Min-Max Guide / Optimal Play

[Hill Myna]

Hey! Thanks for your guide, Zamiel. I'm just about to get to the Skull Caverns a couple of days late (I've had 4-5 rainy days, including tomorrow, when the bus will be repaired). I'm not that familiar with the Skull Caverns though, and I was wondering if you could offer some more detailed advice on how exactly to make ~100K per day. Specifically:

• Should I mine all visible ore, or focus on getting deeper? (If deeper, when do I switch to mining?)
• If I did my math right, 100K gold is about 67 iridium bars with the blacksmith profession, which is 335 iridium ore/day. You also have to smelt 67 bars per day. Does that mean you need ~67 furnaces, since you can't leave the Skull Caverns to restock the furnaces?

Hi!

I made a guide that should hopefully get you up to speed with Skull Cavern! It covers what to bring, what all the monsters drop and strategies to avoid/kill them, general tips on how to make the most out of your trips, and there is a section about the mine now/dig deeper compromise.

If you don't want to read the whole guide, here's an excerpt from the During Your Trip section:

Spoiler: Large Image with Text

• Although I’d found a Shaft by this point (highlighted in green on the left), I decided that it is worth the 10-20 mins to collect the valuables, as opposed to skipping several Floors straight away. To decide when it’s worth spending time on resource collection, you should ask a few questions:

• Are you nearly at Floor 100 for the first time? – If yes, then I focus on reaching that target first.​
• How much is over there? – If it’s 1 Iridium Node, I don’t bother too much about it, but 3+ gets my attention.​
• How near is it? – If it’s on the other side of the Floor, I don’t give it my time, but if it’s within a few tiles, I’ll totally expend a little more time to gather it.​
• Are there any Monsters nearby? – The more Monsters in the way the more time it takes, so chose carefully when there are a lot around.​
• Have you already passed Floor 100 on this trip? - The frequency of Iridium spawning doesn’t change much after 100, so I’ll grab any big chunks before heading downwards.​
• How many Bombs do you have left? – If I’m running low on Bombs, I’ll start fighting every Serpent I encounter (in the hope that they’ll drop me more Bombs), and only swipe the biggest of stashes. Alternate version: be prepared and bring more Bombs.

I like to be efficient, but I'm by no means in Skull Cavern by the 19th of Spring. I normally arrive later Summer, but that's because I typically have my focus on other things as well (not just money). So I don't exactly know what your situation looks like, but for me, after about a week of hunting iridium in the low levels (fighting all the monsters for Combat XP and turning all iridium into to Jade-Crystalariums/the pick upgrade/an iridium band), I can consistently reach 300 ore per trip.

Now that I have a very endgame farm, I've been able to experiment with a couple of other strategies and I can reach in between 700 and 900 ore per trip (with very hefty amounts of Staircases).

Another thread that you might want to check out: https://forums.stardewvalley.net/threads/first-iridium-and-use-thereof.9136/

Thanks! Is it worth going to the Skull Caverns if you have few to no bombs (like in late Spring)? This guide doesn't cover unlocking the dwarf, and my combat level is only high enough to make regular bombs, but I need ore to get quality sprinklers set up.

Regular bombs? Do you mean the black ones? If so, they're plenty good. But even better: Explosive Ammo. You'll get the recipe at Combat Level 8, and there is no better place to level up your Combat than in Skull Cavern. Also, Skull Cavern has plenty of the other ores (for sprinklers), so don't worry about using up your ore on explosives.

Hope this helps, good luck!

 

[imnvs]

Well... unlocking the dwarf requires getting all the dwarf scrolls, which is easiest in the regular mines.

Also, you should get ore in the Skull Caverns.

Alternately, you could do some slower work in the SC for a day, kill a bunch of serpents and get bombs that way.

 

[Caxafvujq]

Hi!

I made a guide that should hopefully get you up to speed with Skull Cavern! It covers what to bring, what all the monsters drop and strategies to avoid/kill them, general tips on how to make the most out of your trips, and there is a section about the mine now/dig deeper compromise.

