Why does the Iridium Hoe till 6x3 tiles?

[!?]

Wouldn't it be more beneficial if it tilled 5x5 for the Iridium Sprinkler?

[PeripheralVisionary]

*Shrugs
Good point.

[Saint Landwalker]

Probably because the Iridium Watering Can waters a 6×3 area as well. Note that I'm not saying that's good, just that that's probably the reason.

Early in the game, having the hoe and watering can "match" makes sense. You're doing a lot of manual watering, so you're going to want to be tilling land in the same way that you're going to be watering it later. By the time you have iridium tools, though, you probably aren't manually watering much of anything, so the "matching" doesn't matter anymore. It would be much handier for the hoe to till a 5×5 space instead. (In fact, I think the Iridium Watering Can should also water a 5×5 space.)

[!?]

Originally posted by Landwalker04:

Probably because the Iridium Watering Can waters a 6×3 area as well. Note that I'm not saying that's good, just that that's probably the reason.

Early in the game, having the hoe and watering can "match" makes sense. You're doing a lot of manual watering, so you're going to want to be tilling land in the same way that you're going to be watering it later. By the time you have iridium tools, though, you probably aren't manually watering much of anything, so the "matching" doesn't matter anymore. It would be much handier for the hoe to till a 5×5 space instead. (In fact, I think the Iridium Watering Can should also water a 5×5 space.)

Yeah that's what I thought. They should both be 5x5 since I still need the hoe and watering can for the start of every season, it would be alot more helpful. Hopefully CA changes it later on.

[Cornflakes]

25 tiles in a single swipe would be too powerful, looking at the previous upgrades.

The number of tiles hoed by each upgrade: 1, 3, 5, 9, 18

The first two upgrades add 2 tiles each. The next one is twice as powerful, adding 4 tiles. The next one after that is twice as powerful again, plus an additional tile making it 9 to bring the total tiles hoed to an even 18.

The progression of additional tiles per upgrade starts off linear, then becomes roughly exponential. 25 tiles would better fit an upgrade after iridium, maybe a galaxy hoe.

Or to look at it a different way: The first upgrade doubles the hoe's power (plus one), 2nd upgrade almost doubles its power (minus one), 3rd upgrade almost doubles its power (minus one), and the 4th upgrade doubles its power. In this way, the upgrades are rather linear after the first.

Going from 9 to 25 tiles hoed would almost be tripling its power. It's true that the first upgrade does triple the hoe's power, from 1 to 3, but when you're starting from 1, any increase will seem huge, which is why I opted to call it "doubled plus one" to make it seem like less of a jump. Nearly tripling the power from 9 to 25 is a huge leap.

[The Mighty Mulletman]

Perhaps it would be better to nerf the iridium sprinkler rather than boost the tools?

I'm not overly concerned though, it's alright just the way it is.