Starfruit versus Ancient Fruit, late game (1.5 spoilers)

[Elenna101]

I was writing up a response to Shneekey's comment (below) where he says that replacing ancient fruit with starfruit is completely destroying your profits, but it's gotten long enough that I think it deserves it's own topic. Plus this has pretty much stopped being relevant to the other topic, since I'm making this argument from the point of view of someone who has unlocked most or all of the late game content.

The problem is you have no place to plant Starfruit to then age without also completely destroying your actual profits. By planting starfruit anywhere instead of ancient fruit, you lose far more money than you could gain from aging since you can only age a tiny fraction of the total wine produced. So no, I think I very fairly disregarded starfruit as you have nowhere to plant them without sacrificing weekly profits, which is 90%+ of your income.

Outside, sure, a year of ancient fruit clearly beats out a season of starfruit + the best spring and fall crops. But once you have hyper speed gro, or if you're willing to mess around with swapping perks back and forth, starfruit is the better option money-wise in the greenhouse or on Ginger Island, where you can plant them all year round.

With hyper speed-gro, you can get 14 harvests of starfruit in a year (unless my math is off), each of which sells for 3150 when kegged and sold with the Artisan perk. So the total profit, including seed cost, is 14*(3150-400) = 38,500.
In comparison, the profit of the 16 harvests of ancient fruit you get in a year is 16*2310 = 36,960. (Presumably the seed cost for ancient fruit is zero.)
So for the entire 116* spots in the greenhouse, over the course of a year you make an extra profit of 116*(38500 - 36960) = 178,640.

For that matter, you could instead do Agriculturalist + DSG for the same 14 harvests a year, save up the wine, then occasionally switch back to Artisan to sell the wine and then switch back to Agriculturalist the next day. The growth time for plants is only calculated when they are planted or when speed-gro is placed, it doesn't change if you switch perks after planting. So as long as you don't swap perks on a planting day, you'll still get the full 14 harvests. The 20k cost of switching perks twice certainly eats into your profits, but if you do it rarely enough it still works out to a profit, and this doesn't require waiting until you get Qi's room open. Can be a pain to have to wait until you switch perks to get the cash though.
(Of course, Agriculturalist + HSG is even better, giving you a harvest every 7 days, on par with ancient fruit.)

Granted, you could definitely argue that this isn't worth the effort of acquiring the 116 hyper speed-gro, let alone the amount you'd need on Ginger Island - although getting 116 ancient fruit is also a non-trivial amount of effort, and the fertilizer now stays in the greenhouse/Ginger Island forever as long as there are plants there, so you only have to do it once. And ancient fruit does have the neat advantage that the growth cycle is the same number of days as the keg cycle.

Conclusion: Starfruit is better money-wise late game, although ancient fruit has convenience advantages. I'm not saying it makes no sense to go for ancient fruit over starfruit (for that matter, my main farm's greenhouse still has ancient fruit, I'm too lazy to switch over), but saying that planting starfruit is "completely destroying your actual profits" is clearly untrue.

*It's true that if you aren't using HSG, you could instead use deluxe retaining soil and get 120 spots worth of ancient fruit. Some quick math suggests that starfruit is still better, but only by 30k a year or so for a full greenhouse, and of course deluxe retaining soil is significantly easier to get than hyper speed-gro although it still requires that you go to the island.

 

[Zen_the_Ogre]

Don't forget you can use the modifiers and swap between agri and artisan. If you store those wine bottles and the such you can swap back at the end of the season to max that profit margin

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Great post!

I’d argue aging Starfruit wine isn’t worth it from the other side though. Casks cap out at around 60 gold per day, while Crystalariums cap at 150. So you’re losing 90 gold per day per Cask you have. Over a year that’s 9500 or close to it, so if you have 100 Casks that’s not far off a million per year you’re losing out on. Not near a computer so forgive the imprecise figures. They’re good when you can’t afford Crystalariums because they’re free of course but they’re not imho worth building around if that makes sense.

