ShneekeyTheLost
Rancher
When you start the game, you're given fifteen parsnips and 500g, and with this humble beginning you amass your fortune and eventual empire. But, as with chess, which opening you use can have a substantial impact on the midgame and... *sigh*... yes, even into the endgame. King's Pawn standard opening, four-knight opening... even the fool's mate is considered by many to be an opening. And, as with chess, some are pretty strong, and others are... less so. And yes, there are some traps out there. So, which is best? That's... a more difficult and nuanced question.
First off, you have to state your goals before deciding on a starting move. What are your goals, both short and long term? Are you wanting to focus on fishing, or focus on farming, or just do a bit of everything? These questions will substantially impact what you do on your first day.
For those who want to Get Rich Quick(tm), the answer is of course to fish. And for these, you have pretty much two options. Option one is to go ahead and plant all fifteen opening parsnips. It doesn't take up that much endurance, and at least gets you Farming 1 as soon as possible. Because while fishing may be the most profitable thing to do in your first Spring... it cannot hope to compete with fields of Ancient Fruit being processed into wine weekly. So eventually, if money is your goal, you WILL need to grind out some Farming skill. And this isn't a bad way to at least get your first level up so you can get Scarecrows down for your more substantial growing in the second half of the season.
The next option is more of an all-in strat, no planting on Day 1. Sell all the parsnip seeds. Your goal instead is to try and get up to 2,000g by the dawn of the third day (and the moon crashes into Termina... oh wait, wrong game...). As such, anything that doesn't generate profit before Day 3 is essentially meaningless. In this strategy, you'll be spending Day 2 doing nothing but fishing, probably off of the pier outside of Willy's to sell him fish as your inventory fills up. You'll be wanting to level your Fishing skill up to level 2 minimum by the end of the second day, although I've seen some people get as much as Level 5. This gives you a ton of cash to play with, you can then later spam out something like Kale to grind your farming xp before the end of the month.
A potential refinement on that would be to purchase a Training Rod on Day 2 (he's gone fishin' all day on the first day) to further speed up your fishing gains.
But that's for fishing starts. What of those of us who don't particularly like fishing? Well, I've got you covered as well. There's several viable options to consider, depending on your desired level of complexity and reward.
The basic option, one that I've suggested in previous "First Spring for Newbies" guides I've written, is the 40 Parsnip opening. You clear out a 5 x 8 area (or two 5 x 4 areas), get them watered, then at 9 AM when Pierre's opens, you go and drop down every last coin you possess from your severance package with JojaCorp on more parsnips. Get all 40 planted. Once you've done that, you'll have little energy left, but a lot of time. This is perfect for foraging (you want to also try to hit Foraging level 1 as soon as possible, as well as collect the four items necessary for your Spring Forage bundle, and hopefully some Spring Onions for stamina recovery purposes) and socializing. Bring your hoe with you in case you run into a dig spot. The 250g reward for your first item turned into the museum is going to be huge. Are you going to lose a couple? Yes. Do you really care? Not really. 40 parsnips isn't enough to hit Farming 2 anyway, although it IS enough to get you much closer to that target. It also requires more stamina to water daily on Day 2 and 4 (day 3 is guaranteed rain) which might set you back in other tasks if you can't find enough spring onions to keep you going. You can either sell your parsnips, or if you already have the money for everything you need, you can eat them to recover stamina and health in the mines as you delve deeply and greedily. Just remember to save one parsnip back (and any gold-star parsnips!) for bundle completion.
The more technically challenging option is going to be 13 parsnips, 1 bean sprout, and 1 cauliflower. This is an opening that demands some pretty precise timing to hit the intended goal, which is to get the Spring Crops bundle, and the 20 Speed-Gro it provides, before the Egg Festival. This way, you can put that speed-gro on your strawberries you purchase at the Egg Festival, and get an extra yield from them, a 50% increase in profits from those 20 strawberries! This works because Crows won't show up if you have less than 16 crops planted at any given time, so as long as you sell two of your parsnip seeds you start with, you'll never have to worry about crows until you can make your first scarecrow (13 parsnips is just barely enough to hit Farming 1). You'll actually need to plant a single potato on the day you harvest your parsnips, and nothing else (lest the crows come) in order to have time for it to fully grow and be harvested before the Egg Festival. The rest of your crops can be planted the day after, when you have your scarecrow in place. The advantage of an extra 20 strawberries harvested and sold in your first spring is pretty compelling, but it's got some tight timings to get right, otherwise you've gone through all the effort for nought. However, as you are only watering 15 crops, it is less stamina intensive than the 40 parsnip opening, letting you do other things, like chopping trees (but not stumps!) for Foraging xp, instead.