If you don't want to read the whole guide, here's an excerpt from the During Your Trip section:

Spoiler: Large Image with Text

View attachment 8649

• Although I’d found a Shaft by this point (highlighted in green on the left), I decided that it is worth the 10-20 mins to collect the valuables, as opposed to skipping several Floors straight away. To decide when it’s worth spending time on resource collection, you should ask a few questions:

• Are you nearly at Floor 100 for the first time? – If yes, then I focus on reaching that target first.​
• How much is over there? – If it’s 1 Iridium Node, I don’t bother too much about it, but 3+ gets my attention.​
• How near is it? – If it’s on the other side of the Floor, I don’t give it my time, but if it’s within a few tiles, I’ll totally expend a little more time to gather it.​
• Are there any Monsters nearby? – The more Monsters in the way the more time it takes, so chose carefully when there are a lot around.​
• Have you already passed Floor 100 on this trip? - The frequency of Iridium spawning doesn’t change much after 100, so I’ll grab any big chunks before heading downwards.​
• How many Bombs do you have left? – If I’m running low on Bombs, I’ll start fighting every Serpent I encounter (in the hope that they’ll drop me more Bombs), and only swipe the biggest of stashes. Alternate version: be prepared and bring more Bombs.

I like to be efficient, but I'm by no means in Skull Cavern by the 19th of Spring. I normally arrive later Summer, but that's because I typically have my focus on other things as well (not just money). So I don't exactly know what your situation looks like, but for me, after about a week of hunting iridium in the low levels (fighting all the monsters for Combat XP and turning all iridium into to Jade-Crystalariums/the pick upgrade/an iridium band), I can consistently reach 300 ore per trip.

Now that I have a very endgame farm, I've been able to experiment with a couple of other strategies and I can reach in between 700 and 900 ore per trip (with very hefty amounts of Staircases).

Another thread that you might want to check out: https://forums.stardewvalley.net/threads/first-iridium-and-use-thereof.9136/


Regular bombs? Do you mean the black ones? If so, they're plenty good. But even better: Explosive Ammo. You'll get the recipe at Combat Level 8, and there is no better place to level up your Combat than in Skull Cavern. Also, Skull Cavern has plenty of the other ores (for sprinklers), so don't worry about using up your ore on explosives.

Hope this helps, good luck!

Thank you, I'm super excited to read through your guide! Like you said, using up my ore on explosives hasn't really been a problem (coal is sometimes a chokepoint, but that's about to be alleviated by the fact that I got my iridium ring and can start using solar + void essence for mega bombs). I tried using explosive ammo because I heard it was really great, but I think I wasn't "getting it". I could only get it to detonate on hitting a wall or an enemy, and it has a small blast radius, so it didn't seem very effective at mining most ore/rocks. Maybe your guide covers how to use it effectively. I'll soon see!

 

[Hill Myna]

Thank you, I'm super excited to read through your guide! Like you said, using up my ore on explosives hasn't really been a problem (coal is sometimes a chokepoint, but that's about to be alleviated by the fact that I got my iridium ring and can start using solar + void essence for mega bombs). I tried using explosive ammo because I heard it was really great, but I think I wasn't "getting it". I could only get it to detonate on hitting a wall or an enemy, and it has a small blast radius, so it didn't seem very effective at mining most ore/rocks. Maybe your guide covers how to use it effectively. I'll soon see!

Glad I could help, I hope you enjoy my guide!

Explosive Ammo is definitely trickier to use than regular explosives. When I started, I couldn't understand why people rated it so highly!

And don't get me wrong, bombs are super effective as well. In fact, I'd argue bombs are quite possibly better in early game when you can't pour thousands of G into trips, and when only the biggest clumps of ores matter.

The instant explosion is what makes it an end-game essential, though. When you're speeding through the floors using hundreds of Staircases, the fact that you can instantly blow up any nodes that happen to be near the entrance is really helpful.

Because when you're speeding through levels using hundreds of Staircases...you're probably on a mission to beat your PB, and so every ore counts.

Anyways, if you have any feedback, just let me know I'm that thread! I'd love to get some insight!

 

[SurprisedPikachuBob3]

Is anyone here keeping up with ArgonsMatrix Price of perfection Vods?

 

[Zamiel]

You won't be able to make 100K per day for a while, as you need to get your infrastructure going (e.g. Iridium Pickaxe, fully upgraded backpack, Galaxy Sword, 50+ Crystalariums producing Jade, level 10 combat, lots of furnaces, etc.).
It's kind of like a game of Starcraft where you first have to invest in building up your economy.

Having no bombs isn't an issue, because you can still make around 20-25K while skimping on crafting explosions. (Which you typically do if you still need specific kinds of ore for sprinklers.)

 

[Caxafvujq]

50+ Crystalariums producing Jade,

Dang! That's more Crystalariums than I realized I needed... Should I be buying stone from Robin to make those? Most of the stone I naturally get in the SC has been going toward staircases.