Of course you make compelling points otherwise regarding Starfruit, but I don’t keg my greenhouse products other than coffee anyway so it’s a moot point for me XD. Still, fascinating, had no idea hyper speed group swung the scales that much!

 

[Worblehat]

Why would you put crystalariums in your cellar? You can build as many sheds as you like for that, but the cellar is the only place for casks. Your argument is more that the cellar upgrade isn't worth the bother, since if you're not using casks you can get space more cheaply in other ways. I was going to say that you need the cellar for the movie theater, but apparently you can buy gold wine at the resort, so, sure, I can see the case for skipping the cellar. (Not that I see any use for the movie theater, other than completionism).

I'm also not that impressed by the return on crystalariums. They can't compete with kegs for profitability, or for that matter with fairy rose honey on Ginger Island if you're looking for non-keg moneymakers. I made a dozen before reaching the "eh, whatever" point with them.

My approach is to grow enough starfruit (on Ginger Island) to age in the cellar, and sell the 120 Ancient Fruit wine per week from the greenhouse. Starfruit fertilizer is irrelevant to me, since getting 125 starfruit per eight weeks requires very little planting, so neither speed nor quality matter. Rationale for ancient fruit is purely that it requires minimal effort; I can occasionally be bothered to head to the Desert, then plant some starfruit. But only occasionally.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Why would you put crystalariums in your cellar? You can build as many sheds as you like for that, but the cellar is the only place for casks. Your argument is more that the cellar upgrade isn't worth the bother, since if you're not using casks you can get space more cheaply in other ways. I was going to say that you need the cellar for the movie theater, but apparently you can buy gold wine at the resort, so, sure, I can see the case for skipping the cellar. (Not that I see any use for the movie theater, other than completionism).

I'm also not that impressed by the return on crystalariums. They can't compete with kegs for profitability, or for that matter with fairy rose honey on Ginger Island if you're looking for non-keg moneymakers. I made a dozen before reaching the "eh, whatever" point with them.

My approach is to grow enough starfruit (on Ginger Island) to age in the cellar, and sell the 120 Ancient Fruit wine per week from the greenhouse. Starfruit fertilizer is irrelevant to me, since getting 125 starfruit per eight weeks requires very little planting, so neither speed nor quality matter. Rationale for ancient fruit is purely that it requires minimal effort; I can occasionally be bothered to head to the Desert, then plant some starfruit. But only occasionally.

That’s not my argument at all. Creating space always is a good investment, whether that’s sheds or the cellar. However as anyone who frequently uses the return scepter can appreciate, space is more valuable the closer it is to a warp point, since it takes less time to interact with that space. And while you can certainly create space cheaper, you can’t create space which links in to your kitchen, steps away from your front door, for cheaper.

My argument is that it’s not worth building around casks since they offer poor profitability per day. If you were unimpressed at 150 gold per day, I can’t imagine what you thought about the casks at 50. As I stated, their best attribute is that they’re free. If you have nothing better to do with the space, cool. Can’t build beehives in the cellar, but you can put kegs down there, and if you don’t have enough room in your sheds for them all, Absolutely that’s more profitable and better than running casks.

The reason I use Crystalariums as my example is because 1) I run skull cavern late game so they’re essentially free for me to build of the activities I’m doing for fun; and 2) Anywhere you can have a cask you can have one, and they don’t require constant input materials. A keg processing ancient fruit or Starfruit is more profitable, but one which doesn’t have input materials available offers 0 gold per day.

Even if you’re using casks though, because they were free, you like them, you have an abundance of space, whatever it may be, the difference in profit per day from ancient fruit to Starfruit is what, 15 gold per day? Less? If 150 per day is meh, what does 15 matter?

 

[Worblehat]

And while you can certainly create space cheaper, you can’t create space which links in to your kitchen, steps away from your front door, for cheaper.

Which is only relevant for stuff you deal with frequently, in phases of the game when time is meaningful. You'll certainly interact with crystalariums or kegs more than with casks, but unless you're doing something with coffee or tea you won't be interacting with them often enough for the cellar's location to matter. Maybe a preserves jar setup would see enough player visits for the location to be marginally useful?
Also, I think you can get two sheds closer to the teleport location than the cellar is (I count 15 steps to the cellar, 11 steps to a pair of sheds with a path between them directly below the front door).

