What is a min-max run?

[Babombo]

I started watching a CC speedrun and the dude talked about min-max runs
he doesn't explain what they are though
I googled for stardew valley min-max runs but only find book-long explanations of what to do each day. someone posted a picture of a "min-max aestetics" farm

Therefore: What do you try to minimize? And what do you try to maximize in a min-max run? And what other types of runs are there?

[Perquisitore]

They're looking to get and do everything in the shortest amount of time.

[Omegatherion]

Min maxing is about optimising your tasks and doing them in the most efficient way possible.
Like not wasting time cleaning up your farm, but making just enough space to plant what you need, focusing on the stuff that is more important when it comes to making money, gathering materials like ore and so on.

[Babombo]

Originally posted by Omegatherion:

Min maxing is about optimising your tasks and doing them in the most efficient way possible.
Like not wasting time cleaning up your farm, but making just enough space to plant what you need, focusing on the stuff that is more important when it comes to making money, gathering materials like ore and so on.

therefore minimizing the required (real world?) time and maximizing the outcome, correct?

[Omegatherion]

Originally posted by Terraria Smurf 1337 Hours:

Originally posted by Omegatherion:

Min maxing is about optimising your tasks and doing them in the most efficient way possible.
Like not wasting time cleaning up your farm, but making just enough space to plant what you need, focusing on the stuff that is more important when it comes to making money, gathering materials like ore and so on.

therefore minimizing the required (real world?) time and maximizing the outcome, correct?

Not necessarily minimizing the time but more like scheduling your tasks in a way that you can do as much as possible in any given time. In that case in one ingame day.
Min maxing is usually very stressfull, because you're constantly busy doing something to make progress towards your goal.

[Babombo]

oh ok
I feel like I've done exatly that in my world so far often being more paused to think and plan ahead than actually playing ^^'

ty for your answers!

[Queen Droxxanna]

I have several mods installed and i finished the CC in the first Spring of the game. But it was a hard fast run. It can only be done that fast if you have the tractor mod and time pause, and get your greenhouse built very early. Normally it takes at least a year.

[Babombo]

deluxe coop and barn with max hearted bunny in one month?
you haven't recorded that, have you?

[TheCollector]

Min-Max-runs usually do not use mods except for maybe a pure informational mod to show the exact progress in skills. And there is a difference between Joja-runs and CC-runs. You may finish Joja in a season but you can't finish the regular CC-bundles in a season.

Examples for min-maxing :
If you stay up until 2 am and pass out, you usually loose cash and do not recover energy. However if you don't have money, you can't loose money. And if you have a skill-increase, your energy is completely regenerated overnight, even if you passed out at 2am. So in the early game min-maxers make sure that they don't have money at the end of a day and aquire at least one skill-level-up during day and then use the time until 2am to work and completely spend their energy.

The first days before the mines open are often used for intensive fishing. To maximize the number of fish caught, min-maxers usually switch to fiberglass rod and bait (1800 gold) asap, but then wait with selling fish until they managed fishing skill 5 which allows Fisher specialisation (fish value +25%), so that they can sell more fish for more cash to maximize revenue.

More cash from fish allows to buy more strawberry seed at the egg festival which results in more harvested strawberries and so more farming skill (sprinkler, keg) and more cash to invest into summer seeds (e.g. starfruit) and other stuff, ...

[Babombo]

that makes sence, ty :)

[Ryika]

A bit of a nit-pick, but there isn't really such a thing as a "min-max run". It wouldn't make sense, since min-maxing is the way to achieve a certain goal, not a goal itself. You min-max because you want to achieve a certain thing, not just for the sake of it. Because of that, calling a run a "min-max run" essentially doesn't tell you anything, unless you also make assumptions about the kind of goal behind the min-maxing.

Speedruns are probably the most well-known example where people try to maximize the efficiency of their actions (or route through a game) to minimize the time needed, but in the end, you can really min-max towards any goal that you set for yourself ("Beat the game with the least amount of work required", "Achieve a certain thing in the least amount of in-game days", etc.), and what aspects you minimize and what you maximize will change accordingly.

[TheCollector]

A speed run for CC tries to minimize the played real time. I once saw a SDV speedrun on youtube and in the start it mostly involved sleeping to let rainy days automatically water the crops. While the run only took a few hours, several years passed ingame.

The most min-max-runs on youtube just try to maximize the income and cash earned in a set number of days while working on the CC along the way, e.g. they play
- the first 12 days of spring (just before egg festival)
- the first spring season
- the first year
In SDV more money usually allows better options to earn even more money and so income can grow exponentially in the first year(s) of the game until the farm is completely developed and income reaches your individual maximum, e.g. with greenhouse, lots of cash crops, kegs, crystalariums, ....

Doing min-max-runs for a limited number of days/seasons is a good training if you want to improve your individual performance.