Advanced Min/Max Tactics

[Cptldsilver]

Hello everyone, I thought I'd share some of my advanced min maxing techniques.

Part 1

1. Maximizing your geodes: Once you get into the skull cavern you will be swimming in omni geodes. To use them to their full extent you should use the stardew predictor to see how many treasure chests, golden pumpkins, pearls, and ancient seeds are in the next set of geodes in the artifact troves. Lets say you have 100 omni geodes to open and you have high value artifact troves at number 11, 15, 33, 38, 45, 55, 58, 60, 72, 75, 84, 90, 99. In this case you would trade 40 omni geodes for 8 artifact troves. This would give you 60 geodes to open and 8 high value troves to open. You would open omni geodes for numbers 1-10, 12-14, 16-32, 34-37, 39-44, 46-54, 56-57, 59, and 61-68.
2. Foraging level: Getting to foraging level 7 ASAP is crucial if you want to set up an oak tree farm efficiently. At foraging level 7 you get wild tree fertilizer which makes your trees grow faster which means you can tap them faster which means that you can get oak resin faster which means you can get kegs faster. Maximizing keg production is key to a successful min max run. Getting to foraging level 7 near the beginning of summer, in my experience, usually requires you to clear the entire map of trees along with your farm and grab any forageables you see during your run. Mushroom levels can be a good source of foraging experience but are not worth spending time away from the skull cavern IMO. You could use spring or summer seeds as well but I don't have any experience with that and I question if its worth the time and farming space.
3. Skull Cavern/Pickaxe: A steel pickaxe breaks skull cavern rocks in two hits which is the same as a gold pickaxe. In other words, you don't need to upgrade to a gold pickaxe before getting into the skull cavern. I haven't tried a copper pickaxe but I think it would take three hits.
4. Crystalarium's: Crystalarium's are interesting. They have a huge cost associated with them but they can potentially return that cost. Their are 3 minerals/gems you should consider for the devices. 2 of these require trading with the desert trader.
   • Diamonds take 5 days and provide 1 triple shot espresso. Coffee at the saloon costs 300 gold and is equivalent to 1/3 of an espresso so one diamond traded for espresso is worth at least 900 gold. Trading for espresso also allows you to not have to visit the saloon which is normally far away from your regular activities in a min max run. Diamonds are worth then approximately 180 gold a day plus the savings from not having to go to the saloon.
   • Jade takes 2 days provides 1 staircase. Its hard to quantify how much a staircase is worth but lets just say that if you go into a skull cavern run with zero staircases vs 20 staircases. In my estimation you can get approximately 100 more iridium ore in the run with 20 staircases. That makes each staircase worth about 5 iridium ore. If you've taken the blacksmith profession and are buying coal from Clint's then each ore is worth 270 gold. That makes 1 staircase worth about 1350 gold. That means Jade is worth about 675 gold a day.
   • Fire Quartz take 1 day. Replicating fire quartz can be useful because it allows you to save your coal and your regular quartz and provides you with the necessary refined quartz for your quality sprinklers. If we make some assumptions about the game situation we can put a dollar sign on it. If we say that every fire quartz replaces 3 regular quartz and that all of our coal is bought from Clint's then that means each fire quartz is worth 300 gold from coal savings plus the trading value of 3 regular quartz. 1 regular quartz is worth 1/5 of a bomb and 1 bomb takes 1 coal and 4 iron ore. If we place the value of iron ore at about 50 gold a piece then that means 1 bomb is worth 150+(4*50)=350 gold. 1 regular quartz is worth then about 70 gold. So 1 fire quartz is worth 300+(70*3)-510 gold. That means that fire quartz is worth about 510 gold a day. Keep in mind that once you no longer need refined quartz that the value of fire quartz drops dramatically.
   • The cost of a crystalarium at the bare minimum is the value of all the materials required to craft it sold at blacksmith profession prices. We assume that we would otherwise not use these materials for anything other than selling. This assumption is probably not true when we need the gold bars to craft sprinklers so consider that as well when making your own calculations. 2 Iridium bars (3000)+5 gold bars (1875) +1 battery (500) + 99 stone (200)= 5575 gold. At this cost it takes 36 days to recover the cost with diamonds, 11 days for jade, and 12 for fire quartz.
   • Summary on Crystalarium: I'm on the fence on whether or not you should craft early crystalariums. They are valuable but IMO the quality sprinklers and immediate cash for the iridium bars is too good to pass up especially in early summer. Once you have all your sprinklers crafted is a better time to use any batteries you have to create crystalariums.

