1.6 Update Observations about early spring

[Squigglyruth]

I've played up to day 10 so far. Here are my thoughts on how 1.6 affects early play:

• Carrots seem great! Lots of energy for a crop that grows in 3 days. I am therefore carrying my hoe around with me everywhere, which I don't normally do. Just a few carrots could make a big difference to early energy levels.
• Although there is no water near the house in the new farm, it's not ridiculously far. I am running nearby to the water whenever I go to my coop. Now I've ramped up to 250+ crops, I have planted a bunch at the bottom of the map where there is lots of water. I wish I had just planted them all there.
• This may be RNG - just one game as evidence - but the monsters in the mine seem more balanced. I've seen many more rock crabs and duggies than I normally would by this point. I also feel there might have been more grubs. My combat is leveling up faster than normal.
• I have caught a number of jellies in the sea and the river, but I'm not sure whether to use them or sell them. I need to make my mind up!
• I feel like I really need to level up farming to start making mayonnaise...

 

[Evin]

(jellies) not sure whether to use them or sell them

I ate all the jellies. (sold one of the blue ones

Spoiler: worth in g

and they give you ~200 gold

- sooo maybe it might be better to sell them in early game for the money?)

But I didn't have to buy food to buff my fishing (like the trout soup) and the river jelly boosts hp which can be a life saver in the mines - so I don't regret anything. For now. The "rare" in the description makes my spider senses all tingly. Hope we don't need like 20 of them later in game. ;)


So far the only difference I noticed is the chicks growing a lot faster on the new farm.
And the books are really useful (the description - if they really are useful I'll tell you later) but you loose so much money if you go for them early in game.

 

[Antinous]

biggest difference in the early game for me is the tea sapling change. It's probably overall a positive thing!

I did originally intend to focus on livestock like this new map encourages, but with chickens being the price they are and no incubator until I upgrade the coop, it might be a while and I find my early game strategies, when every 800g counts, to be pretty much the same. Probably on me for not sucking it up and buying the chickens anyway, but seeds feel like they pay for themselves faster...

 

[Squigglyruth]

I ate all the jellies. (sold one of the blue ones

Spoiler: worth in g

and they give you ~200 gold

- sooo maybe it might be better to sell them in early game for the money?)

But I didn't have to buy food to buff my fishing (like the trout soup) and the river jelly boosts hp which can be a life saver in the mines - so I don't regret anything. For now. The "rare" in the description makes my spider senses all tingly. Hope we don't need like 20 of them later in game. ;)


So far the only difference I noticed is the chicks growing a lot faster on the new farm.
And the books are really useful (the description - if they really are useful I'll tell you later) but you loose so much money if you go for them early in game.

I ignored the first day of books. I wasn't sure where the seller was, and I had a lot else to do because it was the day before the Egg Festival. Possibly a mistake?

My jellies are still sitting in my inventory being useless :-) If I had sold them on Spring 2, that would have been a lot of money that I could have invested, but now it seems like a waste... I'll remember for next time, though.

biggest difference in the early game for me is the tea sapling change. It's probably overall a positive thing!

I did originally intend to focus on livestock like this new map encourages, but with chickens being the price they are and no incubator until I upgrade the coop, it might be a while and I find my early game strategies, when every 800g counts, to be pretty much the same. Probably on me for not sucking it up and buying the chickens anyway, but seeds feel like they pay for themselves faster...

I never did the tea sapling thing - I think because I developed most of my strategies before 1.5. I'm a bit sad to have missed out, but oh well.

I haven't bought extra chickens yet, but I am wondering if I should have done that with my next bit of cash after the egg festival. So little extra effort, and my mayonnaise is making me a lot of money just with the 2.

I should say that I'm now fairly sure the monsters have been changed in the mines. I've seen so many dust sprites already, as well as the duggies and crabs that I mentioned before. If this isn't a 1.6 change, then I am playing a very weird playthrough!

 

[Odyssey]

I used my sea jellies from fishing on the beach on day 2 to make it easier to catch catfish in the river on day 3. I did have a higher fishing level to start with from some good day 2 bubbles and got lucky with some fairly easy catfish but I got more than double the number I usually get on day 3.

 

[Squigglyruth]

I used my sea jellies from fishing on the beach on day 2 to make it easier to catch catfish in the river on day 3. I did have a higher fishing level to start with from some good day 2 bubbles and got lucky with some fairly easy catfish but I got more than double the number I usually get on day 3.

I nearly did that! But I wasn't sure what they would do... I'm not great at catching catfish on day 3: I normally scrape the fibreglass rod just in time on day 2.
I will definitely eat any sea jellies on day 3 next time I play.

 

[Odyssey]

I nearly did that! But I wasn't sure what they would do... I'm not great at catching catfish on day 3: I normally scrape the fibreglass rod just in time on day 2.
I will definitely eat any sea jellies on day 3 next time I play.

They give you +1 fishing for 7 minutes, so the 3 I had covered almost the whole time the catfish were available. The boost also made it easier to get perfect catches with the other types of fish, reducing the amount of time it took to reach the next level and get a bigger fishing bar and a slightly higher bite rate.

 

[Odyssey]

If anyone is wondering what the new XP gain is for seasonal forage seeds, I did some testing and worked out that they now give 3 farming XP and 2 foraging XP (instead of 7 foraging XP).

