So, I'm just thinking about how to maximize my profits, and I've come up with this:
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245281453
(The Branches are merely to indicate where I plant the seeds from. They were a placeholder to make it easier to look at)
This design allows me to make every crop I plant be in exactly a 3x3 square [which isn't quite perfect, as any time you can plant at least 3 (1, if the crop reproduces, or 2 if they're pineapples) crops in a bag of seeds, you're making money, but this made my OCD happy]. It also gives me a supply of fodder and a place to put the animals outside for, so I can earn P-level Eggs and Milk.
I'm thinking of moving everything down and to the right one space, and putting the border on the top and left sides, instead of the bottom and right, for ease of access.
I, of course, use the Sprites for harvesting and watering, so places to walk are no concern. I tried to give myself a decent area in which to brush/pet/milk and pick up/put down my animals, and I think that'll work out fine.
Does anyone have suggestions? Better builds they've found? Questions about my other obsessive-compulsive tendencies? Comments? Insults? Praise?
(And yeah, I totally made a topic the second I joined the forum. In your collective faces!)
Efficient Farmland Configuration?
Why, thank you. It was, after all, about 20 minutes in Firefox, if you count my other, terrible layout into which I put basically no thought:
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245283715
(Spaces were to count the squares and figure out the room I'd need for my crops. It turned out rather terrible.)
This is only my second year in the game. I had the sprites able to handle this by about Fall 1. Just play with them every day they have off. All of them are already at 100% in their respective jobs, and I did a really bad job by training two of them for animals for a bit, even.
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245283715
(Spaces were to count the squares and figure out the room I'd need for my crops. It turned out rather terrible.)
This is only my second year in the game. I had the sprites able to handle this by about Fall 1. Just play with them every day they have off. All of them are already at 100% in their respective jobs, and I did a really bad job by training two of them for animals for a bit, even.
Also, with this layout, I'm looking at these profits from crops alone, seasonally:
Spring = 350,000G (Cabbages)
Summer = 800,000G (Pineapples)
Fall = 1,266,000G (Sweet Potatoes)
Or 2,416,000G, annually. 2.5mil from crops, alone (I can plant 100 bags and not waste a single square). If only animals didn't die, I could eliminate a great deal of the grass.
Thinking about it, a bit less in Summer, because I'd need to plant some Corn annually, too, since a full family of chickens will eat up all of the Feed you can hold, if you have to feed them every day. I would need 32 of the Crop to completely refill, and it won't rain every single day, probably less, maybe even as low as 20, which would mean I'd need 4-7 squares of Corn, so not that big a loss.
My goal is to hit the 100mil mark by the end of Year 5, with the aid of the Shooting Star event.
Also, I think most of the single corners of grass are a waste of money, since for 5 of them, I'll need to use a bag JUST to plant that one square. In fall, those spaces can be used for Sweet Potatoes. You can also use the top-left one by the chicken coop for your Corn, to save a square of Pineapple.
Firstly, you're going to need the Blessed Hoe/Watering Can. This means you'll need to get down to floor 69 of the mines (They're on every 9th floor. Also, you should go down to 79 and get the Cursed Sickle while you're at it, just because. You'll be able to get Mythic stones, later, because of it. Don't forget the Alexandrite and the two Pink Diamonds on floors 30, 50, and 70).
These two tools are invaluable to maintaining an efficient farm. Mythic is easier, but you'll live without it. In fact, the cost of upgrading your tools to Mythic Level (50,000 each, plus getting to the 60th floor of the Spring Mine and not selling the stone for 20/40k, depending) really isn't made up by the miniscule amount of time you will save by having them (with the exception of the Fishing Rod, in my opinion). This can be done reasonably by Winter 1st of the first year, especially if you take advantage of the Box Lunch at the Inn. If you are making it to bed at a reasonable time (6 PM or earlier is usually what I go by), you should also make sure to use your tool until you go blue from fatigue before stepping into bed.
Now, once you have those, you'll want to make a layout similar to mine (though, again, I'm certain it can be improved). Take advantage of every single square. Remember, it doesn't matter if you can't walk there, the Harvest Sprites CAN. If you do this right, you should only need to use the Hoe 5 days out of the year. Once you till your initial layout, once each on the 30th of Spring/Summer, to repair the spaces caused randomly and by weeds from the places being unoccupied, and once on Summer/Fall 1st, again, for repairs caused overnight.
