New Player Condensed Guide (repost from a different thread) (Mostly spoiler free)

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Thaddeus_

Sodbuster
Welcome!

This is a small, condensed guide I have decided to make for you :heart: (Mostly spoiler free)

You're going to learn that sprinklers are love, sprinklers are life.

In other news, Cauliflower, Melons, and Pumpkins are great for before you can grow things like starfruit/make artisan goods (Pay attention to how long things take to grow listed in their tooltip, and make sure to check the calendar and leave 1 extra day for harvesting/growing before the end of the season in case you forget to water one day)

On that note, crops obviously have seasons, and any crops still growing/not harvested will turn into moosh when the season changes.

For basic sprinklers a zigzag pattern, or diagonal row pattern works very well For example this is the diagonal row style:
tZXgUxX.png


Learn about scarecrows. They save you so much money in the long run when you have small crop fields because especially in early game crows are an absolute menace to you making any money. This is a visual representation of a scarecrow's range using RangeMod:
500px-Scarecrow_Range.png


Big protip to save time: Replant on the same day you harvest if at all possible. Any tilled soil that decays during the night will not be watered in the morning, so you will have to water it by hand or that crop will take 1 extra day to grow.

If you need money, fish. You may not make a lot at first because of the basic or silver star quality of the fish due to your low fishing skill, but it a great source of extra income to bridge the gap when you need money for seeds. Pro tip: for maximum fishing money don't bother with treasure chests most of the time, by getting a perfect reel you raise the chance for higher quality fish. Later when you have a higher fishing skill they can be very worthwhile because you can get some rarer items.

Quality goes from Basic to Iridium in the order basic, silver, gold, iridum

Try to get the greenhouse if it all possible before winter as it allows you to grow things during winter guaranteeing a fair bit of income year round
You unlock the pantry bundle scroll by entering Pelican town between 8am-1pm to unlock the community center and then completing a few foraging or other bundles. Complete the pantry bundle to unlock the greenhouse
if you can't do that year 1 try for year 2 and spend some time in the mines/fishing in winter.

SAVE YOUR ORES! You will need them for bars for sprinklers/artisan machines. Trust me. I made this mistake with my first playthrough and it severely delayed my progress.

SAVE YOUR GEODES! They can drop rare things, useful ores, and items you need for the museum. Take them to the blacksmith to open for 25g each. They are also required by fish ponds sometimes.
This is the geode screen:
maxresdefault.jpg


SAVE YOUR WOOD/STONE! You will need it for buildings in large amounts. Wood can be expensive once you deforest your farm.

See these weird little things on the ground?
Artifact_tile.gif

These are artifact spots. They can yield all sorts of items you need for the museum as well as clay, stone, copper ore, and other items. If you see it, use your hoe to dig it up. Do this throughout the entire game to maximize your resources and prevent yourself having to grind for museum items

If you get a barn, start working towards cheese presses and oil makers Cheese sells for way more than milk. Truffle oil (truffles are produced by pigs, but they aren't cheap) sells for ~900g (I think?)

If you are low on cash try completing quests. Not only do you make money, you get nice and cozy with the inhabitants of Pelican town.

Plan. I cannot emphasize this enough. Think ahead of time when/how much :g: you'll need for materials for sprinklers, seeds, any fertilizer, artisan equipment etc.
More money in your pocket means greater potential to make money. Sure having the Furniture catalogue for 200000G is nice, but if you wait and invest you can walk away with 2 million gold.

If you don't want to mine make sure to buy materials before Spring 1st of year 2. They get more expensive.

Organize. If you don't want your farm to just be a giant field with buildings crammed everywhere make sure to organize your field areas, animal areas, crafting/building areas etc.

REMEMBER THE GIANT MUSHROOMS! They are amazing. Don't cut them all down, leave the non-fully grown ones. Red mushrooms (they drop this most commonly instead of wood) sell for 75-150g depending on quality and you get HUNDREDS if you play your cards right. It's up to you whether to sell the rarer purple mushrooms or save them for crafting, but if you do want to sell them they fetch 250-500g depending on quality. Best thing about mushrooms? Pure profit. No planting, no maintenance (besides cutting them down/making space for them to grow).

Go to events! They're fun and some have unique items you don't want to miss! Or if you have a specific SO in mind they can be fun for a different reason such as the flower dance where you get to dance with your virtual squeeze.

Don't be afraid to decorate! An aesthetically pleasing farm can be the difference between you booting up the game and going "Another day on boring soviet potato farm, how much :g: will I make today?" and "Jeez, I can't believe I was able to afford that painting, I can't believe I got all the stone for those paths, they look amazing!"

Experiment with different crops! As you can see from before, I love the big, expensive cash crops because they net a lot of gold, but other crops can make you a lot of money too! And later on they can almost all be turned into artisan goods.

Make sure to explore. There are secrets crammed everywhere that you'd never notice unless you thoroughly explore each area.

Check the traveling cart. Not found the traveling cart? It is south of your farm in the area of Marnie's Ranch (A little to the left of her). If you want to complete bundles or buy harder to acquire items it can be a great source, but it can be expensive.

Once you have a steel axe go to the top left of the area near Marnie's Ranch and break the big log, keep walking left and you'll enter secret woods. The stumps here respawn daily and provide 2 hardwood a piece. If you need hardwood and have already exhausted your farm's supply this is the place!