I'm on my first game, so I just did everything, and if it suited me, I kept doing it. Thus the cellar of casks; it may not be a cashflow optimization, but I only have to check in twice a year, and I certainly don't need the space (or travel time) for anything else. The income is not meaningful at all, but as you say they're essentially free, I have a vast overabundance of space, and it's the natural thing to do with the cellar. Whether to use it for ancient fruit or starfruit - that's mostly driven by the obnoxiously high price on the clock ("Finish everything else in the game - then wait an extra year for the clock!" ) pushing me to grow somewhat more crops than I otherwise would have.

I think you have made a compelling case to skip the cellar upgrade in future saves, though. And this discussion has also led me to realize that staircases can be deconstructed, so I guess I will make a few more crystalariums (stone being the limiting factor for me, and I'm certainly not going to go mining for it).

 

[imnvs]

See, the thing is... if you're not using literally ALL available space for ancient fruit, adding starfruit to the mix doesn't cut into your profits. It simply adds to it.

For example, I have 21 starfruit growing at all times out on Ginger Island because I don't feel like planting ancient fruit on the west side of the river in that very narrow slice of tillable soil... but if I plant 21 starfruit there (being an agriculturalist using DSG) I get 7 harvests every 2 seasons, or 147 starfruit wine every 2 seasons which is more than enough to fill my cellar and add yet more to my income. And 21 starfruit being harvested/planted every 8 days? NBD.

Honestly, if I switched everything over to starfruit? I'd be making MORE money but doing more work. I have just a bit over the minimum to keep my cellar working at full capacity, and the rest is in ancient fruit to provide the bulk of my income. If I switched to just ancient fruit I'd be cutting into my profits, not the other way around.

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

By the time you get access to Hyper Speed-Gro and Ginger Island, money is irrelevant anyway, as you'll have more money than you know what to do with steaming out of your ears. Furthermore, Hyper Speed-Gro isn't really obtainable in bulk, so it's not really a fair comparison anyway.

Also, don't forget you're losing 20k every time you swap out agriculturalist for artisan. A small amount when you are looking at the sorts of bulk profits we're talking about, but its still there.

Furthermore, for Ginger Island, the big thing about Ancient Fruit is that it never goes away. It produces weekly, you never have to keep replanting, keep re-fertilizing, and keep putting the effort into it. You just harvest it weekly, job done. Since you've already got ancient fruit in your Greenhouse you've had going long before getting to the point where you can plant on Ginger Island, you simply sacrifice one week's product for twice as many (on average) seeds to plant on the island, and continue for as long as you care to.

So while technically correct... it assumes conditions that few players ever bother with. For example, I simply don't care enough about Qi to bother with any of his quests, thus never unlock the hyper fertilizers simply due to apathy. I already have proven myself to myself, I have no desire or need to prove squat to someone else. And the implication that I do is, frankly, insulting. Really, the entire 1.5 release is little more than a slap in the face, and I've mostly lost interest in the game as a result. It requires more boring pointless grind for the sake of boring pointless grind than WoW Classic factions, a phrase I never thought I would ever utter.

So congratulations, you are, technically, correct. Here's your internet cookie.

Also, the moment you have one ancient fruit, you have as many as you want, eventually, once the greenhouse opens. I've done the math before, but it's basically a geometric progression. The first few iterations are the slowest, so if you luck into an ancient seed in an early Spring mining expedition, you can plant it immediately for an enormous jump start. It takes about a season to fully propogate 116 ancient fruit from one, assuming DSG but not Agriculturalist, using a Seed Maker. So getting 116, or several hundred for that matter, ancient fruit seeds is extremely trivial once you obtain your first one.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

-snip-

I strongly disagree with the assertion that at Any point, money is irrelevant anyway. I've never run out of things to spend mine on, and a goal of my current save is to get to 100 million gold, so improvements in the rate of money gain are highly relevant and valued. Just because something is irrelevant to You, does not mean it's irrelevant in general.

