Stardew Valley Tips and Tricks

[☯ Icy ᚱᛖᛞ ᛊᛟᛞᚨ▲]

Stardew Valley Tips and Tricks

The contents of this post are mainly by AndroidJazz and Astrobia. As we come across useful informaiton while playing the game we will post it here, feel free to contribute and we'll add your tips and tricks to this post.

Tips

Crops:


* Starter kits, strawberries and blue berries do not need to be replanted as they regrow during their season of growth , it is recomended you plant them at the start of the Season for maximum value for money. This is a good strategy for when money is short near the start of the game, however they will wither at the end of the season.

* Pierres is cheaper for seeds than Joja Mart.

* You can refill your watering can by going over to the pond on your farm or a body of water and right clicking.

* It is cheaper to buy and plant a grass starter and let the grass spread out alot. then cut it with the scyhe to make hay, than it is to buy hay from Marnies store in the long run. (Note: you must own a silo)

* Use rainy days to go meet people , give gifts and to do shopping since the rain takes care of watering your crops.

* If you acidently hoed a bit of ground you did not want to hoe. use your pick axe to undo it or if you wish to save some time and energy just wait for it to return to normal.

* At certain festivals you can get certain seeds, sometimes these festivals are in the middle of the season and these crops can grow all season long, the problem is you miss out on half of the season because of the date the festival is on, we recomend keeping these seeds for the for the same season during the next year or using the glass house once you have it to grow them.

* Use a scare crow as Crows can steal the seeds you planted, Scare crows have a radius of 8 tiles, with a diameter of 16.

* You can grow any crops year round with the glass house.

* Walking or running over crops will not damage them.

* As your harvesting skill improves you will have a chance to get a better crop yield.

* A good way to water crops until you get a sprinkler is to stand in the middle of a 3x3 square of crops and with the watering can equipped hold down the left mouse button and zigzag through the rows.



Fishing:

* Fishing is a great way to make extra money at the start of the game while you wait on your first few harvests.

* Fish are used for the best fertaliser later, so if you find a low value fish and get a lot of them, stockpile them.

* There is an increased chance to fish up treasure and higher level fish if you see a disturbance in the warer. Fish will also bite faster. You'll know you landed in the god spot when you see blue sparkles as the bobber lands.

* Fish can only be sold in your farm box or at Willys store.(note: Willy pays the same as the box.)

* Rainy days are a great time for going fishing because there are better fish out as a result of the rain, so make sure you go fishing on a rainy day with a full energy bar.

* Keep the junk you get while fishing, it has a use later in the game!

Mining:

* Stairs to get to the next level of a mine are under rocks, you need to keep breaking rocks until you find them, sometimes all the monsters in the cave level you are on need to be killed to reviel the stairs.

* Getting to the mine is much faster if you go via the North exit in your field

* Every 5 levels you unlock a floor on the elevator, which makes navigating the mines much easier.


* Follow mine cart tracks, there is sometimes coal in a minecart at the end of them.

* If you see a moving rock bash it with your pickaxe first and then use your sword once the rock is broken to kill the crab which was under it.

* When you reach level 2 in mining you can craft your own stairs to place in the mines for 99 stone.

* When upgrading your tools at the blacksmith, make sure you do all of your shopping and geode breaking first, otherwise you won't be able to do anything else at the black smiths until he finishes upgrading the tools.

Foraging:


* You can get seeds from using your syche on the dark green weeds . Sap from cutting down trees, Sap can be used to make fertalizer later on, Trees also drop seeds.

* Foraging alot of stuff? Craft a chest to hold your extra stuff to free up room in your inventory. A chest costs 50 lumber.

* The type of plants and shells you can forage changes with the seasons

* if you see a bush with barries click it to pick the berries.(Note: if your colour blind you may not see the berries)

* After it rains there will always be new stuff washed up on the beach

* Spending 300 lumber on repairing the bridge on the beach will lead to another beach which has valuable items to forage.

Forestry:


* Trees fall away from the side you cut them on, so aim the tree into a clearing, walk to the side as they are falling. to pick up the wood as the tree falls.

* If you cut down a tree and leave the stump, it grows back in 10 days.


Friendship and relationships:

* You get your pet on a random day in spring.

