Min-Max Guide / Optimal Play

[OldMcKeg]

Ok, I see where you're coming from. Let me give your analysis done thought -- I really appreciate your putting numbers on it, that helps clarify.

Did you see my other pay, about the pigs? What are your thoughts?

 

[Zamiel]

I really appreciate your putting numbers on it, that helps clarify.

Furthermore, Xianji estimates that M is 450g, which aligns with my experience, and if true, would confirm that your route probably wouldn't work.

Did you see my other pay, about the pigs? What are your thoughts?

I've never done a pure min-max run for gold that extends into Fall. If I did, I would never do pigs. Here's why.

According to my spreadsheet, Starfruit Wine wins over Truffle Oil. (This would still be true even if Deluxe Barns, Pigs, and Oil Makers were all free, so it isn't even close.)
Thus, in summer, it is optimal to cover every tile with Starfruit seeds and not waste any tiles on a barn.
On Fall 1, if I started on pigs at that point, they would come online on Fall 21, giving you only 8 days of Truffle harvesting:
1,441g * 12 pigs * 8 days = 138,336g
Then, minus the cost of the Deluxe Barn and 12 pigs:
138,336g - 69,500g - (12 * 16,000g) = -123,164g
So we have already lost a huge amount of money. But we aren't even done yet, because we also have to account for the opportunity cost, e.g. all 3 Pumpkin harvests.
91.89g * 3 * 70 = 19,296.9g
Accounting for this, we get -123,164g - 19,296.9g = -142,460.9g.
Pretty abysmal.

Furthermore, this analysis assumes that on Fall 1, you already have every tile on the Island Farm occupied with Starfruit + DSG. I'm not sure if that it is possible to do this (at least, using my recommended restrictions of no save scumming, etc.). So if this were not the case, then pigs look to be even worse, since you would actually need to compare Truffle Oil versus Starfruit Wine (as opposed to the above analysis of Truffle Oil versus Pumpkin Juice).

 

[Zamiel]

skau reports:

Spring Mountain Lake is nice because it doesn't change over the day at all, unlike most locations/seasons
This gives us the expected value (with the +50% fish value and all iridium/perfect catches) to be (300 * .2013) + (90 * .2225) + (225 * .1810) + (150 * .2225) = 154.515/fish
if you get 2-3 fishes/hour, you'd expect 300g-450g/hour, which is in line with Xianji's estimate

 

[OldMcKeg]

I think you are missing a lot in your analysis by comparing the months separately rather than together. Please take a look at this spreadsheet. It uses the same assumptions as yours, except that I assume 1.2 truffles per pig -- this is probably a good deal lower than the reality, given that foraging 5 will multiply by 1.2 without any farming or animal friendship contribution. In this case pigs thump starfruit + pumpkins by a bit shy of 200k, but probably by far more, since at the end of fall I can probably sell the pigs to recover 50% or so and either keep the cash or reinvest it in, say, sheep during winter. Do you see any flaws in my reasoning?

 

[Zamiel]

Looks like M is actually 620.04g:
Data is here:

stardew-valley/Min-Max_Guide.md at main · Zamiell/stardew-valley

Contribute to Zamiell/stardew-valley development by creating an account on GitHub.

github.com

 

[Zamiel]

I think you are missing a lot in your analysis by comparing the months separately rather than together. Please take a look at this spreadsheet. It uses the same assumptions as yours, except that I assume 1.2 truffles per pig -- this is probably a good deal lower than the reality, given that foraging 5 will multiply by 1.2 without any farming or animal friendship contribution. In this case pigs thump starfruit + pumpkins by a bit shy of 200k, but probably by far more, since at the end of fall I can probably sell the pigs to recover 50% or so and either keep the cash or reinvest it in, say, sheep during winter. Do you see any flaws in my reasoning?

I requested edit access + found some bugs.

 

[OldMcKeg]

I requested edit access + found some bugs.

What bugs?

 

[OldMcKeg]

Also this fish stuff -- mountain lake definitely changes. You don't get largemouth after I think 7pm. And xianji and you, a minute ago, both thought 450. If it's really 620 that's a huge error. It seems to me the prudent thing is to maybe do some testing before committing to any of these numbers.

 

[Squigglyruth]

How much profit do you get from two large harvests of strawberries? You can make around 100,000g a day per Skull Cavern run (eventually), so the opportunity cost of running around planting things + harvesting things is huge.

