Cheapest best Luau item

[Lord Server]

TL;DR: Chantrelle, Mayo, Cheese, in that order, for most people/situations.

By best I mean CHEAPEST, thinking about year 2 and onward. Obviously this isn't really important, but I'd like to have a 'best cheap options' list in the back of my head so maybe you do too. This way I miss out on the minimum profits.

I am the kind of guy who finds spreadsheets fun, so I did a bit of math with the possible Luau items that give you the best response. Here's the highlights: (numbers are without perks, based on sell prices)

Chanterelle Mushrooms are the lowest value valid gold star item at just 240g. Gold mushrooms only go up once processed by your artisan bonus. They are still the cheapest if you only have them in iridium quality!
If you have a shortage of preserve jars, the vegetables come in second with Artichoke, Yam, and Cauliflower at 240 or 262g. But better to pickle them.
Otherwise, gold star Mayonnaise is the most plentiful cheap option 285+perks.
Stingray is next, assuming you have the pirate cove unlocked and are buying coal for 250. If you value coal at Clint's year 1 prices, smoked halibut is even cheaper than mayonnaise, and pike is next.
If you have no basic chickens, gold large milk or gold cheese are next.
If you have no animal products on your farm, go back to artichoke or yam.

The aged Wine/keg products are the WORST, as you have limited casks and that cask could be ageing starfruit wine.

My assumptions are simple: You have the capacity to process your milk into cheese, good fruit into wine, etc. You don't have spare casks sitting unused.

I enjoy the fact that the 'best' answer is also a rare-ish mushroom, since adding a special mushroom really can make a bland stew into something great IRL.

[Lord Server]

Small omission: Iridium Chantrelle are only cheaper than gold mayo if you have Artisan. I also ignored perks that raise the value of animal products.

[Gold Dragon]

Meh. i'll just toss in a Gold/Iridium level Purple mushroom like always. Once you have the Botanist (I think it's that one) perk, they are the easiest to find. Still, going by numbers, for those as like min/maxing, this info is tough to beat.

[Lord Server]

Originally posted by Gold Dragon:

Meh. i'll just toss in a Gold/Iridium level Purple mushroom like always. Once you have the Botanist (I think it's that one) perk, they are the easiest to find. Still, going by numbers, for those as like min/maxing, this info is tough to beat.

Purple mushroom *barely* missed the list. Honourable mention, cut when I tried to reduce the length of the post. :)

[=M$= Oroberus]

Gold Star Sturgeon wins every time just for ease of availability

[Artie]

I rather just use a gold star cheese from year 2+. Easy to get, always in my inventory. Cheapest money wise ≠ easy to get

Golden star mayo is even cheaper and easier to get, so maybe that should be the go-to luau offering from year 2 onwards

[ULTRA]

I also do gold sturgeon myself but gold purple mushroom is a strong contender

[supersand]

-Gold Star Cauliflower
-Gold Star Melon
-Gold Star Catfish
-Gold Star Chantrelle
-Gold Star Purple Mushroom
-Gold Star Sturgeon
-Gold Star Super Cucumber
-Silver or higher Ice Pip
-Gold Star Fairy Rose
-Gold Star Blobfish or Spookfish
-Silver or higher Starfruit

[Snowy Sprout]

With Meadowland farm's starting chickens a gold star mayo is super easy to get in year one. Good to know, if you didn't happen to get or save a gold star cauliflower, which used to be my go-to.

[Lord Server]

Originally posted by supersand:

-Gold Star Cauliflower
-Gold Star Melon
-Gold Star Catfish
-Gold Star Chantrelle
-Gold Star Purple Mushroom
-Gold Star Sturgeon
-Gold Star Super Cucumber
-Silver or higher Ice Pip
-Gold Star Fairy Rose
-Gold Star Blobfish or Spookfish
-Silver or higher Starfruit

These choices seem to be entirely random and have no correlation to the topic of this discussion. By year two you're dumping a lot of these things into the shipping crate. Some of these are literally the worst possible option from a lost-profit perspective.

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Gold Star Sturgeon wins every time just for ease of availability

It's a great choice for year one if you didn't keep (or get) a gold cauliflower, but by year two most people will have gold mayo or such far more available than a fish they have to actually go and get.