As for the Blessed Watering Can, you can use it to water a couple of full charges to help your Harvest Sprites along while you are still leveling them, though they shouldn't need it by the second Spring if you trained them right.
Which brings us to the Harvest Sprites (that's known as a segue)! Now, it should only take, I believe the number is, 18 Flours per sprite to get them to be friends enough with you to help you on the farm. Immediately set them to help you. Try to maintain an even number of water/harvest, favoring watering. So, that's 4 for Watering, 3 for Harvesting. Initially, you can set one or two of them to Animals, but because they don't use the Makers or 'pat' your animals (A button interaction), I don't recommend this later on. Remember that you can use the colored grasses instead of Flour for an equivalent affection boost.
The setup I generally use for the Harvest Sprites is getting them all to max affection, then:
Monday: Schedule 7 days of Harvest/Water (2 sprites employed)
Tuesday: Schedule 7 days of Harvest/Water (4 sprites employed)
Wednesday: Schedule 7 days of Harvest/Water (6 sprites employed)
Thursday: Schedule 7 days of Water (7 sprites employed)
Remember that you can still visit the hut on festival days. Also, try to get the Refridgerator as soon as possible so that you can keep a stash of Flour/grasses/Wild Grapes available. You should only need to give them gifts once a week to maintain their affection levels.
You'll probably only be using about 1/4 of your field in your first Spring, but do your best to till the entire thing, because, by the end of Spring of the first year, you should be able to fill up 3/4 of your field, at least, with the money you've earned from crops. You should also be doing your best to use the mines and get Power Berries. By the end of Spring, you can get three of them, as well as the special one from the Kappa, for Cucumbers, which is certainly worth the cost. You may want to hold off on using Sprites for Harvesting so that you can get this easily in the first year without filling up your Rucksack. Don't forget to play with them, regardless!
Now, for festivals and villagers. The only two that really matter are the Horse Race and Carter, though I believe it is theoretically possible to get a cow to win the Cow Festival in your first year. Regardless; you'll want to buy a Basket as soon as possible and try to save as much money as possible so that you can buy lots of medals at the Horse Race. Save scum before you enter the Town Square to find out who wins the races, and bet max on the one that gets the best odds. Please note that this does not always work, as video games are only pseudo-random, which means the results are influenced by the actions you take. This may take many tries. It is much more reliable on an emulator. Once you win, you'll want to spend as many medals as possible on that Power Berry and broaches.
Try and get a chicken quickly, and give Carter eggs as often as possible. You'll want to be attending Confession every day, anyway, so that you can save scum affection from the Sprites, the townspeople, or your animals. Anyway, keep egging Carter on so that you unlock the back door and the Truffles in the Fall.
You'll also want to work on getting house, barn, and coop upgrades as soon as possible. The Mystrile Axe is one of the first things you should consider upgrading, along with the Watering Can and Rod. The first house upgrade should take priority so that you can get the Shelves and Refrigerator, then you can decide whether the Barn/Coop/Kitchen is more valuable to you. I personally take the kitchen, since it takes me long enough to fill up the Barn, anyway, and chickens aren't a significant source of profit.
Um, I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but this is probably enough to help you improve significantly, from the way you've been speaking of your files. Rawr. Make sure to mine whenever you have the chance; don't settle for less than adamantite and orichalc, and take one of the orichalc to Saibara to make into jewelry. With this you should be rolling in money in no time. I managed to make 1mil the first year, have all the farm upgrades, blessed tools, and get all villagers to the level where the girls would be at green hearts (some were higher, but eh).
EDIT: Oh, make sure to buy a bag of corn before the end of Summer, to plant on day one of next year's Summer. While you do have two days to spare, it's best not to risk it, because you could have day 2 of the Summer be a Tuesday or Sunday, and then have a hurricane (though you should be save scumming to avoid those, anyway), in which case you would lose one of the harvest days. It's not as important to plan ahead for the other ones, as you can buy Cabbages from Won and Sweet Potatoes can be purchased on either the first or second day of the season without losing a harvest. Of course, if you're a collector/socializer/chef, like me, you'll want to get a decent stash of the other crops, too, in which case you definitely SHOULD buy a small stash ahead of time (by small I recommend having ten bags at any time; five to plant, and five to spare for those times you don't remember).
