Struggling to make money!

LRangerR

Local Legend
I think this is an example of something that varies depending on play style. I quite often leave my backpack upgrade until late spring, to allow me to invest in other things. It is fine if you are organised with chests in various locations.
I think the backpack is most useful if you like to go into the mines a lot.
 

Squigglyruth

Planter
I think bringing a chest with you and placing it over by the minecart mitigates most of that, you can drop off rare finds every five levels.
I agree - I mine a lot in the early game, in order to make quality sprinklers on spring 16 for my fields full of strawberries. I normally do that without the backpack upgrade, because it is the price of 20 strawberry seeds... But the chest at the top of the elevator means I throw very little away when mining, and nothing that I regret.
 

Bubbub

Greenhorn
I would recommend mining, as well as getting your fishing level up(thats also a good way to make money), because the second lake floor on floor 60, holds the fish with the highest price value of all fish(not including legendaries), The Lava eel, which when at max fishing level with angler it at iridium quality sells for 2,200g. but that would take a long while, fishing is your best bet early game, though one tip, when you have the money(which is normally in year 2 from experience) invest in pigs, in the money making business- pigs are your best friend, they make the money you spent on them back quickly by finding truffles, which with the right upgrades can bring in tens of thousands every day. but in early game stick to fishing as there are some fish in spring and summer which if you can get a good ammount every day, you will make more money quicker then farming.
 

imnvs

Local Legend
the second lake floor on floor 60, holds the fish with the highest price value of all fish(not including legendaries), The Lava eel
Ice Pip is found on 60. Lava Eel is found on 100, the third fishing level in the mines.
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
Has anyone ever thought to catch the Lava Eel as their very first fish, allowing it to become a guaranteed catch?
 

LRangerR

Local Legend
Isn't your first catch always a sunfish, regardless of where you are fishing?
Negative, kind sir. Sometimes my first fish will be a catfish (i do this to try to get a difficult fish to catch while low-level out of the way). The reason why i do this is because the very first fish you catch is a "tutorial catch", meaning that you are guaranteed to catch it, since the fish-catch-bar will never go down. And since a Lava Eel is all you can catch in that particular fish spot...well...
 

Elenna101

Farmer
Isn't your first catch always a sunfish, regardless of where you are fishing?
The way it works is that if your "first catch" would be trash or seaweed (anything that doesn't play the usual minigame), it is replaced by a sunfish in order for the tutorial to work. If your first catch randomly turns out to be a regular fish, then you will get that fish.
If you cancel out of the tutorial by pressing e or esc, you can repeat the tutorial as many times as you want. So technically, yes, you could do your first catch on floor 100 and repeatedly cancel out every time you get a sunfish (the difference between a sunfish's pattern and a lava eel should be very obvious) until you hit the lava eel, in order to guarantee catching it.

EDIT: nevermind, what BlaDe said.
 

BlaDe

Farmer
Unfortunately a lava eel will be replaced by a sunfish.

On your first cast, anything hooked with an id 152 or higher becomes a sunfish. Lava eel has an id of 162

Very late edit: Yes Lava Eel is in the replacement range, but hooking a lava eel, ice pip, and stonefish in the mines bypasses this replacement code. You can hook a lava eel as your first fish.
 
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Cuusardo

Farmer
That explains why I caught a sunfish where they aren't normally caught otherwise. I'd never noticed that before.
 

BlaDe

Farmer
Unfortunately a lava eel will be replaced by a sunfish.

On your first cast, anything hooked with an id 152 or higher becomes a sunfish. Lava eel has an id of 162

Very late edit: Yes Lava Eel is in the replacement range, but hooking a lava eel, ice pip, and stonefish in the mines bypasses this replacement code. You can hook a lava eel as your first fish.
I just edited this with more accurate information
 
The first spring and summer, I make most of my money foraging and with crops. Foraging doesn't use any energy so it's easy to sustain without food. Turning in the foraging bundles at the community center wins you the packets of wild seeds which you can plant & sell, and they boost your foraging skill. I also plant a lot of the mixed seeds I find to avoid spending on seeds.
 

Tinks

Planter
did you change any settings? when I started one game I messed with advanced settings thinking profit margins meant I made 25, 50 or 70% more on each item than 'Normal' and it's really slowed that game down for how long its taking me to save up to upgrade tools and barns etc.
 

BlaDe

Farmer
Most fish that you hook are from the generic GameLocation::getFish method. This is the method that looks at Locations.json, which is what my fishing chances spreadsheet is based on. It is this method that does the id check/replace if it is the first fish to hook.

There are a few places in the game that override GameLocation::getFish, and therefore bypasses the base logic. One of these places is hooking the special fish in the mines and in the Caldera (forge).

Other places are the woodskip in the Forest Farm, hooking the crab pot fish in the beach farm, hooking night market fish using magic bait on the beach and hooking any legendary fish.
 

Baboobraz

Cowpoke
Has anyone ever thought to catch the Lava Eel as their very first fish, allowing it to become a guaranteed catch?
I actually tried this twice but with a legendary fish. Both times when I went to catch the fish, the tutorial disappeared. The first time I checked at the ice fishing festival and the tutorial was there, so I cancelled out of the fish and though that's why I didn't get the tutorial, but the second time I skipped all festivals and never used a rod and had the same result.
In other words, probably not. Unless my game glitched twice somehow, it doesn't seem to be possible.
Although, after the first time I cheated a new file to max fishing stats and the tutorial showed up then when I caught the legendary fish, and I did get the guaranteed catch with it. That was back in December though, so it may have changed since then.
 
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