 

[imnvs]

Should I be buying stone from Robin to make those? Most of the stone I naturally get in the SC has been going toward staircases.

That's what most will do, yes. After you have a steady supply of jade, you trade jade for staircases at the desert trader, and you won't need stone for staircases any longer.

 

[zypxel]

You won't be able to make 100K per day for a while, as you need to get your infrastructure going (e.g. Iridium Pickaxe, fully upgraded backpack, Galaxy Sword, 50+ Crystalariums producing Jade, level 10 combat, lots of furnaces, etc.).
It's kind of like a game of Starcraft where you first have to invest in building up your economy.

Having no bombs isn't an issue, because you can still make around 20-25K while skimping on crafting explosions. (Which you typically do if you still need specific kinds of ore for sprinklers.)

Hey there great guide. I follow it and manage to get $2 mils by end of first spring, $6 mils by end of summer (havent sold any starfruits yet, i have about 2400 starfruits = 3 batches of 800 each).
This guide is extremely detailed for spring and summer, i follow it by the book, do a **** tons of skull cavern run and swimming in money. But there's an issue towards end of first year.
My issues is i don't have enough kegs to process all that crops. Currently it's fall 10 I have about 100 oak trees planted in railroad area and ~300 kegs so far. So each week my number of kegs can go up by 100, but still this is not enough to process all the starfruits + pumpkins Im gonna have
By this pace, it would took me over to year 2 to finish kegging all the starfruits (2400 crops) and pumpkins (9000 crops) => That's 11k crops. IDK what to do, should I just go with the jar method instead even tho it's less profit. IDK how you supposed to process 11k crops by end of year 1. Supposes that you have 1k kegs by the start of fall, that would still take like 11 weeks (>2 seasons) to process all that. I really want to be able to sell all my crops by end of year 1 and not have to wait until y2, if that's possible I think I can reach $40 mil first year easily

 

[SleepyMeows]

Oh wow, I was under the impression 500k was the max'ish in the first spring.
Though that expectation is without any messing with RNG, I imagine you can get to 1M using some tricks.

But 2M? Is that even possible without going to extreme speed-runner-esque strats?

 

[Jianadaren1]

On Haboo's stream today he reports being able to get around 35 Dust Sprites per hour by farming level 65 over and over, but that's with already having the Savage Ring, which speeds things up.

I know this is ancient, but

If you're killing 35 Dust Sprites per hour, then you're also getting 17.5 Coal per hour. If you're coal-constrained then Coal is worth 150 G. At this rate, killing Dust Sprites earns 2,625 G per hour in Coal alone. Even killing only 20 per hour is still 1,500G or nearly 30,000G per day. This isn't more productive than a full Good Skull Cavern run, but might be more productive than some marginal runs (e.g. Neutral or Bad Luck where you have to wait until 9am, or very bad luck runs) and should blow fishing out of the water, especially post-7pm Spring Fishing. Is the 250 Coal obtained from killing 500 Dust Sprites overkill? Would you have more Coal than you'd need at that point (knowing that the SC will generate lots of Coal as well), such that the Coal isn't worth 150 G anymore, but is now surplus?

Also, even if Iridium Bands are superior to the Burglar's Ring, the Iridium Bands will not be available for, I dunno, the first 10 Skull Cavern runs given the Combat Level requirement and combat avoision. Until then the double Battery drops from Iridium bats provide a real return on future SC runs by getting additional Cryataria early, double Solar Essence (and the increased combat incentive) accelerates the Iridium Bands, plus double chances of Red Cabbage Seeds and Rabbit's Foot from Serpent's could avoid tons of wasted Travelling Cart time and potentially dodge a Rabbit purchase, plus bonus iridium, bombs, spicy eels, life elixir, and prismatic shards

I think that (a) any time farming iron can be productively combined with farming Dust Sprites, (b) any post-vault fishing (to a point) can be replaced with farming dust sprites, (c) very marginal Skull Cavern runs can be replaced with Dust Sprites (e.g. not good luck and you can't go to SC until 9-12 or something), and (d) if immediately after opening the Vault, you suffer one or two bad luck days and it makes sense to go for 500 Dust Sprites. Between those opportunities there might be good window to get Burglar's Ring at low opportunity cost

 

[FilthyGorilla]

Oh wow, I was under the impression 500k was the max'ish in the first spring.
Though that expectation is without any messing with RNG, I imagine you can get to 1M using some tricks.