The 20k every time you swap out was indeed factored in and addressed in the original post.

The big thing also about Ginger Island, as covered in the original post, is that if done right the fertilizer never goes away either. Nor do you need to hoe the ground again, or do anything at all other than pick up the crops, and drop down new seeds as you go. The assertion that it's significantly more work to run around with a stack of starfruit seeds, and drop them off in the places where you're picking up fully grown crops, than it is to simply run around picking up ancient fruit is factually inaccurate.

As far as being "conditions few players ever bother with"... you are technically correct. Only 32% of players on Steam ever finish the community center, and as such it can be presumed even fewer ever have access to hyper gro, or greenhouses full of Either Starfruit or Ancient Fruit. Heck, less than 50% of players get to the point where they have a cellar. However, do you know what else few players ever bother with? Going to an internet forum to discuss the game. And, when they do, it's because they're seeking information. So the implication that because a small percentage of players will be able to take advantage of the information, means that it's not worth sharing that information, is astoundingly untrue. Personally, I found the post very helpful, and the information enlightening, so I'm glad it was shared.

Regarding your assertions that the game has insulted you and slapped you in the face by providing you with free content releases which you may choose to engage in or not at your liesure, I could not possibly disagree more. I personally don't find it a boring grind for the sake of a boring grind, because I actually enjoy playing the game. I fish, not to fill out some checklist, but rather because I enjoy fishing. I mine, not because I need to get a tool upgrade or finish some objective, but rather because I enjoy mining. I play the game because I'm having fun, and when I encounter free content which I may choose to take advantage of, I am not insulted, but instead filled with gratitude.

Your math is also very off. You get your first seed on day 26, so no it doesn't take about a season to go from 1 to 116, rather it takes about a year. The fact that seeds are relatively trivial to obtain (though in the process of obtaining 116 you've thrown away 250k of potential profit in exchange for increases to future profits, so not exactly "trivial" in my opinion but regardless) is also factored into the original post, where they set the effective seed value of ancient fruit at zero.

Finally, a few questions, for my own curiosity -
If you have lost interest in the game, why are you posting on a forum about it?
If you find the game to be a boring, insulting grind, why are you playing it?
If you think this information isn't relevant, why are you posting in a thread about it?

 

[One More Day]

This thread is the stardew equivalent of saying "I've built myself a private multistorey garage, with space for 100 cars", then starting a debate on whether it makes more financial sense to fill it with Ferraris or Lamborghinis, when the reality is that you've already reached the point where money is, to all intents and purposes, completely irrelevant.

Yes, technically starfruit will earn a little bit more than ancient fruit, but it will also require a little bit more work than the ancient fruit, but if you have built up your farm to the point where you have all the available spaces planted, and sufficient kegs to process it all, both crops will still have money pouring in at a rate in excess of 1,000,000g per day, an amount that can never be spent, and you'll be able to afford the gold clock inside a fortnight. So, the only question worth asking is, "can I be bothered to replant starfruit every time for the extra bit of meaningless money?", and that is entirely personal opinion, if you're, say, racing towards some arbitrary target.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

This thread is the stardew equivalent of saying "I've built myself a private multistorey garage, with space for 100 cars", then starting a debate on whether it makes more financial sense to fill it with Ferraris or Lamborghinis, when the reality is that you've already reached the point where money is, to all intents and purposes, completely irrelevant.

Yes, technically starfruit will earn a little bit more than ancient fruit, but it will also require a little bit more work than the ancient fruit, but if you have built up your farm to the point where you have all the available spaces planted, and sufficient kegs to process it all, both crops will still have money pouring in at a rate in excess of 1,000,000g per day, an amount that can never be spent, and you'll be able to afford the gold clock inside a fortnight. So, the only question worth asking is, "can I be bothered to replant starfruit every time for the extra bit of meaningless money?", and that is entirely personal opinion, if you're, say, racing towards some arbitrary target.

