Squigglyruth
Planter
I just tried out a different crop schedule in Spring Year 1, and was very pleased with the results. Please note I have only tried this once, and I normally like to test things multiple times before posting them as a tip. However, I obtained significantly improved results over my normal strawberry strategy (which can be viewed at https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/starting-out-with-strawberries.159648/), and I am about to have to start teaching again so I'm unlikely to get a chance to retest it myself in the near future. I am therefore sharing it in case anyone else wants to test it out. I would welcome any thoughts: was I just lucky, or is this a good way to play?
What I planted:
Day 1: 13 parsnips (about half from mixed seeds), 1 cauli (from mixed seeds), 1 green bean (bought from Pierre).
At some point from day 5- day 8: 6 rice shoots next to water, plus 3 mixed seeds, one of which gave me a potato (the other two were parsnips).
Day 8 (rainy day): 200 parsnips.
Day 12: 200 parsnips.
Day 13: 20 strawberries on speed-gro from the community centre. Annoyingly, I missed putting down one of the speed-gro.
Day 15 (rainy day): 100 strawberries.
Day 16: 196 strawberries and 9 cauliflower (from the museum). I was left with 6 strawberry seeds that I didn't have time to plant, and two of the ones I planted were on unwatered plots.
Day 22: 24 parsnips.
(There might also have been 2 or 3 other mixed seeds at some point, and definitely 3 more rice when I harvested the first 3).
What did this achieve?
Farming 6 by day 16 in time for planting most of the strawberries. That takes 413 parsnips. It's almost as if you are meant to plant 13, then 200, then replant the 200.
11 quality sprinklers in place by the end of day 16 , because I had had time to get down to level 80 in the mines.
Average of 11 sprinklers each day for a few days from then (higher initially, then I slowed down once all my crops were covered within 4 days; I sped up again at the end of the season to have more ready for summer).
Farming 10 by the end of spring, giving Agriculturalist for summer.
67 sprinklers for the start of summer (58 already made an in place; 9 made on summer 1 without hassle.)
Tonnes of strawberries ready to sell - I cashed in about 37000g to pay for summer crops, but that left me more than 45000g just sat there in strawberries (and there was a lot of other stuff available to sell as well).
Enough cash floating around to pay for upgrading my axe and pickaxe to steel by mid-season. I didn't do any upgrades before the Egg Festival, but was able then to do them rapidly because I was still harvesting parsnips. Normally that bit of the month sees no money coming in from farming.
I only had to dig about 300 plots during spring, and the maximum I watered in a single day was about 230.
I had parsnips available to eat from day 12 onwards, just when I needed the extra energy.
Why was this good?
I think it's the efficient use of crop space: planting 200 parsnips, then replacing them with 200 parsnips, then with 200 strawberries just in time for those to get two harvests each. I always used to try to get my crops ready to be sold the day before the Egg Festival, but in retrospect I was then buying more strawberries than I needed, whilst not getting far enough down the mines. This new strategy let me get far enough down the mines to take proper advantage of the farming level 6.
What were the issues?
Getting enough coal. In retrospect, I should have made a charcoal burner earlier. I wasted a lot of mining time hunting dust sprites.
Please note, I'm not outstanding at either fishing or mining, but I guess I am competent at both. I also didn't push fishing to the max, despite having rainy days when I could have caught catfish. It didn't seem like I would be short of money, so I mined instead.
I ended the season on fishing 8, farming 10, mining 7, foraging 5 and combat 4.
What I planted:
Day 1: 13 parsnips (about half from mixed seeds), 1 cauli (from mixed seeds), 1 green bean (bought from Pierre).
At some point from day 5- day 8: 6 rice shoots next to water, plus 3 mixed seeds, one of which gave me a potato (the other two were parsnips).
Day 8 (rainy day): 200 parsnips.
Day 12: 200 parsnips.
Day 13: 20 strawberries on speed-gro from the community centre. Annoyingly, I missed putting down one of the speed-gro.
Day 15 (rainy day): 100 strawberries.
Day 16: 196 strawberries and 9 cauliflower (from the museum). I was left with 6 strawberry seeds that I didn't have time to plant, and two of the ones I planted were on unwatered plots.
Day 22: 24 parsnips.
(There might also have been 2 or 3 other mixed seeds at some point, and definitely 3 more rice when I harvested the first 3).
What did this achieve?
Farming 6 by day 16 in time for planting most of the strawberries. That takes 413 parsnips. It's almost as if you are meant to plant 13, then 200, then replant the 200.
11 quality sprinklers in place by the end of day 16 , because I had had time to get down to level 80 in the mines.
Average of 11 sprinklers each day for a few days from then (higher initially, then I slowed down once all my crops were covered within 4 days; I sped up again at the end of the season to have more ready for summer).
Farming 10 by the end of spring, giving Agriculturalist for summer.
67 sprinklers for the start of summer (58 already made an in place; 9 made on summer 1 without hassle.)
Tonnes of strawberries ready to sell - I cashed in about 37000g to pay for summer crops, but that left me more than 45000g just sat there in strawberries (and there was a lot of other stuff available to sell as well).
Enough cash floating around to pay for upgrading my axe and pickaxe to steel by mid-season. I didn't do any upgrades before the Egg Festival, but was able then to do them rapidly because I was still harvesting parsnips. Normally that bit of the month sees no money coming in from farming.
I only had to dig about 300 plots during spring, and the maximum I watered in a single day was about 230.
I had parsnips available to eat from day 12 onwards, just when I needed the extra energy.
Why was this good?
I think it's the efficient use of crop space: planting 200 parsnips, then replacing them with 200 parsnips, then with 200 strawberries just in time for those to get two harvests each. I always used to try to get my crops ready to be sold the day before the Egg Festival, but in retrospect I was then buying more strawberries than I needed, whilst not getting far enough down the mines. This new strategy let me get far enough down the mines to take proper advantage of the farming level 6.
What were the issues?
Getting enough coal. In retrospect, I should have made a charcoal burner earlier. I wasted a lot of mining time hunting dust sprites.
Please note, I'm not outstanding at either fishing or mining, but I guess I am competent at both. I also didn't push fishing to the max, despite having rainy days when I could have caught catfish. It didn't seem like I would be short of money, so I mined instead.
I ended the season on fishing 8, farming 10, mining 7, foraging 5 and combat 4.
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