But 2M? Is that even possible without going to extreme speed-runner-esque strats?

Super late but the record as of now (to my knowledge) is 9 million

 

[Jianadaren1]

Sure, we can discuss that.

The beach farm has:

If anyone's interested, I'm doing a run on the Switch loosely based on this guide with the Beach farm. Because Starfruit can't be planted en masse on the main farm, the strat is to rush the Greenhouse and Ginger Island. This involves getting the Boiler Room and Vault and then pivoting to JojaMart, purchasing the rest of the upgrades with proceeds from the Skull Cavern. I certainly didn't play optimally, but I managed to get sufficient Iridium to purchase all upgrades by Spring 28. Unfortunately I didn't get the Greenhouse until Summer 4 and didn't complete all upgrades until Summer 8. This delay was caused because (a) I didn't know that you couldn't purchase the membership and the upgrades all in the same day, so I needed to go to Joja on 4 separate days, and (b) in the middle of that process, I elected to skip Joja on several good luck days in order to do additional SC runs instead.

1) I've forsaken crops almost entirely on the main farm. I sold my initial parsnip seeds. I don't craft any non-Iridium Sprinklers. I rely on Krobus and Treasure Chests to get initial Sprinklers. These are used to cover the Greenhouse with Starfruit to get to level 9, before being able to craft Iridium Sprinklers. I'm currently Summer 20 with 6 Iridium Sprinklers (three purchased from Krobus, three from Treasure chests (got very lucky there), a Greenhouse full of Starfruit and Level 5 farming. I have 31 batteries so will be able to cover Ginger Island in Iridium Sprinklers as soon as soon as I get to level 9.

I planted a handful of "fun" manually-watered mixed seeds as loved gifts for Pam and Maru. This was probably suboptimal. A bean sprout probably would have been a good idea for the spring crops bundle to get access to the Boiler Room. I had an inconvenience in getting a second bundle after Spring Forage. I was hoping to get a free Crab Pot Bundle but the Rock Crabs never dropped a Crab, so I crafted a pot.

2) Day 1 was more or less normal. Selling the Parsnip seeds got me 150G closer to the Fibreglass Rod. I didn't feel the need to sell extra wood, fibre, leeks, dandelions, or spring onions. They're either very valuable later or just good eating. Planted my 9 mixed seeds at end of day

3) Day 2 was bad luck day. I messed up my first attempt. The second attempt I rushed to the beach (didn't bother watering crops). Was fortunate with my perfect catches (and a Halibut) such that I had level 1 before Willy's opened. Decided to Yolo and forego the Training Rod and stuck with Bamboo rod. Caught a Tilapia and another Halibut plus several silver and a couple gold. Two treasure chests IIRC including a Diamond. Got Level 2 about 2pm (no bubbles yet), with enough cash to buy the rod and some bait and a Trout Soup. Finished out the day at level 4

4) Day 3 I tried at the river, no trout soup, failed miserably, restarted. Went to Mountain Lake instead, fished until about 230. Swung by Clint's to sell Diamond, then to Willy's to sell fish and buy bait and Trout Soup. Went to River now with effective fishing level 6 (soon to be 7). Did much better. Didn't miss any Catfish (caught 8 IIRC from 5pm to 12 am). Finished with level 6.

5) Days 4-17, played it more or less normally. Day 5 at mines to get copper, upgrade pickaxe, buy iron ore. No more rainy fishing days unfortunately until the 16th. Got very lucky and got 24 early gold ore from chests so only needed to purchase 1 Gold ore for Pickaxe. Started mines Spring 11. Finished Mines Day 14. 30-35 levels per day with good luck; 15-20 levels per day with bad luck. Never received or purchased any weapons better than the chest rewards or got any good rings. Initially forewent the Iridium Rod, thinking it was unnecessary expense. Unfortunately was short on money so needed three more fishing days. In retrospect, should have bought it Day 6 or something. Purchased Vault Day 18.

Almost no time spent farming. No sprinklers to craft. Tappers didn't need to be crafted yet. Beach farm is natural Oak forest that will expand and fill in on its own if you clear out the non-oaks in the North and Centre.

6) Days 19-28. Skull Cavern runs on neutral->good luck days. Farmed Dust Sprites and Iron ore on bad luck days until Burglar's Ring. Given that I would have access to Forge within a few days of getting Combat Level 9, I never really had to forego the benefit of Iridium Bands.