On the other forums, some people suggested a 50+ parsnip opening, because that's how many parsnips it would take to get Farming 2 instead of 1 on Day 5. However, I find this to be... uncertain. Here's the thing... remember how we were talking about crows earlier? The formula for the number of crows potentially eating something is (number of crops / 16), maxing out at 4 possible crows. With 50 crops, that's already 3 crows each with their own separate 30% chance of eating something. Which makes it virtually certain that *something* is going to be eaten, possibly up to three somethings. Which means a 50 parsnip opening, in order to hit its goal of Farming 2 on harvest, is actually more like a 55 parsnip opening, and even then there's at least a chance it isn't going to work, at least in theory (although very unlikely at that point). Now, we mentioned that you can get a total of 40 parsnip seeds (including the 15 you start with) with the 500g you start with. But you're still 15 parsnips short here. At 20g/ea, that's 300g you need to get before Pierre closes his doors on day 1. That's... a pretty big ask, I feel. Especially for newer players. And remember, that's 300g you need before the end of the day, so you can't rely on the selling bin, you have to actually find something an open vendor will purchase and sell to them before they close. And still have time to get to Pierre's before he closes his door. As a speedrunner strat, it has merit, because if you don't get it, that's an easy reset without too much time invested in the run. For more casual gamers... probably best to swipe left.
There was also a Tulip Opening which basically focused on Tulips not as a cash crop, but as something to consume for stamina as you do your early mining dives, but since tulips actually generate less xp than parsnips do, that's also not exactly something I'd suggest for newer players, as you can get Spring Onions and, after the Egg Festival, Salmonberries to help you grind out those mining levels.
In short: those who wish to fish may want to hold off on farming until they've got some cash in their pocket to really explode onto the farming scene. However, for those of us more casual players, there's the 'standard' 40 parsnip opening, or the more technical 13 parsnip 1 green bean 1 cauliflower opening. The rest of the strategies I've seen bantered about are either heavily RNG dependent (something to be avoided in a guide, in my opinion), or cater to niche strategies.
First off, you have to state your goals before deciding on a starting move. What are your goals, both short and long term? Are you wanting to focus on fishing, or focus on farming, or just do a bit of everything? These questions will substantially impact what you do on your first day.
For those who want to Get Rich Quick(tm), the answer is of course to fish. And for these, you have pretty much two options. Option one is to go ahead and plant all fifteen opening parsnips. It doesn't take up that much endurance, and at least gets you Farming 1 as soon as possible. Because while fishing may be the most profitable thing to do in your first Spring... it cannot hope to compete with fields of Ancient Fruit being processed into wine weekly. So eventually, if money is your goal, you WILL need to grind out some Farming skill. And this isn't a bad way to at least get your first level up so you can get Scarecrows down for your more substantial growing in the second half of the season.
The next option is more of an all-in strat, no planting on Day 1. Sell all the parsnip seeds. Your goal instead is to try and get up to 2,000g by the dawn of the third day (and the moon crashes into Termina... oh wait, wrong game...). As such, anything that doesn't generate profit before Day 3 is essentially meaningless. In this strategy, you'll be spending Day 2 doing nothing but fishing, probably off of the pier outside of Willy's to sell him fish as your inventory fills up. You'll be wanting to level your Fishing skill up to level 2 minimum by the end of the second day, although I've seen some people get as much as Level 5. This gives you a ton of cash to play with, you can then later spam out something like Kale to grind your farming xp before the end of the month.
A potential refinement on that would be to purchase a Training Rod on Day 2 (he's gone fishin' all day on the first day) to further speed up your fishing gains.
But that's for fishing starts. What of those of us who don't particularly like fishing? Well, I've got you covered as well. There's several viable options to consider, depending on your desired level of complexity and reward.