* Once married you can give your spouse gifts daily and it will encourage them to help out on the farm.

* Mousing over buildings on the map tells you who lives in them and also the times which shops are opened and closed at. (note: it will not tell you who lives in the stores)


Miscellaneous tips:

* The game does not end after X amount of years.

* Check the games option menu as there may be stuff you want to tweak.

* To open doors and chests right click.

* Shift - click to buy 5 items at a time.

* Exiting the game does not save it, be sure to sleep first to save your game.

* Use stuff you forage to give as gifts to people you wish to build relationships and it will cost you notting.

* Check your tv daily for the next days weather, new rescipes and for your fortune, your fortune repersents your luck for the day, by right clicking it.

* You can pick up chests by standing beside them and using your Axe.

* If you see a message about a train and get to the station fast enough, items fall off the train as it passes by, which can be picked up, if you do not make it on time. there will be no items there for you to pick up.

* Harvest and mine on days the fortune teller tells you, you will have a little extra luck, it is also worth going to the black smith and cracking geodes on these days.

* Grow atleast 2 Jazz flowers or Tulips with each batch of crops if you wish to make alot of friends sooner rather than later to supplment foraging for flowers and shells to give as gifts.

* Always use left over energy and time to do things like clearing your field or to go fishing ect. You can do this stuff up to 1am at the latest, you will faint at 2 am and be charged a doctors or Joja fee.

* You will wake up with half of your energy if you stay up until after 12am

* Check the trash cans in the town left from your farm once a day, they contain random items like food and metal bars of various kinds, however just do not let people see you do it as they seem to react negetively.

* Unequip tools when walking around so that you don't acidently use them and waste energy, its worth getitng into the habit of not clicking unless you have to.

* The Scyth can be used as a weapon, it is almost on par with the rusty sword.

* You can see little worms sticking out of the ground, Use your hoe to dig them up and you can get lost items and books which can be used to fill the libary at the museum.

* On Friday and Sunday a gypsie wagon appears on the way to the wizard tower. It sells out of season good and random uncommon items at a markup.


* The general store is closed on wednesdays.

* Before you click something, make sure your charcter is facing the thing, while close to it and check that the mouse icon is not greyed out, if clicking on something is not working.

Tricks:

* If a day goes badly or you make a mistake, exit the game and reload it.(Note: the game saves when you sleep, don't sleep and then reload)

Attention!:

We will not add anything until we verify it works however If you find something here is incorrect. please point it out to us so we can correct it.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed tips and tricks to our post.


Games offical wiki:

http://stardewvalleywiki.com/Stardew_Valley_Wiki

Stardew Valley farm planning tool:

The Stardew Valley farm planner is a helpful new tool to help you plan your farm out in advanced.

https://stardew.info/planner

Mods:

http://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley

[noob zeus]

Bump. Nice summary

[RhoydeR]

Also great tip, check the Trash Cans in the City (left from your Farm) at least once a Day. They contain alot of Food Items.
Just dont let people see you, I guess they wont like it.

[Taylor]

Just wanted to help with formatting a bit :P

• Focas on farming for the first two days so you can get your income in motion
  
  
• Third day go around the map looking for gift items and wild plants
  
  
• forth day gift the items you get on third day to the girls , guys or people you wish to build your friendship with.
  
  
• You can pick up chests by standing beside them and using your hadchet, this one wasn't obvious to me at first until I looked it up.
  
  
• Harvest and mine on days the fortune teller tells you , you will have a little extra luck, it is also a great time to go and harvest crops.
  
  
• Suspicion: Marry abigail as her dad owns the local store, it might bring discounts or something along those lines later., please don't do this unless you like her or want to confirm my suspcion
  I'm going to marry her and see what happens.
  
  
• Use rainy days to go meet people , give girfts and to do shopping since the rain takes care of watering your crops
  
  
• Always use left over energy and time to be doing something like clearing your farm or fishing ect. never leave left over time or energy, you can do this stuff up until 1am.

[stormfeather]

I'd add: Note that you can craft items by pressing escape and clicking on the different tabs, one of which is crafting. You can make yourself a chest with 50 lumber, which you can use to keep things in, which really helps with the starting limited inventory.

You can get random seeds occasionally from using your scythe on weeds. Not sure if it's specific-looking weeds, or just any of them.

