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

[KatherineOfSky]

Danty a écrit :

Since the update around last month did Stardew Valley change the dedicated video ram?
I can play last month but after I update it I can't open my Stardew Valley.
I try to check it on CAN YOU RUN IT and it's said my dedicated video ram is not enough.
My pc is Intel HD.
What should I do? I really wanna play.
Did someone know how to fools the game or something better?

This is not the topic for your post -- this is Tips & Tricks, and not for questions. You should repost under yout own topic, and hopefully someone can help.

[chickadee]

KatherineOfSky a écrit :

Danty a écrit :

Since the update around last month did Stardew Valley change the dedicated video ram?
I can play last month but after I update it I can't open my Stardew Valley.
I try to check it on CAN YOU RUN IT and it's said my dedicated video ram is not enough.
My pc is Intel HD.
What should I do? I really wanna play.
Did someone know how to fools the game or something better?

This is not the topic for your post -- this is Tips & Tricks, and not for questions. You should repost under yout own topic, and hopefully someone can help.

I already make it but no one help :(
I thought fools the game is a trick. That's why I post it here.

[KatherineOfSky]

Danty a écrit :

KatherineOfSky a écrit :

This is not the topic for your post -- this is Tips & Tricks, and not for questions. You should repost under yout own topic, and hopefully someone can help.

I already make it but no one help :(
I thought fools the game is a trick. That's why I post it here.

This post is for things people find out about the game... NOT for questions. You can search the topic to see if someone elose has found a solution for you, but it's not appropriate to ask stuff here.

[chickadee]

KatherineOfSky a écrit :

Danty a écrit :

I already make it but no one help :(
I thought fools the game is a trick. That's why I post it here.

This post is for things people find out about the game... NOT for questions. You can search the topic to see if someone elose has found a solution for you, but it's not appropriate to ask stuff here.

I have searched it but no one have the exactly same problem with me.
But ok i get it. Sorry for asking in the wrong place x(

[DruagaBlackhart]

@AndroidJazz + Astrobia:
Have either of you made a guide for this yet, here on Steam? Would be great for quick reference and access

[KatherineOfSky]

ΩPGRewChamploo a écrit :

@AndroidJazz + Astrobia:
Have either of you made a guide for this yet, here on Steam? Would be great for quick reference and access

I've included pretty much everything in this thread, (pkus more!) in my guide:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=644029461

I wanted to organize it properly and present it for easy access.

[Headrock]

Here's a little tip that some people might not haven't noticed themselves. It has to do with crops and fertilizer:

When the seasons change, all of the fertilizer in the ground disappears, and any soil that did not contain seeds will become untilled. A major exception to this rule is Wheat - a plant that can grow in both Summer and Fall, and only takes 4 days to ripen. This can be exploited in order to prevent farmland from deteriorating between Summer and Fall.

On the 25th of Summer, plant Wheat in every patch you have that contains fertilizer you want to keep. If you just want to save labor, consider planting Wheat in every patch you have, even if it doesn't have any fertilizer in it.

On the 1st of Fall, your Wheat will ripen and you can harvest it. The ground underneath the Wheat will retain whatever fertilizer it had in the Summer, and will now be immediately ready for replanting with Fall seeds. Wheat seeds are exceptionally cheap - 10g apiece - which is far cheaper than buying or making new fertilizer.

Also note that you can do this on the 26th-28th, but then you'll need to either wait a few days at the beginning of Fall for the Wheat to ripen before you can harvest it, or use your pickaxe to kill the partially-grown Wheat on Fall 1 (this does not destroy the fertilizer).

In fact, it's a good idea to actively replace all of your Summer plants with Wheat on the 28th, including your repeating-crop plants (like Hops and Blueberry), by cutting them all down with an axe and planting Wheat. If you let them die out normally, the fertilizer would be lost. Cutting them down on the 28th, and replacing with Wheat, is the only way to keep that fertilizer in the ground.

The only crop that doesn't need replacing is Corn, because it'll keep growing in the Fall anyway.

[Grey]

Lol I made a suggestion of an "infinite game mode" on the suggestions, and just now I discovered that the game don't end after a number of years. xD
Should had checked here before;

[Headrock]

I've just posted this on another thread, so I'll post it here too because it belongs here.

