riklaunim
Planter
"Simple" fresh start focused around mass fish ponds strategy as well as testing a few other "strategies" like opening the desert for the Desert Festival year 1. The log below will contain some tips, strategies, leeks.
Theoretical design:
A fish pond takes 5000 gold, 200 stone, 5 algae, and 5 seaweed. Stone could be elevator-farmed or level-1 farmed in the mines, resetting the floor until 2x2 stone spawns to break it. Spring would be lake/river fishing, so it stashes algae, then summer could be oceanic fishing (bait maker makes lake sturgeon better until super cucumber comes out) so that covers seaweed for lots of ponds after that. Fishing at minimum would give 5K+ gold each day, so it can pay to build them.
Legendary fish can be dumped into a pond, and it's done. Other fish will request items at a selected population size. For lava eels, you should have a crystalarium on basalt, a stack of fire quartz (or crystalariums even), and then farm a dwarf scroll if they ask for it ;) Ice Pip or Stonefish roe is worth less, but quests can be much easier to do, and you can get bonus geodes. To process roe, you will need preserve jars, which will use a lot of coal, so the riverlands farm with a fish smoker may not be the best pick (same for any early mass sprinkler setup) ;)
Full details on ponds: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Fish_Pond
So you can put a few ponds with Lava Eels for income, but also for spicy eel. It's a good pick, but as mentioned will take a lot of time and resources to scale the ponds. You can put other geode giving fish in, but overall, the % to get something will be low. You build 10 ponds, and there can be less than 50% that produce anything daily. Best % and items are at 9-10 population.
Agend Legend Roe sells for 7084 with artisan, and the pond has ~20% to produce 1-2 roe, so it's not that awesome (but doesn't require many jars). Caviar from Sturgeons sells for 700, which is less than, for example, melon jelly. Starfruit or ancient fruit jelly sells for more than aged lava eel roe - so those fish ponds aren't primary money makers, they can be in the late game when you get clones of the legends.
Corals in a pond don't produce roe and have a small chance of producing one of 2 minerals, which you may be missing from the museum collection early on (and they don't have population quest so handy temporary use of a fish pond):
Super cucumber at max population has a smaller chance to give iridium ore or amethyst. You can get a lot of iridium from Skull Cavern, so this isn't an alternative to mining.
Also, with the book additions in 1.6, you can get fish roe as you catch them, so it's possible to get sturgeon roe without a fish pond and thus have caviar for the missing bundle.
Now, for the spring daily log:
Theoretical design:
A fish pond takes 5000 gold, 200 stone, 5 algae, and 5 seaweed. Stone could be elevator-farmed or level-1 farmed in the mines, resetting the floor until 2x2 stone spawns to break it. Spring would be lake/river fishing, so it stashes algae, then summer could be oceanic fishing (bait maker makes lake sturgeon better until super cucumber comes out) so that covers seaweed for lots of ponds after that. Fishing at minimum would give 5K+ gold each day, so it can pay to build them.
Legendary fish can be dumped into a pond, and it's done. Other fish will request items at a selected population size. For lava eels, you should have a crystalarium on basalt, a stack of fire quartz (or crystalariums even), and then farm a dwarf scroll if they ask for it ;) Ice Pip or Stonefish roe is worth less, but quests can be much easier to do, and you can get bonus geodes. To process roe, you will need preserve jars, which will use a lot of coal, so the riverlands farm with a fish smoker may not be the best pick (same for any early mass sprinkler setup) ;)
Full details on ponds: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Fish_Pond
So you can put a few ponds with Lava Eels for income, but also for spicy eel. It's a good pick, but as mentioned will take a lot of time and resources to scale the ponds. You can put other geode giving fish in, but overall, the % to get something will be low. You build 10 ponds, and there can be less than 50% that produce anything daily. Best % and items are at 9-10 population.
Agend Legend Roe sells for 7084 with artisan, and the pond has ~20% to produce 1-2 roe, so it's not that awesome (but doesn't require many jars). Caviar from Sturgeons sells for 700, which is less than, for example, melon jelly. Starfruit or ancient fruit jelly sells for more than aged lava eel roe - so those fish ponds aren't primary money makers, they can be in the late game when you get clones of the legends.
Corals in a pond don't produce roe and have a small chance of producing one of 2 minerals, which you may be missing from the museum collection early on (and they don't have population quest so handy temporary use of a fish pond):
Super cucumber at max population has a smaller chance to give iridium ore or amethyst. You can get a lot of iridium from Skull Cavern, so this isn't an alternative to mining.
Also, with the book additions in 1.6, you can get fish roe as you catch them, so it's possible to get sturgeon roe without a fish pond and thus have caviar for the missing bundle.
Now, for the spring daily log:
