Might pick up again; planning stuff. Unsure which farm.

[Vhadros Theveguis]

Title is a short summary for my question of sorts, but I'll explain more indepth here.

I have a problem where I overthink and overstrategize. A friend suggested this game to me as a way to relax, but jeez, there's a LOT of choices to make in this game. Professions and the choice of farm alone is a big deal.

However, I managed to plan most of what I want to do, profession-wise.
I want to go Artisan for Farming (for eventual Ancient Wine brewing, growing the fruit in the greenhouse), Botanist for Foraging (and buy a metric ton of pigs to profit a ton off of truffles), and Mariner for Fishing (for an absolute ton of Sashimi.)

So, with my main three moneymakers in mind, the next part was the farm itself... And I'm uncertain here.


I had the idea of doing the Riverland farm, but that might not have enough land for an extreme amount of pigs.
The Beach farm could also be good, but I have a feeling it'll have less water, meaning less Sashimi, and I'm a bit worried I won't be able to get a metric ton of barns to hold all the pigs I want.

Hence why I came here to ask for a second opinion from a community that knows better than I do. I also would appreciate input if my plans aren't that good to begin with for whatever reason. Thanks.

[Serendipitous]

Don't overthink, just go into it and enjoy the process. It's not a Factorio, playing it like one is kinda frustrating because of the lack of balance and screwed economy.

You can do that if you want, but i would still suggest not to overplan it. For starters, you are choosing probably worst farm types for your strategy. In terms of profits nothing bets the basic layout. You money making strategies are also kinda mutually exclusive - pigs require free land (not to mention that they are very random and finicky), land that can be used for farming. Per tile or time investment, farming makes more money than anything else by two orders of magnitude at least. It also allows for more automatization (through sprinklers and irridium scythe) than other skills. Heck, with Botanist you are even better to just plant wild seeds than raising pigs (or any other animals).

So just go in, learn the game, enjoy it and maybe after that start your megafarm.

[Buffmania]

There's plenty or room for what you want to do on both farms. You'd probably want to move the greenhouse somewhere out of the way on the riverlands farm as it does have less space for buildings.

[Bobucles]

Every layout will make enough money, so just choose the one that looks best.
The real tryhard mode is fertilizing and planting 3000 pumpkins three times every fall, but you know what? Maybe it's better to just relax and enjoy.

[Vhadros Theveguis]

Originally posted by Serendipitous:

Don't overthink, just go into it and enjoy the process. It's not a Factorio, playing it like one is kinda frustrating because of the lack of balance and screwed economy.

I can't help it, my brain has to optimise and plan everything. I wish it wasn't like this but it is, sadly.

Originally posted by Serendipitous:

Heck, with Botanist you are even better to just plant wild seeds than raising pigs (or any other animals).

Main reason I was considering Botanist was because of the synergy it had with pig truffles, always making them Iridium. But if raising pigs is that much of a deficit versus normal farming... Yikes.

Originally posted by Serendipitous:

Per tile or time investment, farming makes more money than anything else by two orders of magnitude at least. It also allows for more automatization (through sprinklers and irridium scythe) than other skills. Heck, with Botanist you are even better to just plant wild seeds than raising pigs (or any other animals).

One of my original worries with normal farming is that you have to adjust what crops your growing all the time depending on the season, and if you mistime crop planting, it could die out by the next season. So I didn't want to think too much about farming crops outside of the greenhouse (where Ancient Fruit shines).
Also, that Botanist Wild Seed strategy sounds WILD if that actually grants more gold per day than a metric ton of Pigs truffles do.

[Vhadros Theveguis]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Every layout will make enough money, so just choose the one that looks best.

To be honest, I do like the idea of the supply crates that the Beach farm gives, but that's apparently one of the hardest farms in the game. It probably doesn't have enough building space either.

Originally posted by Buffmania:

There's plenty or room for what you want to do on both farms. You'd probably want to move the greenhouse somewhere out of the way on the riverlands farm as it does have less space for buildings.

I'm guessing you can move the greenhouse after you repair it?