Changing Professions

Do you have a profession you don't like? Did you pick Gemologist when what you actually wanted was Excavator? Did you take the Trapper skill only to realize that you actually enjoy fishing very much and want to fish all day long? Then this tip is for you!

Today I will teach you how to edit your save-game file to change your profession. IT IS EASIER THAN IT SOUNDS, as long as your computer skills are really sub-par in which case I don't think anyone can help you, and welcome to the 21st century.

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any damage you do to your save file. That's why you back up your save files before doing anything to them.

DISCLAIMER #2: This guide is about changing your professions to different ones. Adding professions when you haven't yet reached the necessary skill level is a lot harder, and also extremely pointless.

----------

1. Find your save game file. I'm not going to bother explaining this, google it.
   
2. Back up the file, because OMG seriously.
   
3. Open the file in Notepad++. You can do this with regular Notepad too, I suppose. Meh.
   
4. Search for "<professions>". This tag is immediately followed by a series of "<int>X</int>" tags, where X is a number between 0 and 29. Each "<int>" tag corresponds to one of your current professions.
   
5. Find the tag for the profession you wish to replace. Simply change the number to the one corresponding to the profession you want.
   
6. If your newly-selected profession belongs to a different branch than the profession you've abandoned, you'll also need to find the "<int>" tag for the "parent" profession of that branch, and change it to the correct parent. (For example: if you want to change "Pirate" into "Luremaster", you'll also need to change "Fisher" into "Trapper".)
   
7. If the profession you're changing is a parent profession (the ones you get at level 5), and you already have a child profession too (the ones you get at level 10), you'll need to change the child along with the parent. (For example: If you want to change "Rancher" to "Tiller", but you also already have the "Coopmaster" profession which is a child of "Rancher", you'll need to change "Coopmaster" into either "Artisan" or "Agriculturist" as well.)
   
8. Save the file. Run the game.

Here is a list of the values corresponding to each profession:

0  - Rancher
1  - Tiller
2  - Coopmaster
3  - Shepherd
4  - Artisan
5  - Agriculturist
6  - Fisher
7  - Trapper
8  - Angler
9  - Pirate
10 - Mariner
11 - Luremaster
12 - Forester
13 - Gatherer
14 - Lumberjack
15 - Tapper
16 - Botanist
17 - Tracker
18 - Miner
19 - Geologist
20 - Blacksmith
21 - Prospector
22 - Excavator
23 - Gemologist
24 - Fighter
25 - Scout
26 - Brute
27 - Defender
28 - Acrobat
29 - Desperado

Have fun with your new profession!

[★ MїиäҜämї￡ ★]

Thanks for the info

[Headrock]

Rudimentary Test: Fishing Locations

I've just run a very rudimentary test to see what effects your exact fishing location has on the fish you catch. This was done out of pure curiosity, and to try to dispel some myths people might have about fishing locations.

The test was performed under the following conditions:

• Fishing was done on the 9th of Fall, between 7:00am and 7:00pm (a total of 12 hours). The same day was repeated over and over for this test.
  
• The day had a very high luck rating.
  
• Fishing was only done in the River in Cindersap Forest. Different habitats (Beach, Lake, etc.) were not tested, as that isn't the point.
  
• Each day, I fished only in one specific location. I tallied the number of fish caught from each of the four types present in the river during the given time. I also tallied the number of Treasure Chests appearing, the number of Green Algae caught, and the amount of Trash caught.
  
• I am using TimeSpeed at just under 2x day length. Therefore, the actual amount of fishing done is equal to around 20 hours of normal fishing (i.e. without the TimeSpeed mod). This should not have any effect on the results, other than making them slightly more accurate due to a larger sample.
  
• All fish were caught. All treasures were caught.
  
• No tackle was used. Only regular Bait.
  
• None of the fishing was done in a "ripple", as that would terribly skew the results.
  
• I caught a few Bream because I was fishing after 6:00pm, but these were ignored for the purposes of the test, and not counted.

DISCLAIMER: This game relies heavily on RNG. Therefore, all results below (except one) are inconclusive, and would require much more testing to get an accurate reading. Some of the results may in fact be misleading.
Furthermore, since Human Error cannot be taken out of the equation, different fishermen may experience different results. The point of all this was to make a general statement about the effectiveness of fishing in different locations of the same map.