Then on bad luck days I would farm Blue Slimes for Dwarf Scroll III and bats for bat wings for Lightning Rods.

Get Iridium Pickaxe. Upgrade Axe to Steel and other tools to Copper as opportunity allows

7) Summer, etc.

Continue Skull Cavern on Good luck days. Bad Luck days for other tasks like increasing forage skill, collecting wood and hardwood, buying things, giving gifts.

Buy Joja, buy Greenhouse, continue upgrading tools, buy Panning and Bridge.

Get Rusty Key, start buying Iridium Sprinklers Summer 5. Fill up Greenhouse with Starfruit and Deluxe Speed Gro

Craft lots of lightning Rods. I hoarded batteries from Iridium bats at first, thinking I could complete Willy's boat before my first storm. As it turns out, I got three storms with lots of lightning Rods and relatively good luck and so I was set. Between those storms and the Bats I had over 50 Batteries so I spent my surplus batteries on Crystallariums until I was constrained by Stone of all things.

Begin tapping Oak Trees en masse

Unlock Ginger Island, split time between it, farm, and SC based on luck, greenhouse schedule, purchasing and upgrading schedules.

Advantages:

Early Greenhouse and Ginger Island mean no seasonal constraint with Starfruit and relaxes the speed gro and seed purchase timing constraints.

Early access to Forge, Ginger Ale, Qi Seasoning, makes SC more efficient and profitable (and can make all tools more efficient).

Early access to Walnut Room and Ginger Island Special Orders can give great rewards

No non-iridium sprinklers or Spring farming requirement relaxes a major constraint.

Big opportunity for Animals on huge farm, especially with the ability to purchase autopetters.

This might set up to be a stronger Fall than regular Min-Max.

Disadvantages:

No massive Starfruit or Pumpkin farms on Stardew farm. This is a huge income loss.

Joja costs 85,000 investment to Ginger Island. This is much more than than investment required for CC completion.

Overall:

It's been quite fun

 

[FilthyGorilla]

If anyone's interested, I'm doing a run on the Switch loosely based on this guide with the Beach farm. Because Starfruit can't be planted en masse on the main farm, the strat is to rush the Greenhouse and Ginger Island. The involves getting the Boiler Room and Vault and then pivoting to JojaMart, purchasing the rest of the upgrades with proceeds from the Skull Cavern. I certainly didn't play optimally, but I managed to get sufficient Iridium to purchase all upgrades by Spring 28. Unfortunately I didn't get the Greenhouse until Summer 4 and didn't complete all upgrades until Summer 8. This delay was caused because (a) I didn't know that you couldn't purchase the membership and the upgrades all in the same day, so I needed to go to Joja on 4 separate days, and (b) in the middle of that process, I elected to skip Joja on several good luck days in order to do additional SC runs instead.

1) I've forsaken crops almost entirely on the main farm. I sold my initial parsnip seeds. I don't craft any non-Iridium Sprinklers. I rely on Krobus and Treasure Chests to get initial Sprinklers. These are used to cover the Greenhouse with Starfruit to get to level 9, before being able to craft Iridium Sprinklers. I'm currently Summer 20 with 6 Iridium Sprinklers (three purchased from Krobus, three from Treasure chests (got very lucky there), a Greenhouse full of Starfruit and Level 5 farming. I have 31 batteries so will be able to cover Ginger Island in Iridium Sprinklers as soon as soon as I get to level 9.

I planted a handful of "fun" manually-watered mixed seeds as loved gifts for Pam and Maru. This was probably suboptimal. A bean sprout probably would have been a good idea for the spring crops bundle to get access to the Boiler Room. I had an inconvenience in getting a second bundle after Spring Forage. I was hoping to get a free Crab Pot Bundle but the Rock Crabs never dropped a Crab, so I crafted a pot.

2) Day 1 was more or less normal. Selling the Parsnip seeds got me 150G closer to the Fibreglass Rod. I didn't feel the need to sell extra wood, fibre, leeks, dandelions, or spring onions. They're either very valuable later or just good eating. Planted my 9 mixed seeds at end of day

3) Day 2 was bad luck day. I messed up my first attempt. The second attempt I rushed to the beach (didn't bother watering crops). Was fortunate with my perfect catches (and a Halibut) such that I had level 1 before Willy's opened. Decided to Yolo and forego the Training Rod and stuck with Bamboo rod. Caught a Tilapia and another Halibut plus several silver and a couple gold. Two treasure chests IIRC including a Diamond. Got Level 2 about 2pm (no bubbles yet), with enough cash to buy the rod and some bait and a Trout Soup. Finished out the day at level 4

4) Day 3 I tried at the river, no trout soup, failed miserably, restarted. Went to Mountain Lake instead, fished until about 230. Swung by Clint's to sell Diamond, then to Willy's to sell fish and buy bait and Trout Soup. Went to River now with effective fishing level 6 (soon to be 7). Did much better. Didn't miss any Catfish (caught 8 IIRC from 5pm to 12 am). Finished with level 6.

