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[LolbitTheFox]

Hmmm. What I've always been using for mining is just that "snack" (don't remember the name) that you can craft from tree seeds. Then Roots platters as soon I get the recipe and ingredients + algae soup / pale broth or just sashimi for extra energy. Cheap ingredients. Cheese? Gives a healthy amount of g.

The snack you can make from tree seeds is called a field snack.

 

[Hill Myna]

In terms of financial efficiency, Salad outperforms almost everything anyway, certainly including cheese once you have Artisan. It's 4.4g/HP for salad, 5.75g/HP for regular cheese, 4.78g/HP for gold cheese and an effective 11.67g/HP for any hops due to the value of pale ale

But if you can't process them, then Gold-quality Hops are only worth 40G (with Tiller), and they provide 36 HP, so 1.11G/HP. This is so much lower than even Salad. And given that I'm not going to process these Hops for multiple seasons, why not take advantage of them now rather than down the line once I've got more Kegs.

In fact, I would be losing money buying Salads now, because at the moment Gold-quality Hops have the best G:HP ratio. Later, once I've set up more infrastructure, for sure I'd be using other foods (probably Mangos @ 3.56G/HP!), but for now I'll stick with Gold-quality Hops.

I disagree rather strongly. Cheese is produced almost daily from cows, processed trivially, and provides very good food values. Hops isn't bad, but by not brewing it, you're losing 420g/ea. It's FAR cheaper to eat the less expensive AND much stronger Cheese than it is hops.

It's kind of a pet peeve of mine, but I really dislike when people just assume Artisan (and to a lesser extent Angler and Botanist). It isn't the only farming profession, even though I would assume it is the most common. I, for one, choose Agriculturist, for multiple reasons. So my processed Hops are only worth 300G, not 420G.

P.S. This is such a fun discussion! Thanks to everyone who has participated, and anyone that might join in!

 

[hexnessie]

By the beginning of my first summer, the 30 oak tree stand is producing 30 oak resin per week, netting me 30 kegs per week production. By the time the Hops are ready, I've got minimum 60 kegs in a shed,

Gee, thanks for making me feel like an absolute loser

I usually don't even have high enough farming level in early Summer to start making kegs. I only get to kegs at the end of Summer, well past first hops. Spring is spent mostly on fishing, mining and leveling up foraging.

My only aim with farming is to get to the sprinklers fast.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Gee, thanks for making me feel like an absolute loser

I usually don't even have high enough farming level in early Summer to start making kegs. I only get to kegs at the end of Summer, well past first hops. Spring is spent mostly on fishing, mining and leveling up foraging.

My only aim with farming is to get to the sprinklers fast.

I don't generally fish, so I spend more time foraging and chopping trees as well as planting larger plots than you probably do. It is a specific strategy that works best in the Forest farm layout because of the renewable stumps worth 25 foraging xp each, which requires a bit of daily resetting to maximize the number of acorns you collect in your first week. A niche playstyle, but one which pays dividends. Not as much in the short term as fishing, which is enormously more profitable if you are good at the minigame, but tends to balance itself out by the time Summer rolls around and you're rolling in kegs while everyone else is still trying to figure out what a keg even is.

It's kind of a pet peeve of mine, but I really dislike when people just assume Artisan (and to a lesser extent Angler and Botanist). It isn't the only farming profession, even though I would assume it is the most common. I, for one, choose Agriculturist, for multiple reasons. So my processed Hops are only worth 300G, not 420G.

I mean, if you don't care about money, then that's fine. But if we're discussing maximizing profits, Artisan is generally assumed because otherwise that's going to be Step Zero. Mathematically, Artisan is going to lead to more profits assuming you have the production capability. So if we're discussing profit margins, we're going to be discussing Artisan-based numbers because no one who is trying to get the most profit is going to be running anything BUT artisan. It would be like entering a race with a stock Geo Metro to run anything else.

You don't want to use it? Great, you do you. One of the amazing things about this game is that there is no 'one true way' to play the game. Everyone can enjoy different aspects of the game. You don't have to focus on money if you don't want to. But if you do, you'll want to use Artisan, because otherwise you're just losing money on every sale. Hence why it is assumed.