Different areas have different fish. Different seasons have different fish.

Need iridum?
Don't fret, later you will get the Skull Key (at the bottom of the mines) which unlocks Skull Cavern (in the desert, top left) where lower levels will have you begging for copper deposits instead of more iridium.

This nearly made me quit the game when I first played because I thought it was a grindy mechanic and that the only way to get iridium was geodes or the mines.

Make sure to get tool upgrades, especially if you plan on doing a lot of handwatering.

If a train is passing through, go to the station for free drops from some carts.

Trellis or framed crops (Green beans, grapes etc.) prevent you from walking through them, so plan for that by leaving at least 1 space between rows

Fruit trees require 3 spaces between other trees for a total of the next sapling being placeable 4 spaces from the last.

Bees are truly the bee's knees. With some careful planning (and maybe guides) honey from flowers is very profitable.

Be careful what you gift NPCs. They dislike/hate certain items.

If you buy a Joja Membership be prepared to drop loads of :g::g::g::g::g::g::g::g: also the community center will turn into the boring Joja warehouse

Horses are 100% worth the hassle

NEVER sell artifacts unless you have already given one to the museum
You need to contribute 60 different items to the museum to get the Rusty Key to complete the magic ink quest, and unlock the witches' hut and a bunch of other endgame content such as Krobus, an NPC who lives in the sewers

Animals are expensive. Save them for when you're sure you can swing it. They produce stuff everyday, but only if you feed them. Plus there is the cost of Hay if you don't have room to grow large amounts of grass.

Silos come before animals. Trust me, it is so nice to not have to lug hay around when feeding time comes around.

Pet your animals. This will increase the chance for higher quality products.

Be warned: Animals can be labor intensive especially before you build a deluxe barn/coop with an autofeed mechanism.

Get kegs ASAP. Kegs let you make artisan good out of most crops, a juice if it is a vegetable, or a wine if it is a fruit.

Lastly and most importantly, have fun!

Depending on poll results I may post other guides like this.
Also if I messed up anything like sell prices etc. please let me know!
I may also expand on this guide and index it using the spoiler dropdown feature.
 
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Boo1972

Farmer
Thank you for writing out this guide! I’m sure new players will appreciate it. I would just add that you can tap mushroom trees instead of chopping them down and items dropped from the train will stay on the ground until the end of the week. Both facts I learned on these forums!
 

Lew Zealand

Helper
Don't ignore Preserves Jars, they're available much earlier in the game and make a little more money per day than the Keg. You need to refill Preserves Jars 2x/week vs. 1x/week for Kegs to make them work, so you'll need enough produce to keep them full and not mind the extra work.

Even if you do have enough produce from your Farm, the real advantage of the Keg is aging the wine in the Cellar but that's also limited to ~120 Casks stuck in there for a half year. Once that's full, you're back to the Preserves Jar making more money than the Keg.

Edit: If you only like to check on your Farm once a day or less, then the Keg is probably a better option than the Preserves Jar, once it's available for you to craft.
 
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imnvs

Local Legend
I love the graphic for how to arrange regular sprinklers... because typically I skip them because they seem too annoying to use, but that would make them usable.

One thing I would add, though, is not to break up all of your geodes at the blacksmith, and save everything you get from them until you have a little pile of each... both of these for fish ponds, because fish ask for some really wacky crap sometimes. Some will ask for geodes, some for pizza. If you've found something new to you? Keep it. Keep at least the first 5 of everything you find if you plan on doing fish ponds. My first save, the fish ponds were a nightmare because I was always needing something way out of season. (The worst was when on Spring 2, fish in one of my ponds asked for something that could only be foraged in winter and I had none lying around.)
 

Thaddeus_

Sodbuster
I love the graphic for how to arrange regular sprinklers... because typically I skip them because they seem too annoying to use, but that would make them usable.

One thing I would add, though, is not to break up all of your geodes at the blacksmith, and save everything you get from them until you have a little pile of each... both of these for fish ponds, because fish ask for some really wacky crap sometimes. Some will ask for geodes, some for pizza. If you've found something new to you? Keep it. Keep at least the first 5 of everything you find if you plan on doing fish ponds. My first save, the fish ponds were a nightmare because I was always needing something way out of season. (The worst was when on Spring 2, fish in one of my ponds asked for something that could only be foraged in winter and I had none lying around.)
Thanks. I've played for hundreds of hours and I didn't even know fish ponds could require geodes! I'll add that to the guide soon. I have had finals this week with school so it will probably be after, but yeah!

I figured out the sprinkler layout very quickly granted I sourced that image from Google, but I can see how I can be more mathematically minded than some people so I decided it would be a good idea to include an example so that way everyone can see! Glad to see this guide so far has gotten a pretty good reaction. It seems like it is helping some people from the poll results.
 

imnvs

Local Legend
Unless I missed something, and I don't think I did, the only type of geodes that aren't asked for from a fish pond are magmas. Also, you probably don't need to carry huge inventories of geodes as nearly all fish in a pond that ask for geodes, that is only one of a few options. They may ask for something else and never ask for any sort of geode. The only exception, always the standout, is Sturgeon who at one stage have only one option, omni geodes. To be fair, caviar is the only processed roe you need for a bundle.
 
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