Are dinosaurs just for fun?

[Bacculus]

Looking at the wiki they sound pretty poor for money-generation, a week per egg, 12.5 days to hatch, only 800 for dinosaur mayo, 700 for iridium egg, 1300 for selling a max-heart dino... By all maths it'd be wiser to just have ducks instead. Does concernedape know we want dinos so bad we'll make an inefficient decision?
Is there an easy mod I could make where I could just tweak the sell values to make them break even vs ducks/rabbits? It doesn't make much sense that dinogoods are so unvaluable.

[I Kinda Fail]

Yes. They are the worst coop animal, I believe.

It's kiiind of based off the original system. Cows and chickens = higher profit, but must be checked daily. Goats and ducks = check every other day, so less work, but slightly less profit.
Dinos are once a week, and give like... 1k?

[Bacculus]

Originally posted by I Kinda Fail:

Yes. They are the worst coop animal, I believe.

It's kiiind of based off the original system. Cows and chickens = higher profit, but must be checked daily. Goats and ducks = check every other day, so less work, but slightly less profit.
Dinos are once a week, and give like... 1k?

800 for mayo, so not even 1k. Can't age mayo either so it's capped there, by the time you have a coop with an incubator dinos are already almost non-existant money generation. That's a couple gems in the mines, a few fish, less than one q. sprinkler's worth of crops... By the time you have a big coop for a dino, you won't notice 800g a week, I'm sure of it.

It's interesting about the cow/chicken thing you pointed out, I never did the math to compare but figured purple rabbits feet made rabbits the best coop animal.
The whole animal system confuses me. I went Rancher|Coopmaster for skills, but now that I look at the wiki it seems like Artisan just hands down beats everything for profit. Barn animals are strange too, with Pigs seeming to be the most profitable regardless of skills chosen, but the autograbber is useless for them and the fact that truffles have quality levels is irrelevant because truffle oil is still worth more and they all become the same form of oil.
Am I correct in understanding modding this game is mostly xml file oriented? Small changes should be easy to make on a local copy, right?

[ChrillBill]

I like them. But they were obviously mostly intended to be something fun and cool to keep around. First time I got one I was nervous that it would eat my chickens but turns out they only eat hay and grass! Same with the void chickens I guess although void mayo comes in handy for a quest and both Sebastian and Krobus loves getting void eggs as a gift.

Void mayo is also great for completely ruining the Luau soup :'p

[WolfE]

other than end game lost bundle, which I think needs a dino mayo in it, I think they are just for fun. I like having at least 1 of each animal, however, the money makers are my pigs with truffles/truffle oil. plus I think you need to donate an egg to the museum. so hatch it, then get another egg, then donate it. then you can keep getting eggs for whatever you want/need

[-Na Shagul-]

Honestly as a whole the coop is trash for real money generation. I only have it because I really like chickens and enjoy watching them bobble around.

[Bacculus]

Originally posted by Wolfwriter:

other than end game lost bundle, which I think needs a dino mayo in it, I think they are just for fun. I like having at least 1 of each animal, however, the money makers are my pigs with truffles/truffle oil. plus I think you need to donate an egg to the museum. so hatch it, then get another egg, then donate it. then you can keep getting eggs for whatever you want/need

Yeah I donated one a while ago, I've got one in the incubator for idk how many days with a full coop and was thinking of making a dinosaur-only megacoop but then I saw how lame dinos are and was questioning my decisions.

For the missing bundle I already got a dino mayo in (had good luck on eggs), only need either 5 gold ancient fruits or a silver wine to complete it. I've got 3 fruit in a chest and the wine is 3 days aged so either one's done soon yay.

Originally posted by -Na Shagul-:

Honestly as a whole the coop is trash for real money generation. I only have it because I really like chickens and enjoy watching them bobble around.

Seems like animals are kinda meh in general. From what I can see beyond the polyculture achievement the best strat for supreme money is just massive fields of cauliflower/pumpkin/melon and enough cran/straw/blueberries to fill your preserves jars and kegs ad infinitum.Oh and a smidgle of coffee for permaespresso. And enough parsnips/potatoes for infinite farmers lunches.
I just want to buy that superclock, once I do that I'll feel like I've won the game. I figure I'll achievement hunt on the way.

[NekoTiggger]

The mini dinosaurs are super cute!

I love having the mini dinosaur and the cat on the farm as pets. Also the duck and bunny.

I love how they hide in the grass in the mornings and wait to be petted. If i can not find them in a short time they try to move to an open spot to be found... almost like they are playing hide and seek :)

To me they are like family and very fun!

[Gatebase]

Originally posted by TOYG:

From what I can see beyond the polyculture achievement

I think this is a good realization to make in general. If you only want to optimize your income, most of the game's content is not viable. Why plant anything other than the most profitable crops? With all the bundles and quests and acheivements like Full Shipment the game nudges you to check out all the content. Not everything that is rare or hard has to be the most profitable. Fish ponds were introduced relatively recently and they're just horrible in terms of profit for a 5x5 farm space. But they're interesting and provide some alternatives. In fact, the community center is not optimal, the Joja route is vastly easier and faster. On my second save file I didn't even try that hard and had everything completed by the end of Summer of Year 1 (and 60k left and a fully cleared mine).
Stardew allows you to powergame and optimize with spreadsheets and it can be a pretty fun way to play the game. But it also has a lot of content just for flavor, roleplay or diversity. I think dinos belong to the second category.

Originally posted by TOYG:

the best strat for supreme money is just massive fields of cauliflower/pumpkin/melon and enough cran/straw/blueberries to fill your preserves jars and kegs ad infinitum.

Run the numbers again, this is by far not "the best" strat. Rhubarb is better than Cauliflower, Starfruit and Red Cabbage are both better than Melon. Pumpkin is optimal for Fall though. But Ancient Fruit is better than all of them (planted in Spring at least). Use Deluxe Speed-Gro on everything since it gets you an additional harvest per season. If you go the Artisan route berries are not viable due to the staggering amount of kegs you would need to process all of them, so they're pretty much a waste of space. Since processing time is your bottleneck you generally want the highest base value possible on your crops.

Originally posted by TOYG:

The whole animal system confuses me. I went Rancher|Coopmaster for skills, but now that I look at the wiki it seems like Artisan just hands down beats everything for profit.

Mass pigs with foraging perk for iridium Truffles and selling them directly (the tiny increase in value from processing them into oil is hardly worth it) is definitely the most profit for the least effort. Artisan takes a lot of boring work, a lot of investment in materials for kegs/jars and is still fairly slow due to the processing time of almost a week for wine. Plant thousands of crops, harvest thousands of crops, put thousands of crops into kegs, take thousands of wine bottles out of kegs... I haven't tried, but I'm pretty sure pigs must be more fun. Artisan might have a higher ceiling, but it's a ton more work to get there.
Btw, if you regret your skill choices you can change them any time for 10k at a statue in the sewers.

[Bacculus]

Originally posted by Gatebase:

Btw, if you regret your skill choices you can change them any time for 10k at a statue in the sewers.

That's great to learn!