5) Days 4-17, played it more or less normally. Day 5 at mines to get copper, upgrade pickaxe, buy iron ore. No more rainy fishing days unfortunately until the 16th. Got very lucky and got 24 early gold ore from chests so only needed to purchase 1 Gold ore for Pickaxe. Started mines Spring 11. Finished Mines Day 14. 30-35 levels per day with good luck; 15-20 levels per day with bad luck. Never recieved or purchased any weapons better than the chest rewards or got any good rings. Initially forewent the Iridium Rod, thinking it was unnecessary expense. Unfortunately was short on money so needed three more fishing days. In retrospect, should have bought it Day 6 or something. Purchased Vault Day 18.

Almost no time spent farming. No sprinklers to craft. Tappers didn't need to be crafted yet. Beach farm is natural Oak forest that will expand and fill in on its own if you clear out the non-oaks in the North and Centre.

6) Days 19-28. Skull Cavern runs on neutral->good luck days. Farmed Dust Sprites and Iron ore on bad luck days until Burglar's Ring. Given that I would have access to Forge within a few days of getting Combat Level 9, I never really had to forego the benefit of Iridium Bands.

Then on bad luck days I would farm Blue Slimes for Dwarf Scroll III and bats for bat wings for Lightning Rods.

Get Iridium Pickaxe. Upgrade Axe to Steel and other tools to Copper as opportunity allows

7) Summer, etc.

Continue Skull Cavern on Good luck days. Bad Luck days for other tasks like increasing forage skill, collecting wood and hardwood, buying things, giving gifts.

Buy Joja, buy Greenhouse, continue upgrading tools, buy Panning and Bridge.

Get Rusty Key, start buying Iridium Sprinklers Summer 5. Fill up Greenhouse with Starfruit and Deluxe Speed Gro

Craft lots of lightning Rods. I hoarded batteries from Iridium bats at first, thinking I could complete Willy's boat before my first storm. As it turns out, I got three storms with lots of lightning Rods and relatively good luck and so I was set. Between those storms and the Bats I had over 50 Batteries so I spent my surplus batteries on Crystallariums until I was constrained by Stone of all things.

Begin tapping Oak Trees en masse

Unlock Ginger Island, split time between it, farm, and SC based on luck, greenhouse schedule, purchasing and upgrading schedules.

Advantages:

Early Greenhouse and Ginger Island mean no seasonal constraint with Starfruit and relaxes the speed gro and seed purchase timing constraints.

Early access to Forge, Ginger Ale, Qi Seasoning, makes SC more efficient and profitable (and can make all tools more efficient).

Early access to Walnut Room and Ginger Island Special Orders can give great rewards

No non-iridium sprinklers or Spring farming requirement relaxes a major constraint.

Big opportunity for Animals on huge farm, especially with the ability to purchase autopetters.

This might set up to be a stronger Fall than regular Min-Max.

Disadvantages:

No massive Starfruit or Pumpkin farms on Stardew farm. This is a huge income loss.

Joja costs 85,000 investment to Ginger Island. This is much less than investment required for CC completion.

Overall:

It's been quite fun

Loving seeing console players pick up guides like this and playing a little bit of min-max type play.
It's a lot harder without things such as predictors to finish the mines in 8-9 hours and the ability to animation cancel, etc.
Good on you for taking that up.

 

[sheepinajeep]

I'm not sure what the difference is, but I don't gain levels until I sleep at night. So the assumption that i'll have a fiberglass rod by day 2 is not working for me. Am I missing something, or am I just not gaining fishing levels fast enough?

 

[Jianadaren1]

I'm not sure what the difference is, but I don't gain levels until I sleep at night. So the assumption that i'll have a fiberglass rod by day 2 is not working for me. Am I missing something, or am I just not gaining fishing levels fast enough?

