main reason animals are so good for me is because I can turn all of the eggs/milk/wool/truffles into mayo/cheese/cloth/truffle oil, and the conversion of all of that stuff takes only a couple in game hours, while making pickles/jam/wine/juice from crops takes several days, I don't see how the difference in production speed can be balanced by crop farming, and plus like even if you had such a huge field of crops that it beat out using the space for animals, and it was all being auto watered, I feel like it would take so long to harvest it all that it wouldn't be worth the effort? (also i don't really have iridium sprinklers and I've only managed to get my hands on 2 ancient seeds)
Also like the greenhouse is pretty big I think, at least compared to the field I was planting crops in before unlocking it (which was only ~9x8 I think compared to the greenhouse's 10x12)
I do have one active project my money's going into, which is the community centre. The only item I have left is fire quartz, and I kind of suck at the mines, so I've been grinding money to buy enough stone to make 80+ staircases to literally stair my way down to get fire quartz. Other than that at some point in the future I want to make my farm look like, nice, instead of looking like a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, but idk

Haha, that's a pity about the mines. Good luck with the staircases.
Obviously I couldn't know how big your crop field was, but from the looks of it it could be way bigger. If you REALLY are after loads of money (which you might not be, and that's fine), the farm (I'm assuming it's the standard farm but it applies to the others too) has a lot more room than the greenhouse. I recall, for example, making multiple patches of 90 or 180 crops on my last farm. When you clear it out of all the junk, the farm can have a LOT of crops planted, way more than the greenhouse. As for farm animals...
For starters, farm animals require a waaaaay bigger investment than crops. To buy a single pig, the king of the animals, you need to build a barn and upgrade it twice, which takes tens of thousands of gold and a lot of wood and stone, same with the chickens. Crops need seeds, tilled land and water. The latter is where they lose out to animals. If you're not using sprinklers, crops are very high maintenance, while animals are very easy to maintain.
The high bar of entry also plays into another problem, that you can't 'spam' animals on your farm. The very idea is kind of ludicrous. Crops, however, can be planted en masse, and harvesting them is very much worth it.
Don't forget that you can process crops too! Though cranberries's base price is too low for processing them to be worth it, stuff like pumpkin jelly and pale ale sell nicely, and starfruit wine is the dream product. Crops can take a long time to grow, but they require very little financial investment and make many times what you paid for them.
Let's take hops, for example. Just one hop starter. They cost 30 gold, grow in 11 days and thereafter produce one hop per day. Assuming it's only regular quality and you have no perks and you're selling the hops straight up, you'll make your money back after two harvests. However, what you should be doing with your hops is putting them in a keg to make pale ale, which sells for 300 gold, 10 times your investment. Assuming you planted the hops on day one, you'll get 17 hops from a single seed, which can turn into 5.100 gold after you put them through the kegs. All from a seed you bought for 30 gold. There's a time and energy cost to this, naturally. Pale ale takes about 1.5 days to process and you need to water the plants, which you should plant in bulk instead of just having one, but it's absolutely worth it. Let's consider another example, perhaps a more reasonable one (lol), and compare it to a barn full of pigs.
A deluxe barn will set you back a total of 43k gold, added to 12x16k (192k) for all the pigs. So, an investment of 235k, not counting wood and stone. Let's assume that it doesn't rain at all during the season (which is unlikely and absolutely not true for summer) and that every pig makes two truffles every day. That's 24 truffles over 35 (slightly more than a single season, but bear with me) days, which is 840, which you can turn into truffle oil and sell each for 1.065, totaling 894.600 gold and a profit of 659.600.
Now, let's make a patch of 450 starfruits. That's a lot of starfruits, but it can be taken care of with an iridium gardening can or iridium sprinklers, and you could fit a lot more into the standard farm. Much, much more. It's far easier to happen than a barn full of pigs, in fact.
Starfruit seeds are sold by Sandy for 400 gold. Starfruits grow in 13 days, so we're also gonna plant that patch twice over the course of summer for a total of 900 starfruits and an investment of 360k. We're going to process the starfruit into wine, which takes slightly less than a week and will sell for 2250. If we have enough kegs for all the starfruit at once (admittedly a very generous assumption made for convenience's sake, though if you understandably don't have 450 kegs the only difference it makes is time, not energy or money), we'll have turned all of it into wine by early fall, whereupon we'll have made 2.025.000 and a profit of 1.665.000 gold over the same 35 days we gave the pigs. I also didn't count the artisan perk, generally considered the best in the farming profession, which would result in even more money. You could also double this over a long long long long long long time (not even possible to have 450 casks) in the cellar turning it to iridium quality without making any more wine or starfruit.
Honestly idk why I chose this example when it requires a megafarm you clearly don't have and which I never got even close to (lol 450 kegs), but I already did the math so bugger it. Point is, crops are generally more profitable than animals, and usually more affordable too in spite of the bad starfruit example.

[Donathan Cheadledge]

In general the lategame leaves you with a lot more money than you can reasonably spend. Greenhouse in that regard isn't really a gamechanger.

It's why the game has a lot of content beyond the crop farming, really.

[Stardustfire]

greenhouse is not so much about money income, but about a stable foundation fro regrowing plants, without seasonal limitations. i build a lot of ancient fruits in it, but at least 3 rows are used for coffee beans, becasue i dont want to miss a neverending all year supply of triple expressos. my farmer must be a total coffein junky already.

