Mining level 10... Blacksmith or prospector ?

[I am Karl, King of Ducks]

I really can't decide... On the one hand, coal is pretty rare, on the other, selling those bars at 25% profit is awesome, tho i suspect that i will soon be rolling in money just by farming.. so i dont know

[FatCat]

honestly the coal seemed the way to go if you went that path, its what i did. coal is used in a ton of recipies and saves on having to farm dust sprites as much. however the drop rate is still considerably lower than if you were to just farm the sprites for your coal. its hard to smelt bars to sell when your out of coal to do it with.

[mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm]

Well, you can just buy coal for like 150 ea.

[Angelus]

i went coal. farming brings in my steady income so i wanted to be practical and stock up on gear to tackle the caverns

[Frostwyn]

3rd option: Open save file in notepad++ and edit your skills to the other tree.

I had the miner/blacksmith/prospector tree and it was lack luster. I already had a lot coal before the level 10 skill that prospector was redundant and even if I mine constantly a stack of 100 ores only gets you 20 bars. Compared to having it rain geodes for days and getting gemstones that I can sell right off the bat I felt jipped.

[Thunder Rahja]

Prospector. You're gonna need the extra coal to help with all the ores you mine, and when you reach the bottom of the mine and unlock Skull Cavern, you're gonna be glad you're getting the extra ore and coal when you're mining for iridium.

Of course, you could also do what SwissToast said and change over to get geodes instead, but if I were doing that I would be getting much less of the ore that I want right now.

[Karl]

Why would anyone need more coal, that stuff isn't rare at all.

[Gus4544_Gs]

Originally posted by Gorgutz 'ead 'unta:

Why would anyone need more coal, that stuff isn't rare at all.

Coal is very rare, you dont get it from anything its just a low chance and you need alot of it. I can find more iron than coal very easliy, though now i just use the increased loot chance ring and the sprites drop like 2 coal each 1/3 of the time the other 1/3 they drop 1 and the last they drop nothing.

[I am Karl, King of Ducks]

I picked the coal one guys, I know I can buy it at Clint's but my choice had been made!

[Evie]

Coal is actually pretty easy to get if you know where to look. Just start at level 40 of the mines and farm the monsters. Still, I'd go with the coal skill, so I think you chose right. Coal's easy to get but at a certain part of the game, you'll be swimming in more money than coal, so might as well get extra for free.

[Hextravert]

A brilliant decision; selling iron bars isn't really a good idea to begin with anyway.

You need hundreds of bars for upgrading tools and crafting kegs, bee houses, crab pots, etc.

And when you are done with iron, you can turn it into gold. Again for upgrading and crafting.

Originally posted by Cumsparkle:

I picked the coal one guys, I know I can buy it at Clint's but my choice had been made!

[Elegant Caveman]

I really don't understand how everyone is having such a hard time with coal.

I don't have Miner, but I have way more coal than I have use for it, even without actively farming for it.

If I wanted extra, I'd go farm dust mites, or grow a bunch of trees and make charcoal, or simply buy it from Cliff.

I'm sitting on about ~100-150 extra coal, so even if I had taken Miner and I was getting extra ore, I'd still have coal leftover.

It seems to me that Blacksmith's +25% value to bars or the Geologist branch is a better choice.

What am I missing? Is it because I'm not far enough (I've unlocked the desert, but haven't started going to the skull mine yet)? Is there some craftable I'm not taking into consideration that requires a lot of coal?

[The Ultimate Illusion of Wind]

early game coal is hard to come by, unless your not making jars....or not smelting bars...lol later on its imo better to just buy coal...and copper and iron... =/ besides Geologist is way better =D

[NotThatHarkness]

Originally posted by Elegant Caveman:

What am I missing? Is it because I'm not far enough (I've unlocked the desert, but haven't started going to the skull mine yet)? Is there some craftable I'm not taking into consideration that requires a lot of coal?

I blew a ton of coal on bee houses and preserve barrels, smelting ores to bars, and bombs for the skull cave. I blew a lot of iron on bombs too. I ran out of coal and resorted to buying it from Clint (at least 10k worth so far). Money is more plentiful than coal so why not? I'm in Spring, year 3 and really need to finish the fishing bundles for the community center instead of farming for coal in the mines or throwing a ton of wood in kilns (but I've done that too). At one time I did have a lot of coal saved up (~50) but that went down to 10 or fewer at one point. I took Miner and haven't yet gotten to level 10 mining to pick another profession, but I think getting extra coal sounds better. I have been farming iron (for more bombs) and have saved up ~80 coal now. I don't expect that hoard to last though.

[Elegant Caveman]

Originally posted by TreyNutz:

[explanation]

Thank you. That makes sense.

I should have probably looked at craftable artisan good-producing things, that's my bad. I've also never used a single bomb since I started playing, so I tend to forget they even exist.

[vernicom]

What is the point on make thousands of money? I have only 300 tiles of crops and i have more of 400K of money, i dont need 40 beehives or kegs. I have only one animal of each. So is really necesary tons of money??