The level up card always shows up at night, but the actual level increase is shown on your skills tab in real time. You can buy the fiberglass rod as soon as you hit level 2 this way. No need to wait until Day 3 unless you don't hit level 2 (or have enough money) until after 5pm

 

[Werbenja]

New update means it's time to revive this thread.

@Zamiel, I noticed you've been updating your guide on GitHub (thank you for making it by the way, helped me out a lot). However, there isn't much in terms of new content there yet. So...

Spoiler: new content in the 1.6 update

I was wandering if it is worth it have the desert bus fixed by Spring 15th to abuse the new Desert Festival, since you can enter skull cavern during this festival without having acquired the skull key. Assuming the usual community center route, this would require planting a bean starter earlier than Spring 5th, to be able to finish the vault bundles on the 14th.

I believe this would make the first few skull cavern dives considerably more efficient, by making use of the nice buffs the food from the Chef in the festival can give you (the best ones being +3 luck and +1 speed by combining Rare Fruit with Uncomfortably Hot Sauce). You could also use all the Calico Eggs you accumulate in the caverns runs to trade with the Calico Egg Merchant. Highlights from their stock are Magic Rock Candy on the third and last day of the festival for 250 eggs each (assuming you can buy more than one) and Woodcutter's Weekly, grating 250 foraging exp each for 100 eggs each (desirable to reach foraging level 7 and craft Tree Fertilizer, since it's harder to get foraging exp from wild seeds now). Just remember to leave the cavern at around 1:40am to submit your Egg Rating to Gil before the day ends. Gil gives you a Magic Rock Candy for Egg ratings of 55 or higher, but I have no idea how feasible such ratings are so early in the game, nor if activating the Calico Statues is worth it, since they can give you some nasty effects which could interfere in mining iridium efficiently.

Even if you have to go back to the regular mines to reach level 120 on Spring 18th, I think the positives outweigh the negatives. After this, the route is the same as it was before, I guess.

Personally, I intend on doing a Joja route to reach Ginger Island earlier and try to go for perfection in the first year by buying waivers from Fizz. This would require having, at maximum, 50 million gold in hand, but probably less because I would have a few perfection percentage points naturally from things like leveling and golden walnuts. I estimate 40 million should be enough, but I don't know if it's doable.

The only other new piece of content that could help in Spring is the new fishable item Sea Jelly, which could facilitate level 5 fishing on Spring 2nd without the need to buy trout soup or even increase the likelihood of catching catfish on Spring 3rd.

I haven't tried any of this yet, but will do when I have the time. I would appreciate any ideas from anyone about the new content in the context of min-max runs.

 

[Zamiel]

Hello,

I don't check these forums very often, but I've been doing a 1.6 run this week so I have been updating the guide as I go along. You can also see this discussion: https://github.com/Zamiell/stardew-valley/issues/43

> I was wandering if it is worth it have the desert bus fixed by Spring 15th to abuse the new Desert Festival,

Great idea, that is something that will have to be explored. Feel free to experiment and report back.

> Personally, I intend on doing a Joja route to reach Ginger Island earlier and try to go for perfection in the first year by buying waivers from Fizz.

Yeah, great idea. That's going to be my next challenge run as well. (Right now I'm doing a normal CC playthrough.)

> The only other new piece of content that could help in Spring is the new fishable item Sea Jelly, which could facilitate level 5 fishing on Spring 2nd without the need to buy trout soup or even increase the likelihood of catching catfish on Spring 3rd.

In my route, you are not fishing on the beach for very long on Summer 2, so you will only get a few Sea Jellies. Personally, I think it would be optimal to save them for catching Catfish on Spring 3, but the buff doesn't even last very long, so I'm not sure. (Also, in my route, you don't have enough money for Trout Soup, because you are spending your money immediately on the Fiberglass Rod and then leaving to go to the mountain lake.)

 

[Werbenja]

In my route, you are not fishing on the beach for very long on Summer 2, so you will only get a few Sea Jellies. Personally, I think it would be optimal to save them for catching Catfish on Spring 3, but the buff doesn't even last very long, so I'm not sure. (Also, in my route, you don't have enough money for Trout Soup, because you are spending your money immediately on the Fiberglass Rod and then leaving to go to the mountain lake.)

Wait, you mean you go mountain fishing already on day 2, right after buying more bait in your second Willy visit? Do you bring a second chest with you on the beginning of the day or do you just take the same one you placed on the pier?

I did some testing and level 5 fishing on Spring 2nd is farfetched, in any case. You'd need excellent fishing skills or lots of bubbles, probably a mixture of both (and I had neither). So I guess any jellies found should be saved for Spring 3rd.