[noob zeus]

Where are you mining at? I noticed there is a cave on my farm but nothing in there and the pickaxe and hoe don't seem to do anything? Also are there not a lot of things to pick up in the "wild" like flowers mushrooms etc.? I'm having a hard time finding these things.

[Astrobia]

The sycle doesn't use fatigue so have it equiped when wanding around town to avoid accedently wasting fatigue.

You can unplow as spot immediately by using your pick axe on it.

Might be worth pointing out to newbies do not run out of fatigue or try stay up past 1am due to the financial and energy consequences.

Can anyone confirm if running over crops damages them?

Chopping trees sometimes gives you random seeds as well.

[☯ Icy ᚱᛖᛞ ᛊᛟᛞᚨ▲]

Originally posted by Astrobia:

The sycle doesn't use fatigue so have it equiped when wanding around town to avoid accedently wasting fatigue.

You can unplow as spot immediately by using your pick axe on it.

Might be worth pointing out to newbies do not run out of fatigue or try stay up past 1am due to the financial and energy consequences.

Can anyone confirm if running over crops damages them?

Chopping trees sometimes gives you random seeds as well.

Walking over crops does not damage them :)

[Skylette]

"If you hoed a bit of ground you did not want to simpley do not plant anything there and the ground will return to normal."
You can use your pickaxe to make it go back to normal.

Also, you will see this on the ground, I'll call it "little worms". They will be sticking out from the ground. Use your hoe to dig it up, and it will give you lost items and books which will fill the library collection.

[☯ Icy ᚱᛖᛞ ᛊᛟᛞᚨ▲]

Originally posted by Taylor:

Just wanted to help with formatting a bit :P

• Focas on farming for the first two days so you can get your income in motion
  
  
• Third day go around the map looking for gift items and wild plants
  
  
• forth day gift the items you get on third day to the girls , guys or people you wish to build your friendship with.
  
  
• You can pick up chests by standing beside them and using your hadchet, this one wasn't obvious to me at first until I looked it up.
  
  
• Harvest and mine on days the fortune teller tells you , you will have a little extra luck, it is also a great time to go and harvest crops.
  
  
• Suspicion: Marry abigail as her dad owns the local store, it might bring discounts or something along those lines later., please don't do this unless you like her or want to confirm my suspcion
  I'm going to marry her and see what happens.
  
  
• Use rainy days to go meet people , give girfts and to do shopping since the rain takes care of watering your crops
  
  
• Always use left over energy and time to be doing something like clearing your farm or fishing ect. never leave left over time or energy, you can do this stuff up until 1am.

Thanks, I cleaned up my post.

[Astrobia]

Also might be worth poitning out trees fall away from the side you cut them from, so often it's worth walking around them so they fall into a clearing rather then the shrub, to make collecting the item drops easier.

Also for newbies, theres an autorun option in the game options. Why this is not the default is a dark mystery.

Originally posted by AndroidJazz:

Walking over crops does not damage them :)

You're quite sure it doesn't deminish the harvest?

[VNLover]

In the mines, if you see minecart tracks, try to follow them! Sometimes there'll be a cart filled with coal at the end.

[☯ Icy ᚱᛖᛞ ᛊᛟᛞᚨ▲]

Originally posted by Astrobia:

Also might be worth poitning out trees fall away from the side you cut them from, so often it's worth walking around them so they fall into a clearing rather then the shrub, to make collecting the item drops easier.

Also for newbies, theres an autorun option in the game options. Why this is not the default is a dark mystery.

Originally posted by AndroidJazz:

Walking over crops does not damage them :)

You're quite sure it doesn't deminish the harvest?

I have no idea if it will deminish the harvest or not, I will keep an eye opened for it, let me know if you find out.

[Kerry]

I remember i was near haleys house and tried to click on her to talk with her but instead clicked on her trash and found a iron bar lol, made her mad but wasn't all bad i suppose.

[hiccupz]

I see people saying to use Esc to bring up the menu but you can also press E to bring up the menu. I set my map to Q so now I WADS and EQ for menu and map. Makes life easier :)

[Sapholia]

As far as cutting trees down, I find it's more efficient to let the tree fall, chop up the stump, and then run forward to collect both sets of loot.