[Kreeate]

Here's a farm map I made that enables you to lay out things more or less exactly like you want. It has loads of space for farming and animals, and you can lay it out any which way you want. You can farm fish from ponds as well so you don't need lots of water on the farm.

https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/10188

[Vhadros Theveguis]

Originally posted by Kreeate:

Here's a farm map I made that enables you to lay out things more or less exactly like you want. It has loads of space for farming and animals, and you can lay it out any which way you want. You can farm fish from ponds as well so you don't need lots of water on the farm.

https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/10188

I personally would rather play completely vanilla until I reach Perfection. It's a personal rule of mine; I don't mod games I haven't finished before, and Perfection is the closest thing to an "ending" Stardew has.

[Kreeate]

Originally posted by Vhadros Theveguis:

Originally posted by Kreeate:

Here's a farm map I made that enables you to lay out things more or less exactly like you want. It has loads of space for farming and animals, and you can lay it out any which way you want. You can farm fish from ponds as well so you don't need lots of water on the farm.

https://www.nexusmods.com/stardewvalley/mods/10188

I personally would rather play completely vanilla until I reach Perfection. It's a personal rule of mine; I don't mod games I haven't finished before, and Perfection is the closest thing to an "ending" Stardew has.

Understood, and I respect that perspective. Have fun with the game. It's a ton of fun indeed.

[Ceruhe]

You can play it safe with the Standard Farm.
If you decide to go full crops, you got the land, if you go will animals, you got the land. The trade off compared to Riverland, Forest or Meadowlands is a slower start.
Might want to avoid Beach and Hill-top with your initial write up.

Few things to keep in mind.
- you will get access to the Ginger Island farm, which is a essentially a Greenhouse at a pretty good size. Can't animal there though
- you can change your professions down the line as you need (I did that on a tryhard run before, fun...)
- there are more moneymakers to consider, like Blacksmith/Iridium bars
- pigs are 0/day in winter

Can't exactly tell your experience with "might pick up again", but making money isn't that hard with only "1" income, once you are more established (probably year 2 or 3 for most players).

[Vhadros Theveguis]

Originally posted by Ceruhe:

You can play it safe with the Standard Farm.
If you decide to go full crops, you got the land, if you go will animals, you got the land. The trade off compared to Riverland, Forest or Meadowlands is a slower start.
Might want to avoid Beach and Hill-top with your initial write up.

Standard is a good general pick, yeah, but I really wanted to lean hard into Crab Pot shenaniganary. Now that I think about it, though, microing that bait would be a HUGE headache once I got hundreds of the stuff to worry about daily.

Originally posted by Ceruhe:

Few things to keep in mind.
- you will get access to the Ginger Island farm, which is a essentially a Greenhouse at a pretty good size. Can't animal there though
- you can change your professions down the line as you need (I did that on a tryhard run before, fun...)
- there are more moneymakers to consider, like Blacksmith/Iridium bars
- pigs are 0/day in winter

- Oh, cool, another place to plant Ancient Fruits.
- That's very helpful, I didn't know a mechanic like that existed.
- TBH I actually didn't know what to do with mining profession-wise... But that does give me a decent idea.
- Figures. Poor piggies would be freezing cold.

Originally posted by Ceruhe:

Can't exactly tell your experience with "might pick up again", but making money isn't that hard with only "1" income, once you are more established (probably year 2 or 3 for most players).

My experience is, admittably, not that much. I barely got past Year 1 without coming close to finishing the community center and I just KNEW I did something wrong, since I was barely scraping by on gold most of the time, sometimes I could barely even afford enough hay for my animals, since I didn't really have any ways to get more hay.

[Bobucles]

Except for one thing, I'd pick the forage/forest farm every time.
It's a great looking map, good early items, easy access to hardwood, and amazing little pockets for barns. Well, they would be amazing, except grass can't grow on top of grass? What's up with that?

[Ceruhe]

Originally posted by Vhadros Theveguis:

Standard is a good general pick, yeah, but I really wanted to lean hard into Crab Pot shenaniganary. Now that I think about it, though, microing that bait would be a HUGE headache once I got hundreds of the stuff to worry about daily.