By what point in time can you make 100,000 a day though? The profit on the strawberries isn't huge - about 50,000 profit if you sell them unprocessed - but the time taken for planting and harvesting is less than a day in total. That seems like a reasonable profit. Also the plants just need scything to plant your summer crops, so it saves time later... (those tiles for the starfruit will need digging at some point!) And you enter the summer with farming 10. Which, to be fair, doesn't make much difference for a starfruit strat - you still need deluxe speed gro for three harvests. But you could pick artisan and be able to sell your starfruit wine much earlier.

 

[Zamiel]

Also this fish stuff -- mountain lake definitely changes. You don't get largemouth after I think 7pm.

That's correct. I have updated the section in the Min Max Guide to account for the two different time frames + provide a weighted average. Feel free to review these new numbers.

However, we should note here that it is not correct to use the weighted average for our purposes. Instead, we would want to compare the specific times of your route that you plan to be in the mines. You'd need to provide that data. At any rate, even assuming a weighted average of 498.63g sounds like it would probably disqualify your route without any additional scrutiny.

And xianji and you, a minute ago, both thought 450. If it's really 620 that's a huge error. It seems to me the prudent thing is to maybe do some testing before committing to any of these numbers.

To clarify, Xianji's value of 450g was an estimate. My value of 620g is an actual calculation based on the real data.

 

[Zamiel]

By what point in time can you make 100,000 a day though?

Indeed you are correct in that you can't make 100,000g a day right out the gate. It does require some "warmup" time - getting the Galaxy Sword, getting combat level 10, getting mining level 10, crafting two Iridium Bands, and most importantly, building up a ton of Crystalariums producing Jade.

But it doesn't take all that long to do this, and you don't need a "perfect" Skull Cavern run to make 100K by any means. If you delay Skull Caverns with any side-quests at all, it has to be for some incredibly good long-term permanent gain that isn't just a one-time infusion of a little cash.

The profit on the strawberries isn't huge - about 50,000 profit if you sell them unprocessed

Indeed, for this analysis we need to assume that we sell them unprocessed, as it would be impossible to build enough Kegs (or Preserves Jars, for that matter) to process them all. We need to remember that a 50,000g profit is a huge boon in Spring, but somewhat useless in Summer. Another way of saying this is that by the time the Strawberries actually pay off, you are already making so much money from the Skull Caverns that 50,000g is a relatively tiny amount.

but the time taken for planting and harvesting is less than a day in total.

Ok, if that's true, we could consider the other costs.

1) First and foremost, how much money are you investing into Strawberry Seeds on Spring 13? In my route, you have some money from fishing from Spring 3 --> Spring 11, but you need to save every last penny for unlocking the Vault + buying a level 3 backpack. So, crucially, any money that you invest into Strawberry Seeds would delay unlocking the Skull Caverns. Remember that the first Strawberry harvest does not come until Spring 21, and in my route, you are ideally already starting to farm Skull Cavern by around Spring 15. (So, the profit doesn't help you, it only hurts you.)

2) Attending the festival is a huge cost. Even if you optimally get there at 1:50 PM, you will return at 10 PM, wasting 8 hours of your day. You need to factor in the opportunity cost of 8 wasted hours.

3) In my route, you will have around 22 Sprinklers in order to water around 172 Kale Seeds (in two separate batches). Are you proposing that more sprinklers are built beyond this? Any further time spent farming additional sprinklers is yet another cost that will delay the beginning of the Skull Cavern revenue.

Also the plants just need scything to plant your summer crops, so it saves time later... (those tiles for the starfruit will need digging at some point!)

Recall that in my route, we use Parsnips as a linger crop, which is so cheap (20g) that at the end of Spring it is practically free.
It is nice to save time having to walk to Pierre's and back, but in the grand scheme of things this probably doesn't make much of a difference.

And you enter the summer with farming 10. Which, to be fair, doesn't make much difference for a starfruit strat - you still need deluxe speed gro for three harvests. But you could pick artisan and be able to sell your starfruit wine much earlier.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. To be clear, farming level doesn't affect the grow time of crops. It only affects the quality of picked crops, which is irrelevant in Summer, because all 3 quality types (normal, silver, gold) will all go into Kegs. All you "need" is farming level 6 in order to be able to craft Quality Sprinklers (which is why the route buys exactly enough Kale to get level 6).

 

[Zamiel]

What bugs?

See the edited spreadsheet.