This just isn't true though. The "Private multistory garage with space for 100 cars" in question is the Greenhouse. The tools needed (a Greenhouse, Deluxe Speed Gro, and 1 shed with kegs) can be obtained by Summer Year 1 if someone is focused on it, and by end of year even if they're not, but are just casually building in that direction. I'm at the point in the game where normally this would be incredibly relevant to me, on a casual save, in Spring of Year 2, and I certainly am not at the point where money is completely irrelevant. Rather, I'm scrounging harder than I'd like to for an extra 100,000 before Summer starts; and if this weren't a chill save I'd be very concerned about it.

For those who are interested, to have 1,000,000 per day in wine from Starfruit would require having 2,222 kegs constantly processing, which would require 16 sheds, to do so via Ancient Fruit would require 3030 kegs constantly processing, which would require 22 sheds full of kegs. I do not believe this is achievable on any layout farm under any circumstances, at least not over the course of the year, though the Starfruit one is certainly achievable at least over the course of the summer, on the Standard Farm and Four Corners maps, and maybe also the Beach farm if you really want to water 2500 crops by hand.

 

[imnvs]

a rate in excess of 1,000,000g per day

1M per day??? You sure you didn't mean 1M per week?

Otherwise, I do kind of see your point. On my beach farm, where I'm at about 1.5M/week, I'm just collecting money and turning it into statues of endless fortune because I have nothing else to spend it on... and that's with 570 ancient fruit (growing all year, no replanting) and assorted others including 21 starfruit, 31 pineapple and just immensely-huge piles of bananas. I suppose on a standard I could also do a bunch more every year at home... but that's too much work, even if I was on a standard, if you ask me.

 

[One More Day]

The "Private multistory garage with space for 100 cars" in question is the Greenhouse.

Actually, in my analogy, the hypothetical luxury garage was actually supposed to be the entire farm covered with iridium sprinklers, not merely a greenhouse. And ancient fruit or starfruit out there doesn't matter in the end, you'll still be printing money faster than Bill Gates

A few dozen spots inside a greenhouse is little more than a rounding error compared to the spots outside, and arguing what goes in there is even more pointless, but the greenhouse would be needed to propagate the AF if you were going with that outside.

As for the kegs, they don't go in sheds wasting valuable real estate, not to mention years of running to and from Robin's. The kegs go in the desert, the tunnel, the quarry, the backwoods, the forest and any other place that nobody ever goes, such as Clint's bedroom.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Actually, in my analogy, the hypothetical luxury garage was actually supposed to be the entire farm covered with iridium sprinklers, not merely a greenhouse. And ancient fruit or starfruit out there doesn't matter in the end, you'll still be printing money faster than Bill Gates

A few dozen spots inside a greenhouse is little more than a rounding error compared to the spots outside, and arguing what goes in there is even more pointless, but the greenhouse would be needed to propagate the AF if you were going with that outside.

As for the kegs, they don't go in sheds wasting valuable real estate, not to mention years of running to and from Robin's. The kegs go in the desert, the tunnel, the quarry, the backwoods, the forest and any other place that nobody ever goes, such as Clint's bedroom.

That's a strong argument for Starfruit in the Greenhouse then; since according to you it doesn't matter either way for outside, and inside the greenhouse you lose out on about 400000 getting a greenhouse full of Ancient Fruit instead of just putting Starfruit inside from the get-go. (116 spots, takes about 3 weeks to grow the initial Ancient Fruit, during which time you could have grown 2 Starfruit, so that's a starfruit wine lost out on entirely per slot, or around 30000, plus on average 50ish ancient fruit wine not sold because you were turning ancient fruit into seeds instead, or around 100000 more). That's during the initial period you have the greenhouse as well, when money is comparatively worth more than later on, and it's in addition to the 178000 per year you're subsequently missing out on by having Ancient Fruit instead of Starfruit.

I prefer my kegs in sheds, I value the aesthetics and time saved turning them all over more than I value the real estate.

 

[imnvs]

Well, @One More Day , you're forgetting that some of us don't think that public areas of the Stardew should be used like a shed. You do you, but you're now judging everyone based on your powergaming style. In fact, you're completely glossing over the fact that starfruit is by the numbers more profitable than ancient fruit. Just because you have turned the entire town into your brewery and don't have the time to deal with the quantity of starfruit it would take to replace your ancient fruit, it doesn't prove mathematics wrong.