...but as you already read, there is a profession which doesn't require you to bait the Crab Pots. Gets you trash in between though. Also the pickup/baiting has improved from a while ago, less hassle than it used to be. Still a daily task, not a thing I would enjoy.

Originally posted by Vhadros Theveguis:

My experience is, admittably, not that much. I barely got past Year 1 without coming close to finishing the community center and I just KNEW I did something wrong, since I was barely scraping by on gold most of the time, sometimes I could barely even afford enough hay for my animals, since I didn't really have any ways to get more hay.

It's pretty much impossible to finish the Community Center year 1 without extensive pre existing knowledge (execution and luck not withstanding) and planning.

Since you did read up a bunch and planned some (again, consider CC is a Y2+ thing for pretty much all first timers), there is only one thing you need to understand to actually maximize your income, your day ends at 1:50AM (save for passing out at 2AM), not when you are out of energy.

[Vhadros Theveguis]

Originally posted by Ceruhe:

Originally posted by Vhadros Theveguis:

Standard is a good general pick, yeah, but I really wanted to lean hard into Crab Pot shenaniganary. Now that I think about it, though, microing that bait would be a HUGE headache once I got hundreds of the stuff to worry about daily.

...but as you already read, there is a profession which doesn't require you to bait the Crab Pots. Gets you trash in between though. Also the pickup/baiting has improved from a while ago, less hassle than it used to be. Still a daily task, not a thing I would enjoy.

Originally posted by Vhadros Theveguis:

My experience is, admittably, not that much. I barely got past Year 1 without coming close to finishing the community center and I just KNEW I did something wrong, since I was barely scraping by on gold most of the time, sometimes I could barely even afford enough hay for my animals, since I didn't really have any ways to get more hay.

It's pretty much impossible to finish the Community Center year 1 without extensive pre existing knowledge (execution and luck not withstanding) and planning.

Since you did read up a bunch and planned some (again, consider CC is a Y2+ thing for pretty much all first timers), there is only one thing you need to understand to actually maximize your income, your day ends at 1:50AM (save for passing out at 2AM), not when you are out of energy.

Noted.

I'll probably think about this some more and retool my plan until I can come to a conclusion I'm happy with to start off with.
I'd rather not start with the standard farm, since it's a little too basic for my tastes. So I'll think on that primarily.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Vhadros Theveguis:

One of my original worries with normal farming is that you have to adjust what crops your growing all the time depending on the season, and if you mistime crop planting, it could die out by the next season. So I didn't want to think too much about farming crops outside of the greenhouse (where Ancient Fruit shines).
Also, that Botanist Wild Seed strategy sounds WILD if that actually grants more gold per day than a metric ton of Pigs truffles do.

You can just plant same ancient fruit outside too. It grows all season except winter, so just plant first day of spring and then just pick it up once a week on the same day (incredibly easy to manage). Timing crops is not hard, if you are in doubt, just plant something with less growth time, that's it. Even at it's hardest it's simple addition and subtraction within two digits numbers. And even if you screw up, you still turn several times more profit than you can with any animal product.

Anyway, my point was that to properly plan you need to understand the game better. Just make a test run till first winter and you'll be able to plan the next run much better.

Pro tip: every friday and saturday in the forest there is a trader. In spring and summer it sells Rare Seeds, they cost 1000 for single seed. Most of the time they sell only one per day, but once or twice they sell 5 of them at once. If you plant those seeds in fall, it will take 24 days for them to grow, but they will grow a crop with 3000 base price (so, even more if silver or gold). If you can plan around earning and spending to always have 1000 each friday or sunday, you get very nice returns on the investment. Just eat some food that increases farming skill before picking them up to increase amount of silver and gold quality crops.

[Serendipitous]

Originally posted by Bobucles:

Except for one thing, I'd pick the forage/forest farm every time.
It's a great looking map, good early items, easy access to hardwood, and amazing little pockets for barns. Well, they would be amazing, except grass can't grow on top of grass? What's up with that?

It's my favorite too, yeah.