 

[Cptldsilver]

Part 2

1. Burglars Ring: Another thing I'm on the fence about. This ring requires you to kill 500 dust sprites in the mines. From my experience, if you use the elevator to constantly cycle between floors 0,45,55,65 this can be done in about 3 full days with the galaxy sword. The best time to do this is when you are getting your pickaxe upgraded to iridium quality after an initial couple of runs in the skull cavern. The burglars ring is hard to quantify but I'm almost certain it will pay the time invested back somewhat quickly. However the time you need to invest in getting it can also be used to do things that quickly return their investment. I prefer getting the ring because it just feels so much better to get double monster drops with so much time in the skull cavern.
2. Coal: Strangely enough buying coal from Clint's is the correct option. While buying wood and turning it into wood seems to be a good option at a 50 gold savings per coal, the time investment is not worth it. Let's say you spend the entire day just smelting coal and create 1000 pieces. That's a savings of 50,000 gold. However, if you spend that time in the skull cavern you can easily get 200 iridium ore along with a multitude of other loot. 200 iridium ore at 270 gold a piece is worth 54,000. So just on the strength of the iridium alone its worth it just to buy coal from Clint's. If you were taking a less lucrative approach and did not get into the skull cavern early then wood burning could be better.
3. Trap Days: Their are certain dates to be aware of that can mess with the timing of your run.
   • Spring 24 is the egg festival, and if you have a tool at Clints that should have been ready for pick up it will have to wait another day.
   • Summer 11 is the Luau and it comes at the worst time. This is a Thursday so if you were planning on getting deluxe speed gro on this day, think again. Also Pierre's is closed on both the 10th and the 11th so you won't be able to sell any crops to him until the 12th. The 12th is also important because it is the last day to plant starfruit and get 2 crops of it with deluxe speed gro and agriculturalist profession. You should also keep in mind however that to get those 2 crops in you will need to reach level 10 farming before the 12th. Consider all these things when you are planning your summer.
   • Fall 10 has trapped me a couple of times because it is usually the first day I get a pumpkin crop in. This means that I need to replant pumpkins on the 10th if I want to get the full 3 harvests of pumpkins during fall. Fall 10 is Wednesday which means that Pierres is closed. You need to remember this because it means that you need to buy your seeds before the 10th.
4. Early Minecarts: Theirs a few ways to get the bundles to open the minecarts. You need 2 bundles to unlock the boiler room then you need all the bundles in the boiler room. I'll break it down as to how exactly you can make this happen as fast as possible.
   • 1st bundle: This one, obviously is going to be the spring foraging bundle.
   • 2nd bundle option 1: Spring Crops bundle. Getting this bundle requires waiting until at least the 14th of spring. You can get all the seeds but the green bean from mixed seeds which you should have some from cutting weeds on your first day. It also requires watering these crops every day until the 12th. I think you can't turn it in on the 13th which is when the cauliflower would be ready because of the egg festival, not sure though since I've never actually done it this way.
   • 2nd bundle option 2: Crab Pot bundle. This bundle requires a map that gives you at least 2 unique beach shells, preferably 3 on the first day. I've never actually seen all 4 unique shells spawn on the beach in the first week, but have seen 3 out of 4 quite often. Along with these shells you will need to get a crab drop from a crab monster (the ones lower in the mines have a higher chance to drop them) and you will need to build a crab pot and catch whatever you don't have. You need 5 unique crab pot items. I used to use this method but its somewhat unreliable and forces you to give up on otherwise great runs. I would say consider this method if you get 3 unique shells on the first day otherwise don't bother and don't go out of your way to get a crab in the mines.
   • 2nd bundle option 3: Construction Bundle. This is the one I've been using lately and definitely removes the rng which is much appreciated. To get this one you just need a copper axe to chop out the hardwood. If you get really lucky you can even get the hardwood in the mine and you won't need to upgrade your axe early. The downside to this bundle is that you will have to sacrifice 198 wood.
   • Boiler room: To finish the boiler room you will need to get to a minimum of level 50 in the mines but sometimes lower depending on your fishing luck. You can get everything you need in the mines except for the fire quartz and gold bar through level 50. With just a little bit of luck though you can normally get some gold ore and a fire quartz during your early fishing days which means you can finish the bundles faster.