 

[Squigglyruth]

Indeed, for this analysis we need to assume that we sell them unprocessed, as it would be impossible to build enough Kegs (or Preserves Jars, for that matter) to process them all. We need to remember that a 50,000g profit is a huge boon in Spring, but somewhat useless in Summer. Another way of saying this is that by the time the Strawberries actually pay off, you are already making so much money from the Skull Caverns that 50,000g is a relatively tiny amount.

The 50,000g profit from the strawberries is in spring, not summer, though! That's why I'm asking *when* Skull Cavern gets up to high profits... When is the soonest you personally have made more than 50,000g on a skull cavern run? How many times do you manage that in a typical spring? It would cost 192,000g to buy 400 starfruits seeds plus deluxe speed-gro, which your guide suggests as an aim. Divide that by the 12 days of skull cavern diving and it's only 16,000g a day...

Ok, if that's true, we could consider the other costs.

It definitely is true. And the tiles that I dig for my strawberries are the same tiles I would be digging for my starfruit, so actually that isn't added time on top of your route. This is the 'one to two days to prepare your farm', just earlier in spring - and only one day. The only added time is the harvesting (which is really fast) and the Egg Festival. I agree Egg Festival is a cost, but that is 8 hours plus harvesting time so it's not huge.

1) First and foremost, how much money are you investing into Strawberry Seeds on Spring 13? In my route, you have some money from fishing from Spring 3 --> Spring 11, but you need to save every last penny for unlocking the Vault + buying a level 3 backpack. So, crucially, any money that you invest into Strawberry Seeds would delay unlocking the Skull Caverns. Remember that the first Strawberry harvest does not come until Spring 21, and in my route, you are ideally already starting to farm Skull Cavern by around Spring 15. (So, the profit doesn't help you, it only hurts you.)

Your guide says Spring 17 not Spring 15. Surely the mining is very tight to pay for the bus to be fixed on the 14th if you don't start properly diving until the 11th?

You are right that the vault will be finished a few days later with my route. Last time I bought 300 strawberry seeds, which left me about 10,000g, then I harvested 200 parsnips on 16th and planted my strawberries that day (apart from the 20 I planted on the night of the Egg Festival on speed gro from the community centre). Those 200 parsnips got me another 10,000 or so gold. With some focused fishing on the 14th, 15th and 17th I think I could have paid for the vault on the 18th... In addition, the farm is already completely prepped for the starfruit planting, which gains a couple of days back later in the season. When I tried this out, I had 60 quality sprinklers crafted and watering the farm by mid-spring, and a lot of tappers up too... In your route, you still have to do that in the future, as well as digging all the tiles for your starfruit, harvesting and replanting kale, buying parsnip seeds from Pierre's, and planting parsnips as a linger crop.

3) In my route, you will have around 22 Sprinklers in order to water around 172 Kale Seeds (in two separate batches). Are you proposing that more sprinklers are built beyond this? Any further time spent farming additional sprinklers is yet another cost that will delay the beginning of the Skull Cavern revenue.

You are going to need at least 50 quality sprinklers for your starfruit fields. I never make any normal sprinklers. My route goes straight to quality sprinklers in mid-spring. My strawberries are watered with quality sprinklers from the moment I plant them. From that point on, the only time needed on the farm is two harvests of strawberries, and there is no need to mine gold or iron either - that's all already done.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting here. To be clear, farming level doesn't affect the grow time of crops. It only affects the quality of picked crops, which is irrelevant in Summer, because all 3 quality types (normal, silver, gold) will all go into Kegs. All you "need" is farming level 6 in order to be able to craft Quality Sprinklers (which is why the route buys exactly enough Kale to get level 6).

Farming level can affect the grow time of crops if you pick agriculturalist at farming 10. So if you make that choice, anything you plant in summer will be faster. It doesn't change the need for deluxe speed-gro for 3 starfruit harvests, though, so artisan is a better pick, allowing you to sell starfruit wine throughout summer rather than waiting until autumn.

To be clear, this isn't a hypothetical untried route that I am suggesting. I did it up to spring 16th, had my quality sprinklers up watering my 300 strawberries, and then stopped min-maxing and just had fun. I entered summer with a huge amount of money without any skull cavern runs at all. What I am wondering is how much money I could have by summer if I had used the end of that spring for skull cavern - I could probably have gone all day each day from 18th or 19th spring, apart from the couple of hours needed to harvest strawberries on two of those days.