 

[Hill Myna]

I mean, if you don't care about money, then that's fine. But if we're discussing maximizing profits, Artisan is generally assumed because otherwise that's going to be Step Zero. Mathematically, Artisan is going to lead to more profits assuming you have the production capability. So if we're discussing profit margins, we're going to be discussing Artisan-based numbers because no one who is trying to get the most profit is going to be running anything BUT artisan. It would be like entering a race with a stock Geo Metro to run anything else.

You don't want to use it? Great, you do you. One of the amazing things about this game is that there is no 'one true way' to play the game. Everyone can enjoy different aspects of the game. You don't have to focus on money if you don't want to. But if you do, you'll want to use Artisan, because otherwise you're just losing money on every sale. Hence why it is assumed.

Yes, I totally agree! And I do care about money, but to me Artisan feels a little boring.

My point was more about how I'd prefer if people said: "Wheat is worth 280G when processed (with Artisan)". Or even better: "Wheat processes into Beer which sells for 200G (280G w/ Artisan)".

Again, all of your points are 100% valid, I just think it can be a little confusing or misleading when Artisan isn't stated in The Math.

If you're writing a min-max guide or something, it makes sense to state it once and then assume, but I didn't think we were talking about maximum financial efficiency. :)

 

[hexnessie]

I don't generally fish, so I spend more time foraging and chopping trees as well as planting larger plots

If not fishing, how do you earn up enough money, early Spring, to afford enough crop seeds to level up Farming to 8 come Summer?

I might try something like that when I finish my 50Percent run and move on to 25Percent profit margins. Otherwise, I didn't feel there was much point it focusing on huge moneymaking - the game just throws money at you anyway.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

If not fishing, how do you earn up enough money, early Spring, to afford enough crop seeds to level up Farming to 8 come Summer?

I might try something like that when I finish my 50Percent run and move on to 25Percent profit margins. Otherwise, I didn't feel there was much point it focusing on huge moneymaking - the game just throws money at you anyway.

I just continually farm 40-80 plots at an iteration, and hit Farming 8 organically without needing a late-spring mega-crop. The sale of the previous crops fuel the next planting, which snowballs quickly. Day 1 is 40 Parsnips, and sure I lose a couple from crows, but that gets me started to plant 40 kale/potatoes plus assorted other plants for bundle completion purposes. Another 40 Strawberries when the Egg Festival shows up, even though I don't get the Speed-Gro from the bundle with a 40 parsnip opening, but that's 40 kale/potatoes in addition to 40 strawberries going weekly. Hitting Farming 8 is pretty trivial by the end of the season. I aim for Farming 10 by the time my Hops fully matures so I can get Artisan and maximum profits from my Pale Ale. If I don't hit that, I'll hold the ale back until I do hit Farming 10 and Artisan. Selling it for a 40% discount is simply not an option.

That's also why I rush mining down to gold level to afford 20 sprinklers by the end of spring so I don't continually lose half my stamina every morning watering crops. Granted, I use up most of my couple hundred salmonberries during the dive, what with planting so many crops that have to be manually watered on top of diving the mines, but hey... they're there to be used. And by the time I run out of them, cheese is in production.

I will admit I do a bit of fishing on the 3rd of spring, trying to get as many catfish as possible for some extra cash as well as score everything I need for the various fishing bundles. But other than that, unless I need something for a bundle I rarely touch my fishing rod ever again. Which, granted, does make finances tight. I generally want around 30k-ish gold for crops at the beginning of Summer, which often means holding off on the Coop until my first blueberry crop comes up.

Yes, I totally agree! And I do care about money, but to me Artisan feels a little boring.

Now that I will totally agree with. It is boring. It's just a flat 40% (used to be 50% before The Great Nerf Bat of 1.1), it's about as boring as it is powerful. Raw percentage bonus to income is as cheap as it gets, game-mechanics wise. Furthermore, it's not even close to being balanced, even in its current state, as the most profitable items are generally (though not strictly always) Artisan goods already, so you're just making a good thing even better.

I could wish it did something different, like an automatic one-grade increase in artisan goods, or even artisan goods having the same quality as the raw materials (giving you a reason to actually care about the quality of ingredients for once). Something less mundane and boring as a flat bonus multiplier while having a similar effect. Granted, that would make aging casks less attractive, but given that there's a very strictly limited number of slots for casks and it takes so long to age things that it's generally just a drop in the bucket anyway.