Anyways, this ended up being longer than I thought I hope it helps somebody.

 

[Odin]

Lots of great info here!

 

[TheHaboo]

Ever finished a most money in 1 year run? Cause these are very similar to what I focus on mine.

 

[Cptldsilver]

Yeah i've finished a couple, started and quit a lot more. My record is 12.9 mil cash in hand but that one I didn't get into the skull cavern until mid summer and made a lot of mistakes. In my current run I got into the cavern on the 12th of spring. I cleared about 4500 starfruit so I think i'll get at least over 20 million. BTW if you are the real Haboo I'm a big fan of your YouTube speedruns.

 

[TheHaboo]

I am, 12.9 Mill is still a good run on current patches with explosive ammo and skull caverns getting nerfs. GL on improving it, and would love to hear about anything strategies that you think have potential and future runs you do!

 

[Cptldsilver]

Just finished year 1 of what I'm turning into a 3 year max run. I tested selling everything I have and have 19.2 million but could have easily crested 20 mil if I had focused on just a 1 year max. Some thoughts,

1. In past runs I had normally run out of things to process in my kegs near the end of winter. That was with getting about 1500 or less starfruit. In this run I had 4700 starfruit and I didn't even come close to finish processing every thing before the end of 1st year. I stopped tapping at 239 trees around early to mid fall. I also didn't make any preserves jars for the pumpkins, thinking I could rely on the kegs. By the end of the 1st year i have 1600 kegs but I still have 4000 pumpkins and about 9000 wheat to process. If you are going to play a 1 year max run do not underestimate the amount of kegs and preserves jars you will need. I'm actually questioning if its even worth it to grow wheat instead of just beets with the crop space in the fall that you can't plant pumpkins on the first day with. To actually manage to process everything from this run I would have needed to have probably 300 oak trees tapped by the beginning of fall and use preserves jar. I'm not sure if this number is actually possible.
2. I have 1000 ancient fruit seeds by manipulating the geode/artifact trove through the stardew predictor tool, unlocking an early greenhouse (I think it was the 13th of summer?) through the Joja route, and putting all ancient fruits into seedmakers. I'd love to hear if someone did better than this and how. I think you could do a little better if you focused on killing monsters that dropped the seeds, but this would really detract from other more profitable ventures. As it is, i'll be able to fill my field completely with ancient fruits by the 20th of spring after I get my first harvest.
3. Skull Cavern method of min maxing has the most potential by far but requires more luck and day resets than other ways. Its really painful to die in the skull cavern because you get swarmed by monsters and are so low level combat that you don't have enough time to chug your food.
4. Speaking of getting into the Skull Cavern lets talk about how fast you can get in and what it requires. I got in on the 12th of spring after getting just enough money to buy the CC bundles on the 11th. I had the 1st backpack upgrade, a steel pickaxe, and a copper axe. I managed to achieve this without catching the legend fish. I can say after seeing a couple of videos now that it is possible to catch the legend with just a fiberglass rod, but I just couldn't do it even after like 50+ chances. I didn't even get to level 10 fishing and still had enough money though. I think if I could craft a perfect run it would look like this,
   • Day 3: Turn in pickaxe (copper) with bought copper.
   • Day 5: Get to level 40+ in mines.
   • Day 6: Get to level 50+ in mines, turn in pickaxe (steel).
   • Day 8: Get to level 100+ in mines.
   • Day 9: Get to level 120 in mines, turn in pickaxe (gold).
   • Day 10: Buy CC desert bundles.
   • Day 11: Get into desert.
   • Day 12: Turn in pickaxe (iridium), farm dust sprites.
   • Day 13 farm dust sprites.
   • Day 14 farm dust sprites until you have burglars ring.
   • If you actually managed to pull this off, you would have everything you needed to maximize skull cavern profits by the 15th of spring. You would still need to clear the farm and get to farming level 6 before summer though. To actually achieve this though you would need crazy luck during fishing and mining.