 

[Zamiel]

Hello Squiggly,

The 50,000g profit from the strawberries is in spring, not summer, though!

Indeed. What I meant to say was, the first Strawberry profit is on Spring 21, and the second is on Spring 25.
Specifically, by Spring 21, you have already been doing Skull Caverns runs for around 6 days or so, and thus revenue per day is starting to ramp up a lot.
So assuming 300 Strawberry plants, that is around 36,000g on Spring 21, which is definitely useful. But we also have to consider the opportunity cost of having to run around and harvest them. (Probably around 2 or 3 hours worth of Skull Cavern revenue, which may be a huge difference.)

That's why I'm asking *when* Skull Cavern gets up to high profits... When is the soonest you personally have made more than 50,000g on a skull cavern run? How many times do you manage that in a typical spring?

Those are great questions, and I didn't record my last run so I don't have a good answer. I think that it is fair to say that you won't start making 100K per day until some point in Summer at the earliest. But I think it's important to emphasize that any time spent deviating away from the Skull Caverns means that your "100K SC days" will just be pushed even further down the road, losing you total money in the long run.

And the tiles that I dig for my strawberries are the same tiles I would be digging for my starfruit, so actually that isn't added time on top of your route.

I did mention Parsnips in my previous reply. So you are correct in that in both routes, we both pre-hoe and pre-plant a crop, so that part of it at least should be the same.

Your guide says Spring 17 not Spring 15.

From what I know, my guide actually does not actually specify the day. This is because different runs will get to the Skull Caverns in a variable amount of time. The major factors are:
1) whether you get good luck or bad luck days, which will influence on what day you get to the bottom of the mines (starting on Spring 11)
2) whether or not you get a lot of rain days, which will be spent getting Catfish and greatly speeding up buying the Vault
3) whether or not you have to go out of your way to do misc. tasks with respect to the specific challenge run that you are doing (e.g. if you are doing a Five Candles Challenge, then you would have to attend the Egg Festival, etc.)

You are right that the vault will be finished a few days later with my route. Last time I bought 300 strawberry seeds, which left me about 10,000g, then I harvested 200 parsnips on 16th and planted my strawberries that day (apart from the 20 I planted on the night of the Egg Festival on speed gro from the community centre). Those 200 parsnips got me another 10,000 or so gold. With some focused fishing on the 14th, 15th and 17th I think I could have paid for the vault on the 18th... In addition, the farm is already completely prepped for the starfruit planting, which gains a couple of days back later in the season. When I tried this out, I had 60 quality sprinklers crafted and watering the farm by mid-spring, and a lot of tappers up too... In your route, you still have to do that in the future, as well as digging all the tiles for your starfruit, harvesting and replanting kale, buying parsnip seeds from Pierre's, and planting parsnips as a linger crop.

You are going to need at least 50 quality sprinklers for your starfruit fields. I never make any normal sprinklers. My route goes straight to quality sprinklers in mid-spring. My strawberries are watered with quality sprinklers from the moment I plant them. From that point on, the only time needed on the farm is two harvests of strawberries, and there is no need to mine gold or iron either - that's all already done.

Ok, that's interesting. In my route, it would be impossible to get a lot of Quality Sprinklers by the 13th, because:
1) In my route, your farming is only level 2, so you simply cannot craft them.
2) In my route, you only start doing the mines on Spring 11, so it would be impossible to have enough raw materials to craft more than a handful.

In your route, it sounds like you are hand-watering 200 Parsnips every single day, which strikes me as an enormous waste of time. Keep in mind the opportunity cost of ~500g per hour while fishing at the Mountain Lake.

Farming level can affect the grow time of crops if you pick agriculturalist at farming 10. So if you make that choice, anything you plant in summer will be faster. It doesn't change the need for deluxe speed-gro for 3 starfruit harvests, though, so artisan is a better pick, allowing you to sell starfruit wine throughout summer rather than waiting until autumn.

Indeed, but the reason we think that re-speccing is optimal is because it gives you an extra day of Skull Cavern revenue, allowing you to buy N more Starfruit Seeds.
There is little disadvantage to doing this, because you can re-spec before selling any wine, and the price of re-speccing is 10,000g, which is considered trivial.

 

[Squigglyruth]

Ok, that's interesting. In my route, it would be impossible to get a lot of Quality Sprinklers by the 13th, because:
1) In my route, your farming is only level 2, so you simply cannot craft them.
2) In my route, you only start doing the mines on Spring 11, so it would be impossible to have enough raw materials to craft more than a handful.

