CrepesNButter
Greenhorn
The reasoning:
With all of the changes 1.6 has brought fishing prices are now finally able to run neck and neck with end game profits of ranching and farming. But the pond farm building still has two very big issues making them less profitable than equivalent options. which I believe you can fix with one additional trait to the building. Issue number one is these ponds take some resources that are not so common and are semi expensive to build for a new playthrough. Even after building the pond it takes quite a few in game days for quests to spawn to upgrade it, and then some random items that could be time locked to complete the quests. This makes stacking large numbers of them in a early run very almost impossible and improbable. Even though I list this as a issue, this is a great way to balance spamming these early on and I think they deserve to stay just where they are, the reason I bring them up is to highlight this altercation I suggest will not create a early meta to break the game. It will only change how we play end game, which has one huge problem. Farming, ranching, gathering crab pots, they take time not just in game time but real life time that makes the actions pretty repetitive. For example one barn with the auto pick up peaceable is easily repeatable but end game you can run 10-12 barns, even with the auto pick up it still will take a few in game hours to get all the resources, and most players turn these into artisan goods which will take even longer. The point being after completing year 1, you have to make a decision, lose half your in game day to gaining money you honestly don't require anymore, or stop farming in the farming game.
The second issue a full pond lacks profit when compared to a full barn, coop, tiles of farm land, exs... This is because more fish in the pond doesn't increase row quantity, but the spawn rate of it. Even if the pond was guaranteed to spawn row everyday it would not make anywhere near other late game methods of farming. But with the new smoker building we can stomp these three total issues with one altercation to the pond. So row is not very profitable on its own, the other method the pond possess to create money is fishing, which takes time and directly lowers your row spawn chances. So we are at a point where this building which takes a lot more time and effort to upgrade fully compared to other farming buildings has two not very profitable directions it can go to make money which directly lower the profits of the other method. Making this building not very useful.
The solution:
Fish are now more profitable with the fish smoking farm placeable. With addition of Row the combination can come a little short compared to the barn and coop, My altercation to the pond building is for the ponds to shoot out a fish on to the land early in the morning if they are at full capacity and the upgrade quests have been completed with enough time in-between as a natural fish spawn. The mechanic to spawn a fish is already in the game all I would want is to keep spawning them out of this pond as a dropped item. This would be a faster late game farming method than walking into 12 barns or manually picking up a large field of crops. Simply pop a morning coffee and run through your farm picking up the fish and row. Not as profitable as other methods still, but closer to them then previous patches and awarding more in game time to play morning content. For the reasons I have listed above I think this is a very balanced end game play style we can introduce that would not require too much coding.
With all of the changes 1.6 has brought fishing prices are now finally able to run neck and neck with end game profits of ranching and farming. But the pond farm building still has two very big issues making them less profitable than equivalent options. which I believe you can fix with one additional trait to the building. Issue number one is these ponds take some resources that are not so common and are semi expensive to build for a new playthrough. Even after building the pond it takes quite a few in game days for quests to spawn to upgrade it, and then some random items that could be time locked to complete the quests. This makes stacking large numbers of them in a early run very almost impossible and improbable. Even though I list this as a issue, this is a great way to balance spamming these early on and I think they deserve to stay just where they are, the reason I bring them up is to highlight this altercation I suggest will not create a early meta to break the game. It will only change how we play end game, which has one huge problem. Farming, ranching, gathering crab pots, they take time not just in game time but real life time that makes the actions pretty repetitive. For example one barn with the auto pick up peaceable is easily repeatable but end game you can run 10-12 barns, even with the auto pick up it still will take a few in game hours to get all the resources, and most players turn these into artisan goods which will take even longer. The point being after completing year 1, you have to make a decision, lose half your in game day to gaining money you honestly don't require anymore, or stop farming in the farming game.
The second issue a full pond lacks profit when compared to a full barn, coop, tiles of farm land, exs... This is because more fish in the pond doesn't increase row quantity, but the spawn rate of it. Even if the pond was guaranteed to spawn row everyday it would not make anywhere near other late game methods of farming. But with the new smoker building we can stomp these three total issues with one altercation to the pond. So row is not very profitable on its own, the other method the pond possess to create money is fishing, which takes time and directly lowers your row spawn chances. So we are at a point where this building which takes a lot more time and effort to upgrade fully compared to other farming buildings has two not very profitable directions it can go to make money which directly lower the profits of the other method. Making this building not very useful.
The solution:
Fish are now more profitable with the fish smoking farm placeable. With addition of Row the combination can come a little short compared to the barn and coop, My altercation to the pond building is for the ponds to shoot out a fish on to the land early in the morning if they are at full capacity and the upgrade quests have been completed with enough time in-between as a natural fish spawn. The mechanic to spawn a fish is already in the game all I would want is to keep spawning them out of this pond as a dropped item. This would be a faster late game farming method than walking into 12 barns or manually picking up a large field of crops. Simply pop a morning coffee and run through your farm picking up the fish and row. Not as profitable as other methods still, but closer to them then previous patches and awarding more in game time to play morning content. For the reasons I have listed above I think this is a very balanced end game play style we can introduce that would not require too much coding.