 

[Honeywell]

Starfruit is more profitable and cheaper to set up.

Each ancient seed is costing you a month of time and upwards of a 1000g. Even if you don't take the ancient fruit startup cost into consideration a full shed of 137 kegs processing ancient fruit wine sells for 226,050g (base value). A full shed of starfruit wine (including seed money) sells for 253,450g.

With the 1.5 additions that Elenna covers it's possible to grow enough starfruit to feed whatever number of kegs you have. I still grow ancient fruit but it ends up more profitable to sell them raw (like berries) and reserve the keg space for starfruit.

#teamStarfruit

 

[ShneekeyTheLost]

As far as being "conditions few players ever bother with"... you are technically correct. Only 32% of players on Steam ever finish the community center, and as such it can be presumed even fewer ever have access to hyper gro, or greenhouses full of Either Starfruit or Ancient Fruit. Heck, less than 50% of players get to the point where they have a cellar. However, do you know what else few players ever bother with? Going to an internet forum to discuss the game. And, when they do, it's because they're seeking information. So the implication that because a small percentage of players will be able to take advantage of the information, means that it's not worth sharing that information, is astoundingly untrue. Personally, I found the post very helpful, and the information enlightening, so I'm glad it was shared.

You're entitled to your opinions, which I don't really share. However, you are factually incorrect in those statements.

As of right now, for Steam Achievements, the achievement Local Legend is 18.6%. Only 3.4% ever get the Joja achievement, and most of them are likely those who already got the former. Which, of course, is a prerequisite for anything on Ginger Island. He didn't add any 'cheevos to look at how many people actually unlock the final tier of fertilizer, so we don't have any hard numbers on this. However, given the prerequisite is less than 20% already, the actual percentage of players who manage to unlock the final tier of fertilizer is guaranteed to be far lower as it requires completion of Qi challenges.

If you're going to cite statistics, at least be accurate with them. And I certainly wouldn't call it 'technically correct' to say that it excludes most players. It's a simple fact. Like it or not, I really don't care.

We're free to disagree on the rest, which is cool. You're entitled to your opinion, just as I am mine. But I don't believe we have anything further to discuss if you're simply willing to reduce to Ad Hominem. Enjoy the game how you like. That's the true treasure of this game, everyone plays their own way.

 

[LoveElliotsHair]

I look at what is time efficient. I can age 189 casks in the cellar. Once it's done, I can unload it and reload it in one game day. So yes, while it only yields me 41.3g per day/2310g per bottle = $436,950 for a days work every 56 days - it's pretty passive income. Okay, so I have to harvest and put in kegs, but that doesn't take even half a day to do.

This leaves me free to go do other things except every 56 days. There is no way I'm spending all my time loading/unloading preserve jars because I have to fool with it every 2-3 days. I guess it comes down to the fact that I find that task boring.

I'm currently building fish ponds because the different colors of roe are sooooo pretty. I don't even usually harvest it because I like the way it looks!

 

[Tom]

Two things:

1. Kegs: Starfruit used to be (before the 1.5 additions) slightly less profitable than Ancient Fruit once AF is established. But Starfruit has always been a better use of Kegs (fewer Kegs required).

2. It's a game, and you play it the way you like. For example, I like running up and down the longest possible rows of Kegs, which at the moment has me putting my Kegs only outdoors on my farm and refusing to put them anywhere else. Will I ever reorganize? Maybe. It's a game. For now I am happy with my 1+ million Gold per week.

 

[Lew Zealand]

<snip stuff that reminds one of effort>

Honestly, if I switched everything over to starfruit? I'd be making MORE money but doing more work.

Danger DANGER DANGER!!

<snip information for people who do an honest day's work>

I suppose on a standard I could also do a bunch more every year at home... but that's too much work, even if I was on a standard, if you ask me.

Ah... wheeew.... deep breaths... we're gonna be OK.


I need a drink.