Right now, I am trying to incorporate the bait maker and the fish smoker into the run. I think they would need to be attained in the first 10 days of the run, otherwise it's probably not worth it.

Bait maker is easy enough, just buy 15 iron ore from Clint and gather 300 wood (probably bought from Robin) to be able to collect the tide pool forageables. You can probably fit this on day 5 of your route, if you forego some fishing time. If the increase in targeted fish bite chance is as high as people have been reporting (ridiculous stuff like ~90% bite rate for catfish), it should be more than worth it. In fact, depending on how likely it is to get the targeted fish, it might even be better to fish in the ocean in sunny days, given that the flounder is available for one more hour than the largemouth bass and that the halibut sells for more gold than the bullhead.

Of course, lots more testing is required. BlaDe showed on one of his code diving streams that the exact numbers for targeted bait bite rates are convoluted, but they give a minimum o 66% increase for common fish found in the lakes, river and ocean.

Fish smoker is tougher ask. Not only you need 10.000g for the recipe, you also need hardwood (which is only consistently available after the first axe upgrade, as far as I know) and all the new jellies. River and sea jellies seems easy enough, but cave jelly... The wiki says you can get them on floors 20, 60 and 100 of the mines, but from testing it seems incredibly rare on floors 20 and 60 (I found none on 100+ attempts), making me believe that you would need to reach level 100 to acquire cave jelly somewhat reliably. And reaching level 100 before day 11 while still accumulating money for the vault bundles and upgrading your pickaxe seems unlikely.

As of now, it seems that going for the fish smoker in the first ten days is only worth it if you plan on fishing even after unlocking the skull cavern, which you might very well do on rainy days. Considering the total cost for unlocking the fish smoker as a minimum of 12.000g (10.000g for the recipe and 2.000g for the copper axe upgrade), you would need to sell 40 golden-quality smoked catfish to break even (with coal bought from Clint), which is apparently possible to obtain in one day with the bait maker. Things are not so great if you don't get rain, as you'd need to sell 80 iridium-quality smoked flounder/largemouth bass to break even. The cost of unlocking the fish smoker increases by 3.375g if you choose to buy the copper for the furnace + 5 bars to upgrade the axe, in case you plan to purchase this upgrade before Spring 5th in order to not take Clint's precious time in upgrading your pickaxe --- in that case, you'd need 52 golden-quality catfish or 103 flounder/bass to break even. These costs can be somewhat mitigated if you buy wood from Robin and use the charcoal kiln to make coal, which is now available at foraging level 2 (easily achievable if you are breaking stumps in your farm for the hardwood).

After the initial investment has been compensated, 40 golden-quality smoked catfish per day nets you 30.000g per day, and knowing that it takes a while for the skull cavern's revenue to reach this level, it might be worth it. And I think this is a conservative estimate, as people on reddit are reporting higher profits than this.

@BlaDe, might I ask you for the exact chances of fishing the three jellies? I couldn't find it in your twitch VODs. It would be much appreciated.

I would also be interested in knowing, from anyone min-maxing, when was the earliest you were able to craft a fish smoker while also unlocking the desert bus around Spring 15th. It would also be nice to know what upgrades you had and what skill levels you were by that point.

 

[Zamiel]

> Wait, you mean you go mountain fishing already on day 2, right after buying more bait in your second Willy visit?

I go to mountain after buying the Iridium Rod. I thought this was in the guide, but I double checked and I guess it isn't. I think the reason I didn't put it in there is because it depends on what time you buy the Iridium Rod.
See: https://github.com/Zamiell/stardew-...an-fishing-spot-to-mountain-lake-fishing-spot
(Note that these values were calculated pre-Jelly, but I don't foresee Jelly changing anything.)

> You can probably fit this on day 5 of your route, if you forego some fishing time.

That's interesting. My initial thoughts are that 15 iron ore early is pretty steep. You could also get screwed if you don't get any rain days. Like if your first post-Spring-5 rain day is Spring 24, then you might already be in Skull Caverns, so then you put a ton amount of effort into a thing that isn't really going to pay off. (On the other hand, maybe its worth it to fish on a rainy day over Skull Caverns with the special Catfish bait?)

> Fish smoker is tougher ask.

The main part of the run where you catch Catfish is day 3. Again, you might not get any other rain days in your Spring, so investing a huge amount of time/effort/money into Fish Smoker seems like it wouldn't necessarily pay off.