The basic option, one that I've suggested in previous "First Spring for Newbies" guides I've written, is the 40 Parsnip opening. You clear out a 5 x 8 area (or two 5 x 4 areas), get them watered, then at 9 AM when Pierre's opens, you go and drop down every last coin you possess from your severance package with JojaCorp on more parsnips. Get all 40 planted. Once you've done that, you'll have little energy left, but a lot of time. This is perfect for foraging (you want to also try to hit Foraging level 1 as soon as possible, as well as collect the four items necessary for your Spring Forage bundle, and hopefully some Spring Onions for stamina recovery purposes) and socializing. Bring your hoe with you in case you run into a dig spot. The 250g reward for your first item turned into the museum is going to be huge. Are you going to lose a couple? Yes. Do you really care? Not really. 40 parsnips isn't enough to hit Farming 2 anyway, although it IS enough to get you much closer to that target. It also requires more stamina to water daily on Day 2 and 4 (day 3 is guaranteed rain) which might set you back in other tasks if you can't find enough spring onions to keep you going. You can either sell your parsnips, or if you already have the money for everything you need, you can eat them to recover stamina and health in the mines as you delve deeply and greedily. Just remember to save one parsnip back (and any gold-star parsnips!) for bundle completion.
The more technically challenging option is going to be 13 parsnips, 1 bean sprout, and 1 cauliflower. This is an opening that demands some pretty precise timing to hit the intended goal, which is to get the Spring Crops bundle, and the 20 Speed-Gro it provides, before the Egg Festival. This way, you can put that speed-gro on your strawberries you purchase at the Egg Festival, and get an extra yield from them, a 50% increase in profits from those 20 strawberries! This works because Crows won't show up if you have less than 16 crops planted at any given time, so as long as you sell two of your parsnip seeds you start with, you'll never have to worry about crows until you can make your first scarecrow (13 parsnips is just barely enough to hit Farming 1). You'll actually need to plant a single potato on the day you harvest your parsnips, and nothing else (lest the crows come) in order to have time for it to fully grow and be harvested before the Egg Festival. The rest of your crops can be planted the day after, when you have your scarecrow in place. The advantage of an extra 20 strawberries harvested and sold in your first spring is pretty compelling, but it's got some tight timings to get right, otherwise you've gone through all the effort for nought. However, as you are only watering 15 crops, it is less stamina intensive than the 40 parsnip opening, letting you do other things, like chopping trees (but not stumps!) for Foraging xp, instead.
On the other forums, some people suggested a 50+ parsnip opening, because that's how many parsnips it would take to get Farming 2 instead of 1 on Day 5. However, I find this to be... uncertain. Here's the thing... remember how we were talking about crows earlier? The formula for the number of crows potentially eating something is (number of crops / 16), maxing out at 4 possible crows. With 50 crops, that's already 3 crows each with their own separate 30% chance of eating something. Which makes it virtually certain that *something* is going to be eaten, possibly up to three somethings. Which means a 50 parsnip opening, in order to hit its goal of Farming 2 on harvest, is actually more like a 55 parsnip opening, and even then there's at least a chance it isn't going to work, at least in theory (although very unlikely at that point). Now, we mentioned that you can get a total of 40 parsnip seeds (including the 15 you start with) with the 500g you start with. But you're still 15 parsnips short here. At 20g/ea, that's 300g you need to get before Pierre closes his doors on day 1. That's... a pretty big ask, I feel. Especially for newer players. And remember, that's 300g you need before the end of the day, so you can't rely on the selling bin, you have to actually find something an open vendor will purchase and sell to them before they close. And still have time to get to Pierre's before he closes his door. As a speedrunner strat, it has merit, because if you don't get it, that's an easy reset without too much time invested in the run. For more casual gamers... probably best to swipe left.
There was also a Tulip Opening which basically focused on Tulips not as a cash crop, but as something to consume for stamina as you do your early mining dives, but since tulips actually generate less xp than parsnips do, that's also not exactly something I'd suggest for newer players, as you can get Spring Onions and, after the Egg Festival, Salmonberries to help you grind out those mining levels.
In short: those who wish to fish may want to hold off on farming until they've got some cash in their pocket to really explode onto the farming scene. However, for those of us more casual players, there's the 'standard' 40 parsnip opening, or the more technical 13 parsnip 1 green bean 1 cauliflower opening. The rest of the strategies I've seen bantered about are either heavily RNG dependent (something to be avoided in a guide, in my opinion), or cater to niche strategies.