[I Kinda Fail]

Originally posted by Mr. White Blood Cells:

Originally posted by BCD:

snip

I'm sure I'm just being weird in how I play, but like how is crop farming more profitable than animals? like the main reason animals are so good for me is because I can turn all of the eggs/milk/wool/truffles into mayo/cheese/cloth/truffle oil, and the conversion of all of that stuff takes only a couple in game hours, while making pickles/jam/wine/juice from crops takes several days, I don't see how the difference in production speed can be balanced by crop farming, and plus like even if you had such a huge field of crops that it beat out using the space for animals, and it was all being auto watered, I feel like it would take so long to harvest it all that it wouldn't be worth the effort? (also i don't really have iridium sprinklers and I've only managed to get my hands on 2 ancient seeds)

It's because you're thinking about it wrong. :P

Let's take a barn, for example. A barn takes up 28 spaces, and can hold 12 animals. Let's use goats as an example. Every 2 days, you'll get 12 goat cheese, worth 560g each. So in 28 days, you'll get 168 pieces of cheese, worth 94k. So a full goat barn will provide 94k per season, or 3360 per day. On top of this, you either need to dedicate more farming space towards growing hay, or spend 600g per day to feed the goats. So your 3360 per day is now down to 2760 per day, for a building that takes up 28 spaces. So you're getting roughly 100g per tile, or 77k per season.

Now let's take an average crop: blueberries. Let's say 28 blueberry crops, which give 5 harvests each, for a minimum of 5x3x28. So that patch of 28 blueberry plants will get you 420 blueberries in 28 days, which will turn into jelly worth 210g each. So 420x210 will get you 88,200g in 28 days from 28 tiles. This averages out to 112g per tile. If you subtract the cost of blueberry seeds, it comes out to 109g per tile, so 85.4k per season.

Let's try a better crop: cranberries. 28 cranberry crops, 5 harvests each. Each harvest gives 2 berries minimum, so 56 berries per harvest, 5 times, for a total of 280 cranberries in a season, or 280 in 28 days. Coincidentally, their jelly also sells for 280g. So you'll be selling all that jelly for 78,400g. However, their seeds will cost 6720, so your total profit will be 71,680g for the season, which is only about 91g per tile per day.

So in 1 month, your goat barn would earn you 77k and 100g per tile. A blueberry patch would earn you 85.4k per season and 109g per tile. A cranberry field would earn you 71.7k per season or 91g per day. Blueberries require more processing, but are better profit. Cranberries are less money overall, but require a LOT less processing.

Finally, let's take hops. Hops give 19 per season, but due to being a trellis crop, it's unlikely you'd be able to plant 28 in a box and still harvest them. So doing a quick mock-up, I figure you can harvest 20 out of 28 squares, with the rest being sprinklers or walking space. So you've got 20 hops, producing 19 harvests. So 380 hops per season to work with. Those hops become pale ale, worth 420g, for a grand total of just under 160k per season. So that's 5.7k profit per day, or 203g per tile - over double what goats give.

Anyway, my point is, animals aren't BAD, but they definitely aren't the best. You have to find what works for you. Goats earn you 2.8k per day, but also require you invest 91k to get a deluxe barn and all the goats. Goats also take 5 days to age up. So those goats will take 38 days to pay themselves off and start earning a profit. Crops, on the other hand, require much less income to start up, but to maximize their income, need to be processed... which takes longer than animals, in exchange for being more reliable income and better profit margins.

Some crops, like green beans and parsnips, will almost always be worse than animals. But the "standard" crops per season are popular for a good reason.
Standard being...
Spring: Potatoes, cauliflower, rhubarb, strawberries, and even kale is decent.
Summer: Hops, melons, blueberries, starfruit.
Fall: Cranberries and pumpkins. Oddly enough, the game indicates Fall as the best season for profit, but Summer has the 2 best crops in the game.

[ElishaRose]

I guess it depends on what your drive is, for the game. If you just want to make money then the greenhouse with continual produce in is a huge gamechanger.

However, I use the greenhouse with continual produce to make eggplant parmesan, as I personally think that's a great (and with the greenhouse, easy) meal to go mining on. Then, if you're struggling with mining/ dislike mining, having limitless meals like that basically makes you have infinite health imo. Sure, you have to eat the stuff, but compared to before I was food mining like that, mines were a nightmare.

I think the greenhouse is an amazing resource, and if you focus on money it can be overpowered. But, if you focus on other aspects of the game, it just allows for some respite time. Eg you can grow crops/ food/ rare stuff as much as you like - knowing you have a small solid income - and can focus on the mining, friendships, magical side of Stardew. I'd only say it's overpowering if you only use stardew for farming crops. Beyond that, it's just a good crutch to get me through winter. Literally. I don't bother with any crops in winter, and just survive by making preserves with the stuff I grew in the greenhouse over the year. It's not particularly a game breaking mechanic.

But that's just my opinion. All subjective after all. :)

[GlassDeviant]

Basically you set up your greenhouse for year round fruit trees and cash crops, then grow wood trees outside. Consider that you need 10 million gil to buy the most expensive item, the Gold Clock. Greenhouse doesn't seem so profitable anymore.