Yes. That's what makes my route more viable than normal strawberry strategies. It worked surprisingly well - very tight at the start (I had to fish and mine efficiently), but I really was freed up to do whatever I wanted from spring 17th. I chose to mess around talking to villagers rather than continuing to min-max, but I think it would have been possible to do skull cavern runs from 18th or 19th full time apart from two strawberry harvests. Which I think might be competitive with your route.

In your route, it sounds like you are hand-watering 200 Parsnips every single day, which strikes me as an enormous waste of time. Keep in mind the opportunity cost of ~500g per hour while fishing at the Mountain Lake.

I can see why you think that. The thing is, parsnips are actually a really good crop to invest in early game, because they give such a good profit in a short growth time, and also return very good xp per day. Watering them doesn't gain 500g per hour, but it does make decent money and farming xp - and sometimes it rains :-) I've got quite fast at watering crops by hand. And it saves me the resources you spend on the 22 normal sprinklers, too, so that needs factoring in to the comparison. It wouldn't be competitive if it wasn't worth getting farming 10 before summer, but see below...

My route has just 13 parsnips, 1 green bean and 1 cauliflower until 8th Jan. I water them all on 1st, just the cauliflower on 2nd, and the first weekend is free from watering apart from the cauli and green bean - which lets me get a long way in the mines. Then I plant 200 parsnips on 8th (or earlier if there is a rainy day on 6th or 7th). I harvest and replant them on 12th. Then I harvest and plant strawberries on 16th. The 213 parsnips are enough for farming 6, so I can craft quality sprinklers on the 16th for my strawberry fields. That means I can plant the 300 or so strawberries needed to get farming 10 by the end of spring, and I don't have to worry about watering them.

I don't upgrade my pickaxe as early as you, which makes mines progress slower - it is rare for me to manage more than 20 levels in a day. But I also need to do less fishing because of the profit from the parsnips. I fish until the mines open, then mine unless there is a rainy day. With parsnip money and selling gems from the mine it's actually surprisingly profitable. I do realise that means I haven't kept gems for the desert trader, which would make the start of skull cavern a bit slower - that's something to consider.

Indeed, but the reason we think that re-speccing is optimal is because it gives you an extra day of Skull Cavern revenue, allowing you to buy N more Starfruit Seeds.
There is little disadvantage to doing this, because you can re-spec before selling any wine, and the price of re-speccing is 10,000g, which is considered trivial.

That makes sense! By that reasoning, it would be better in my route to pick Agriculturalist at the end of spring when I get farming 10. That would let me plant my starfruit on summer 4th and spend the first three days of summer in skull cavern, not just the first day. If I really can get into skull cavern on 18th or 19th spring, then I think my route should be competitive with yours for skull cavern dive time and amount of starfruit planted. I just need to get good at skull cavern :-)

 

[Zamiel]

it is rare for me to manage more than 20 levels in a day.

Well, the mine progression rate will depend on the luck of the day.
But if you can't get at least 30 levels in a day, that sounds really bad.
The marginal difference here (e.g. between Copper/Steel Pickaxe and Gold Pickaxe) could result in 2 entire days (or more?) being lost to just to dicking around in the mines.
As you know, that is a huge cost.

 

[Squigglyruth]

Well, the mine progression rate will depend on the luck of the day.
But if you can't get at least 30 levels in a day, that sounds really bad.
The marginal difference here (e.g. between Copper/Steel Pickaxe and Gold Pickaxe) could result in 2 entire days (or more?) being lost to just to dicking around in the mines.
As you know, that is a huge cost.

Yes, but starting mining earlier makes up for it. So I can get to level 90-100 before the Egg Festival, whilst watering my crops, even with rainy days spent fishing. Then upgrade the pickaxe on festival day and the following weekend, whilst I fish a bit more for the vault money. Then finish off the last levels in a day. There is a question-mark about whether I can fit in the gold pickaxe upgrade - if there's a rainy day earlier in spring then it's trivial because I will have already done the copper upgrade at that point. That would also speed up the earlier diving.

To be honest it isn't the pickaxe that I find to be the limiting factor in the normal mines - it's whether I get a better weapon from a monster drop or fishing treasure chest, which is completely down to luck. Otherwise those ghosts on levels 50+ can really slow me down.