-------------

TEST RESULTS

• I started with Leah's Cottage, fishing as far into the water as possible. This is still hitting lighter "shallow" waters, as it is impossible to reach darker "deep" water from the cottage. Around 1/3 of my throws were to "MAX" distance. The rest were very close to "MAX".
  
  1. During the testing period, the line was hit a total of 76 times.
     
  2. 59 of these were fish, of which 11 were Tiger Trout, 22 were Salmon, and 26 were Chub.
     
  3. 9 of 11 Tiger Trouts were Gold quality. Roughly the same ratio was maintained for Salmon, at 19 of 22 Gold quality. Chub had only 19 of 26 Gold quality. Non-gold fish were all silver quality.
     
  4. 17 hits were non-fish catches, of which 13 were Green Algae, and 4 were Trash.
     
  5. A total of 20 Treasure Chests appeared.
• Next was deep-water fishing from the other bank of the river, opposite Leah's cottage. I fished only in the deep water, with around 1/3 of the throws reaching "MAX" distance.
  
  1. During the testing period, the line was hit a total of 82 times.
     
  2. 59 of these were fish, of which 21 were Tiger Trout, 18 were Salmon, and 20 were Chub.
     
  3. 18 of 21 Tiger Trouts were Gold quality. The ratios were actually higher for the other fish, with 17 of 18 Salmon at Gold quality, and 19 of 20 Chub. Non-gold fish were all silver quality.
     
  4. 23 hits were non-fish catches, of which 18 were Green Algae, and 5 were Trash.
     
  5. A total of only 13 Treasure Chests appeared.
• Finally, I tested the Glacierfish spot, at the southern tip of Arrowhead Island, fishing towards the south. Around 1/3 of the throws reached "MAX" distance".
  
  1. During the testing period, the line was hit a total of 84 times.
     
  2. 63 of these were fish, of which 16 were Tiger Trout, 23 were Salmon, and 24 were Chub.
     
  3. All fish caught at this location were of Gold Quality.
     
  4. 21 hits were non-fish catches, of which 17 were Green Algae, and 4 were Trash.
     
  5. A total of 30 Treasure Chests appeared.
• Furthermore, I made a short attempt to fish in front of Leah's Cottage, but this time deliberately throwing the line only a short distance. Unfortunately I did not complete this test, because I had trouble hitting the water consistently, and I am too much in the habit of throwing far away. However, the result were fish of "normal" and "silver" quality only, as expected, over a fishing period of a few hours.

------

CONCLUSIONS

Given statistical errors that are to be expected due to the RNG and Human Error, I can draw the following tentative conclusions:

• It seems that different fishing locations do not significantly (or at all) increase the number of fish you will catch. Only fishing with Bait, in a Ripple, or with certain tackles, can influence the frequency of your hits.
  
• Specific fishing locations, like the Glacierfish spot tested above, as well as some (or all) of the locations specified on the Stardew Valley Wiki, will yield only Gold fish. This could result in a very substantial profit increase on low-luck days, where fishing elsewhere will only yield low-quality fish.
  
• The results suggest that there may be a correlation between water depth and the occurrence of rarer (more difficult) fish types. In the test, Tiger Trout seemed to appear at a higher ratio compared to other fish when fishing in deeper water compared to fishing in shallower water. However, this would require a lot more testing to determine for certain.
  
• Furthermore, fishing in a "special" location may actually increase the amount of Treasure you catch by quite a margin. However, my results may be totally thanks to the RNG being nice, so a lot more testing would be required to confirm this.
  
• Fishing location has absolutely no discernible effect on the amount of Green Algae / Trash present in the water.

As a result of the above conclusions, I would recommend fishermen who want better-quality fish to go to the special fishing spots listed on the Wiki. However, this is unlikely to increase the number of fish you catch, and may or may not give you more of the rarer fish. Furthermore, it is obviously always better to fish in a Ripple than it is to fish in any of the above fishing spots, because you could catch far more fish in a Ripple during the same amount of time - including fish of any type. Whether the profit from a Ripple spot would actually be higher overall may be highly dependent on how lucky your day is.

