First time playing Stardew. Am I an idiot for picking the beach farm first?

[4Head]

So I got into my third season on my beach farm and I realised I couldn't place sprinklers down on the sand, so it looked it up on the Wiki and it confirms it. So I walked around the beach farm, and there is only a small portion of it that has dirt which the sprinklers will work on.

In the long run am I going to suffer because of this? This is my first playthrough and I'm wondering if I should start afresh on a regular farm.

[Xpliciit]

Honestly first timers should probably pick the default farm.

That being said, since you have the beach, you will just have to focus on something else for profits such as fish ponds or barns and coops.

[I Kinda Fail]

Sorta? The game warns you before you even begin playing. Each farm type has a little blurb describing it when you select it, and the beach farm says "However, sprinklers won't work in the sand." or something similar.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2336514764

You still get 200 crops that can be covered by sprinklers. The rest of the land can be filled with animals, fruit trees, bee hives, sheds, fish ponds, slime hutches, etc. Grass DOES grow in the sand, so you can easily raise pigs to find truffles, or have tons of fish ponds and age their caviar, or just hand-water a few flowers and have hundreds of bee hives.

There's also the option of just... watering your crops by hand? With the best watering can, you can easily water 300+ crops in like 2-3 in-game hours.

There's also two later game items that can help with watering crops. (Spoilers!)
1. If you get pigs, they'll dig up truffles, and with high enough Farming and Foraging, you can turn truffle oil and some hardwood into rain totems. They basically guarantee rain the following day. However, you'll still have to hand-water your crops on the first day of the season, and the festival days, as it never rains then.
2. LATE in the game, like after fully restoring the Community Center and spending a good bit of time exploring a late-game area, you can buy the recipe for deluxe retaining soil. 1 soil costs a bit of stone, clay and fiber, but keeps your crops watered until the season change. So if you use it on Day 1 of Spring, and water your crops on Spring 1, you won't need to water them again until Summer 1.

[Maya-Neko]

If you want a beginner friendly map, then i would recommend the standard map, the forest map or the 4 corners map. They're pretty simple and provide a simple layout and for the forest/4corners some useful ressources in the beginning

[Vimpster]

It perhaps isn't the best map to start with, but you should have no trouble making money with it all the same. The area you can plant with sprinklers is plenty to make some good money from. Plus you can plant extra if you don't mind watering it by hand. And then when you get the greenhouse fixed up you get another additional area for crops and sprinklers. Then you get to Ginger Island and you get even more. So money from crops in my experience is just fine on the Beach map.

[quesadilllas]

Idk how to blur the spoilers, but...


You do get a greenhouse later on in the game for completing one of the community center things. You can put sprinklers that work there.


Non spoiler: It shouldn't be hard to water your crops in the soil everyday. When you get a fully-upgraded watering can it'll become easier. Unless you're planning to have this big, gigantic area for crops to grow in, then it might be a bit hard.

[Nakos]

Originally posted by ♡Blissfullyy♡:

Idk how to blur the spoilers, but...

<spoiler>Your text here</spoiler>

Replace the < > angle brackets with square ones [ ]

[Medusahead]

Plenty of strategies you can use. You can focus on small 9 tile square farms which is quick and easy to water with an upgraded watering can. Best thing to do is focus on fishing and put down a tonne of crab cages and some recycling machines, you'll make a lot of money and you can focus on unlocking the greenhouse. which you can put down your sprinklers in.

If you're desperate for cash you can smelt gold bars and sell them and burn wood for coal. Just make sure you get enough crops for the community center offerings since you'll be only farming a small amount.

[Fury Fairy]

Originally posted by kebabmeister:

In the long run am I going to suffer because of this? This is my first playthrough and I'm wondering if I should start afresh on a regular farm.

Unless you clearly understand what you're doing OR explicitly want extra challenge (however given the fact it's 1st playthrough it's 99% NO/NO) - restart with default layout. Trust me it has plenty of challenges by itself and things to master. I completed 5 runs on Default and plan to make the next one either. Best of luck!

[Mar]

When you get to the island and unlock the island farm, you will have a lot of space to grow crops with sprinklers.
Also there is a way to change your farm type by opening your save file with wordpad and search for "Which farm" and there is the number which represents the farm type. Just make a back up save or clean your farm because things may get misplaced and bugged.

[Starhawk Ranger]

Start a new game (you can have multiple saves) using the standard farm. It's easier to learn and try out different things. The beach farm is too limiting for new players IMO.

[no1schmo]

Honestly, not necessarily. In all of my playthroughs, I have probably barely used 200 tiles for actual farming. I just don't care much for that part of it. Early on, it's hard to do more than that anyway, since you get tired and pass out so easily. So it's only an issue for those who WANT a large farm.

[ponponmeow]

Or you could just get a mod that makes beach map sprinkerable.