Forage that spawns around the world still gives 7 XP. It feels like the spawn rate has increased but maybe I've just been getting lucky since the update.

 

[Lew Zealand]

biggest difference in the early game for me is the tea sapling change. It's probably overall a positive thing!

I never did the tea sapling thing - I think because I developed most of my strategies before 1.5. I'm a bit sad to have missed out, but oh well.

You haven't missed out as it's still a good early game strategy for some extra g, but 'good' instead of OP. Which is kinda the point, things should be balanced.

 

[chaskuchar]

i am on summer day 10 on new farm. the fisherman showed up at my door with the training rod. says he didn't see me fishing so he is trying to help. hmmmm. fishing is impossible on the xbox so now on the computer i need to give it a try. i did make iron axe and helps to get wood better. i like the changes but the green rain was weird.

 

[Squigglyruth]

i am on summer day 10 on new farm. the fisherman showed up at my door with the training rod. says he didn't see me fishing so he is trying to help. hmmmm. fishing is impossible on the xbox so now on the computer i need to give it a try. i did make iron axe and helps to get wood better. i like the changes but the green rain was weird.

Oh, that's interesting. I'm not sure if it is new for 1.6?
The training rod is very useful when your fishing level is low - you can catch some fish on perfect without even moving the rod! Then your bar gets bigger as you level up, so it does launch you into a positive pathway for fishing. Try letting the training rod just sit at the bottom and see what happens - if you do need to move it up, make very small taps since you are then less likely to go too far. The mountain lake is probably a nice place to try this - go to the bottom left of it and cast towards the log.

I came back to update my initial thoughts about 1.6. I am now on day 3 of summer.
My progress in farming, mining and fishing seems normal. By the end of spring: farming 10; fishing 8; and mining 7. I did pay attention to the farming (because I like to get Agriculturalist before summer) - it was slightly easier to get there, because of the starting coop. I think that my combat skill is going up a bit faster than normal, but that might be RNG - still only combat 4 :-). Foraging is definitely slower than normal - I only just unlocked tappers, which could hurt my processing of hops and starfruit unless I compensate! I also have fewer oak trees than normal, because I used to leave stumps to spawn seeds and that's been patched...

It just occurred to me that once I got my silo (much earlier than normal) I should have cut back the normal grass near the coop, to let the blue grass grow. My chickens are probably eating normal grass half the time by accident - oops!

 

[24k Ancient Fruit]

If anyone is wondering what the new XP gain is for seasonal forage seeds, I did some testing and worked out that they now give 3 farming XP and 2 foraging XP (instead of 7 foraging XP).

Forage that spawns around the world still gives 7 XP. It feels like the spawn rate has increased but maybe I've just been getting lucky since the update.

Thanks for that info. I guess people were maxing out their Forage skill too easily using those Wild Seeds pre-1.6. I'm still having a blast quickly growing and harvesting Wild Seeds every day in 1.5.6 and prestiging the Forage Skill -- it's up to Prestige Level 70+ in my current game. If a functional Skill Prestige mod for v1.6 comes out, then I would definitely need to adjust my strategy for quickly prestiging my Forage Skill...

Say... has the 7 XP gained by picking up Truffles found by your Pigs changed in 1.6?

 

[chaskuchar]

squigglyruth, how do you get to ten on farming? i am 6 now summer day 10.

 

[Squigglyruth]

squigglyruth, how do you get to ten on farming? i am 6 now summer day 10.

In brief: Plant 200+ parsnips the first weekend, harvest and replant, harvest and plant strawberries in their place by Tuesday 16th. Initial money comes from early fishing. Mine as far as level 80 then concentrate on making quality sprinklers until the crops are covered.

 

[chaskuchar]

thank you. i didn't think i hadenough energy to do that planting....

 

[Squigglyruth]

thank you. i didn't think i hadenough energy to do that planting....

The energy mostly comes from eating smallmouth bass or chub. I fish for days 2, 3 and 4. Sell the other fish, but keep those to eat. You can also always keep some parsnips to eat.

I think the 1.6 changes make the energy a bit easier - carrots are fab, and you could always eat mayonnaise at a push (though I have resisted).

It is a bit of a balancing act - rainy days help a lot. If you can plant the first set of 200 parsnips on a rainy day, that halves the energy cost. Ideally you want to have farming level 1 already, so that you can put scarecrows out - so don't plant on Spring 3rd. This time I only just scraped farming 1 by my rainy Saturday 6th, because of the lack of free parsnips on the meadow farm.

You are hoping for a rainy day on 5th-8th Spring, the earlier the better. You then just water the crops enough that you harvest the first set of parsnips by Friday 12th (to fund the strawberries at the egg festival). Try to balance your energy and time so that you can also make some money by fishing or in the mines - then buy as many strawberries as you can afford.

You don't need to get to level 80 in the mines before the egg festival, but try to get down as many levels as possible whenever you do mine. Either mine (on sunny days) or fish (on rainy days if you can catch Catfish).

This strategy is hardest on the beach farm, because of the limited space for using sprinklers, but I have still managed to make it work there. It's by no means the best power-gaming strategy, but it works quite reliably to give a good farming position entering summer, with decent fishing and mining stats as well.

 

[chaskuchar]

i am used to pling on the xbox and fishing is harder there. i only have five hundred on meadowland so that is 25 parsnips. i can fish in the river by the greenhouse. i will try your suggestions. thanks.