Originally posted by Artie:

I rather just use a gold star cheese from year 2+. Easy to get, always in my inventory. Cheapest money wise ≠ easy to get

Golden star mayo is even cheaper and easier to get, so maybe that should be the go-to luau offering from year 2 onwards

Absolutely. "Most plentiful" I called it, and it's my backup choice if I don't happen to have a Chantrelle. Maybe I should have put a TL;DR in my post that said: "Chantrelle, mayo, cheese in that order" lol

[red255]

Gold star cauliflower, gold star red cabbage. technically gold star ice pip or gold star lava eel.

gold star or purple star purple mushroom and whatever the ginger island mushrooms are called.

Chantelerelle isn't worth storing IMO. I store 9+ purple mushrooms to ace the grange festival display.

year 1 we really only have two reasonable options. 1.) bag of rice from pierre, its a liked gift +45 all. or get lucky and snag a gold star purple mushroom from the mines.
a silver star ice pip.
we could also grow a gold star cauliflower and hold onto it.

looking into it we could apparently get a fish smoker and get a gold star pike and smoke it.


I have not attempted this on a new file. pretty sure our realistic options are 1.) grow parsnips in 4 days, unlock basic fertilizer.
craft basic fertilizer and plant like 30 cauliflower and save some gold ones.

2. go into the mines and fish a silver star ice pip on floor 60.

I have caught gold star pikes before, I just don't feel its likely to be able to get a fish smoker by then, but thats only due to my experience with the drop rates of the crafting stuff.

[supersand]

Originally posted by Lord Server:

Originally posted by supersand:

-Gold Star Cauliflower
-Gold Star Melon
-Gold Star Catfish
-Gold Star Chantrelle
-Gold Star Purple Mushroom
-Gold Star Sturgeon
-Gold Star Super Cucumber
-Silver or higher Ice Pip
-Gold Star Fairy Rose
-Gold Star Blobfish or Spookfish
-Silver or higher Starfruit

These choices seem to be entirely random and have no correlation to the topic of this discussion. By year two you're dumping a lot of these things into the shipping crate. Some of these are literally the worst possible option from a lost-profit perspective.

Its not random, I went through the list and picked all the easy items for year 1 for any player and a few easy items for year 2 (notably the night market fish because it is very easy to save a few of these).

For example the silver+ ice pip / gold+ sturgeon / gold+ catfish would be good for a player that didn't save gold star crops, and sold all their mushrooms. Its not supposed to be the most cost efficient stuff.

[Nakos]

Are we talking about in general? Or Year One?

If it's Year One, then Gold Star Cauliflower is still going to be my goto choice. That's still going to be the easiest thing for a new player to obtain. It does require some planning, but it's still easy. A moderate amount of Farming Skill, basic Fertilizer and maybe half a dozen Cauliflower seeds and you're set.

I'd use a Gold Star Mayo if I had one (that would depend on if I'd started with the Meadowlands farm or not).

Yeah, if you're good at Fishing then maybe some of the fish on the list might be a good alternative. But I STILL don't care for fishing, it's always a chore for me, depending on farming is much more of a set-it-and-forget-it option for me.



Beyond that? Who cares? By the Year Two Luau, pretty much everything on the list is easy to obtain, and you're quibbling over a few dozen gold one way or the other.

[Queen Droxxanna]

i killed a pig and added pork to the luau and everyone LOVED it.
That's what they do at Luau's , they roast a pig over open flames.

[red255]

Originally posted by supersand:

Originally posted by Lord Server:

These choices seem to be entirely random and have no correlation to the topic of this discussion. By year two you're dumping a lot of these things into the shipping crate. Some of these are literally the worst possible option from a lost-profit perspective.

Its not random, I went through the list and picked all the easy items for year 1 for any player and a few easy items for year 2 (notably the night market fish because it is very easy to save a few of these).

For example the silver+ ice pip / gold+ sturgeon / gold+ catfish would be good for a player that didn't save gold star crops, and sold all their mushrooms. Its not supposed to be the most cost efficient stuff.

Gold star melon is not a year 1 option.

[Snowy Sprout]

Originally posted by red255:

Gold star melon is not a year 1 option.

Technically it is, if you get a greenhouse early enough. Which I've done several times with the Joja Route. The seeds are easy to get from the Museum.