I do normally pause at 80 and just mine gold, so I would need to adapt that if I were to prioritise skull cavern.

On the plus side, I didn't know the pause at the start of the level tip from your guide, which will help :-)

 

[Zamiel]

Otherwise those ghosts on levels 50+ can really slow me down.

I don't think that you should be fighting Ghosts - that's a huge waste of time. Just ignore them. You don't even have to bother swinging at them; just let them damage you, as you have unlimited healing anyway. The only relevant factor in the mines is how fast you get to the bottom.

it's whether I get a better weapon from a monster drop or fishing treasure chest, which is completely down to luck

In my route, you fight (almost) no enemies in the mines. You just ignore (almost) every enemy and use the Gold Pickaxe to 1-shot every rock, which is much faster.

 

[Zamiel]

@OldMcKeg

Rainy Days

We forgot about rainy days. That drastically reduces the profit margin of pigs. I've included that now in the spreadsheet. Feel free to review.

New Assumptions

I think a revised approach is needed. As you rightly point out, in summer, space is not an issue, but in fall, it is. We could more-clearly outline some assumptions.

In Summer:

1) The barn is given a decent amount of space for pigs to roam and graze.
2) Grass is used. (You probably don't have to buy grass starters and can just use existing grass.) Thus, hay (and a Silo) are not needed.
3) Ideally, you would not want to pet the pigs, since that would waste an enormous amount of time. However, due to my testing, pigs at 0 friendship do not generate a Truffle every day; it seems to be more like 1 in every 10 days. Thus, you would have to actually pet every pig every single day.
4) Because of the ample space given, you would not necessarily have to harvest the truffles every day, but since you are petting them, you probably would harvest the truffles.

In Fall:

1) We can reasonably cover the entire farm in Pumpkin Seeds, so we need to minimize the space allocated for the Barn to N tiles.
2) Grass cannot be used because it won't fit in N tiles. Thus, Hay (from Marnie) would be used with a Silo.
3) Presumably, you would continue to pet the pets like you did in Summer.
4) You would have to harvest the truffles every day.

Number of Truffles per Day

Due to my testing, the value of B15 in the spreadsheet is not very good. It's way lower than 1 per day. I'll ask Blade to see if he can get us the real algorithm for this.

Minimal Amount of Tiles Needed for Grazing

You actually need to do the work to test if N tiles can be 12 or not; I suspect that it cannot.

Shepherd

It sounds like it would be optimal to get Shepherd and then re-spec to Artisan. However, we should note that you won't get level 10 farming until the first Starfruit patch is harvested, so you wouldn't get "full" usage out of it.

Opportunity Cost of Petting & Gathering

Based on the assumptions above, it sounds like we need to pet pigs & gather truffles every day. This cost is spread out evenly every day.

Conversely, the time investment involved with Starfruit is condensed into an entire day of harvesting + replanting. This is a big advantage over pigs because it is optimal to devote an entire day to Skull Caverns - warping directly from your bed and passing out at 2 AM in the mines. In other words, the Skull Cavern rewards do not scale linearly with time (as they do with e.g. fishing at the mountain lake). There is:
1) a fixed cost of walking to the caverns
2) variable iridium nodes based on the floor depth

Thus, if you have to spend X hours per day not in the Skull Caverns, this is a huge opportunity cost, so it is very important that you include this cost in the spreadsheet.
First, you would want to include the raw time spent each day in petting 12 pigs + gathering 12 truffles, based on a VoD of your own gameplay or something.
Then, based on this time, you could then estimate Skull Cavern opportunity cost based on average revenue for your runs in Summer at that time.

 

[OldMcKeg]

30 levels per day does strike me as a little bit fast, even when you can 1-shot rocks. I'm not sure I would plan for it. An infestation level when you don't have a staircase or a bad luck day would make that pretty tough. I feel like 25 might be a more accurate average. Looking at streamers who hit 30 a day, a lot of them have neptune's glaive, high luck or use animation cancelling.

I 100% agree with Zamiel that you shouldn't fight the ghosts, or anybody if you can avoid it.

Regarding the gold pickaxe, I feel like there might be a good argument for maybe mining once you have the steel pickaxe. That one-shots every rock until 81, at which point you can very easily farm gold. So there's not an efficiency gain from waiting (except to have a chance at a fishing chest weapon) whereas the gold mining on 81 is almost certainly going to beat 500g per hour, since the purchase price of gold ore is like