Maybe someone else with more patience than myself could carry more tests, and I might do so in the future, but this is all I got for now.

[KatherineOfSky]

Headrock a écrit :

Rudimentary Test: Fishing Locations

Thanks for posting the resuts of your tests. I was particularly interested in the Treasure information for finding artifacts, etc. I appreciate it!

[Headrock]

KatherineOfSky a écrit :

Headrock a écrit :

Rudimentary Test: Fishing Locations

Thanks for posting the resuts of your tests. I was particularly interested in the Treasure information for finding artifacts, etc. I appreciate it!

My pleasure.

[Headrock]

Crackin' Geodes

So you've recently gone deep into the mines, and have come out with a bucketload of Magma Geodes and Omni Geodes. Better run to Clint's and crack them all open, right?

Wrong. You're missing a key ingredient, and that ingredient is plain Geodes. Yes, the little brown egg-shaped ones that you'll rack up in the upper levels -- or, if you're like me, after every fishing trip.

But what are they good for? Don't they only yield crappy gems? Well, yes. But given how the geode processing system works, they are actually less useful for the gems they yield, but for the crappy ores and clay.

Wanna know why? Read the spoiler text below.

The way Geode cracking works is that out of every 20 geodes you crack, no matter what kind they are, exactly half (10) will give a "low-yield" reward of ores, clay, stone, or low-value gems, and the other half (10) will give a "high-yield" reward of a gem or mineral. And they will alternate: low-yield, high-yield, low-yield, high-yield, and so on. After 20 Geodes have been processed, the order will simply flip. If it was low-high-low-high, it'll now be high-low-high-low.

Luck has absolutely nothing to do with it - nor with the type of rewards you'll get from each geode. That is purely random. And the order, as described above, is absolutely rigid, and does not change at all!

Another important point is that when you get a low-yield reward from a geode, the TYPE of geode is irrelevant: you can get just as good a low-yield reward from a plain geode as you can get from a magma or omni geode. The high-yield reward (gems/minerals), however, depends on what geode you are cracking.

So what does this mean? And how can we exploit it?

Here's a theoretical situation that I hope will explain how this works:

Let's say that I have 10 plain Geodes, and 10 Magma Geodes.
I go to Clint's, and crack open the 10 plain ones, then crack open the 10 Magma ones. What I get in return is 5 low-yield rewards and 5 high-yield rewards off the plain Geodes, and then 5 low-yield rewards and 5 high-yield rewards from the Magma Geodes. So that's a total of 10 low-yield rewards (which are generally the same for both geode types, RNG notwithstanding), 5 minerals/gems of the kinds that come out of plain Geodes, and 5 minerals/gems of the kind that comes out of Magma Geodes.

So how can we do this better? By cracking the Geodes in a sequence that corresponds exactly to the type of reward that the game will give us. Here's a table that shows what happens:

Sequence   Geode Cracked   Reward Type
1          Plain           Low
2          Magma           High
3          Plain           Low
4          Magma           High
5          Plain           Low
6          Magma           High
And so on...

If I go through all 20 geodes this way, I get the low rewards only when I crack a plain Geode, and I get the high rewards only when I crack the Magma Geodes. This way, each and every Magma Geode yielded a gem or other valuable mineral that only Magma Geodes can drop, for a total of 20 such gems/minerals - whereas only the plain Geodes were wasted on getting the "crappy" low-yield rewards. I hope you can see that this is significantly more profitable than cracking each geode type on its own, particularly when Magma Geodes are so valuable, and plain Geodes are so crappy (in comparison, at least).

But you have to keep a count! That's because on the 20th Geode you crack, no matter what type it is, the order will be flipped. For the next 20 Geodes, you'll want to crack the Magma ones first to get their high rewards, followed by the plain Geodes for the low rewards. This will flip every 20 geodes you crack.

And that's the reason my inventory is currently full of valuable Geodes, just waiting for the moment when I hit the mines on a lucky day to collect tons of plain Geodes to assist in the cracking. And that's also the reason why the chests in my house look like One-Eyed Willy's treasure room in The Goonies :D

[Rick]

Headrock a écrit :

Crackin' Geodes

[/spoiler]

Could you please stop marking all your stuff as a spoiler?