I don't expect you to read all of this in one sitting, but this is exactly what I did in this first playthrough (with some advice based on mistakes I made) to achieve what is apparently a better save than you have in you seventh year by the beginning of my second. You could probably benefit well from this.
Spring = 350,000G (Cabbages)
Summer = 800,000G (Pineapples)
Fall = 1,266,000G (Sweet Potatoes)
Or 2,416,000G, annually. 2.5mil from crops, alone (I can plant 100 bags and not waste a single square). If only animals didn't die, I could eliminate a great deal of the grass.
Thinking about it, a bit less in Summer, because I'd need to plant some Corn annually, too, since a full family of chickens will eat up all of the Feed you can hold, if you have to feed them every day. I would need 32 of the Crop to completely refill, and it won't rain every single day, probably less, maybe even as low as 20, which would mean I'd need 4-7 squares of Corn, so not that big a loss.
My goal is to hit the 100mil mark by the end of Year 5, with the aid of the Shooting Star event.
Also, I think most of the single corners of grass are a waste of money, since for 5 of them, I'll need to use a bag JUST to plant that one square. In fall, those spaces can be used for Sweet Potatoes. You can also use the top-left one by the chicken coop for your Corn, to save a square of Pineapple.
I've been thinking about this, and, as I came here looking for help, so, too, will I reciprocate.HMM wrote:my farm is nothing like that, the sprites i have arent that skilled, probably a quarter of the experience bar, i couldn't imagine using most of the whole field.
Firstly, you're going to need the Blessed Hoe/Watering Can. This means you'll need to get down to floor 69 of the mines (They're on every 9th floor. Also, you should go down to 79 and get the Cursed Sickle while you're at it, just because. You'll be able to get Mythic stones, later, because of it. Don't forget the Alexandrite and the two Pink Diamonds on floors 30, 50, and 70).
These two tools are invaluable to maintaining an efficient farm. Mythic is easier, but you'll live without it. In fact, the cost of upgrading your tools to Mythic Level (50,000 each, plus getting to the 60th floor of the Spring Mine and not selling the stone for 20/40k, depending) really isn't made up by the miniscule amount of time you will save by having them (with the exception of the Fishing Rod, in my opinion). This can be done reasonably by Winter 1st of the first year, especially if you take advantage of the Box Lunch at the Inn. If you are making it to bed at a reasonable time (6 PM or earlier is usually what I go by), you should also make sure to use your tool until you go blue from fatigue before stepping into bed.
Now, once you have those, you'll want to make a layout similar to mine (though, again, I'm certain it can be improved). Take advantage of every single square. Remember, it doesn't matter if you can't walk there, the Harvest Sprites CAN. If you do this right, you should only need to use the Hoe 5 days out of the year. Once you till your initial layout, once each on the 30th of Spring/Summer, to repair the spaces caused randomly and by weeds from the places being unoccupied, and once on Summer/Fall 1st, again, for repairs caused overnight.
As for the Blessed Watering Can, you can use it to water a couple of full charges to help your Harvest Sprites along while you are still leveling them, though they shouldn't need it by the second Spring if you trained them right.
Which brings us to the Harvest Sprites (that's known as a segue)! Now, it should only take, I believe the number is, 18 Flours per sprite to get them to be friends enough with you to help you on the farm. Immediately set them to help you. Try to maintain an even number of water/harvest, favoring watering. So, that's 4 for Watering, 3 for Harvesting. Initially, you can set one or two of them to Animals, but because they don't use the Makers or 'pat' your animals (A button interaction), I don't recommend this later on. Remember that you can use the colored grasses instead of Flour for an equivalent affection boost.
The setup I generally use for the Harvest Sprites is getting them all to max affection, then:
Monday: Schedule 7 days of Harvest/Water (2 sprites employed)
Tuesday: Schedule 7 days of Harvest/Water (4 sprites employed)
Wednesday: Schedule 7 days of Harvest/Water (6 sprites employed)
Thursday: Schedule 7 days of Water (7 sprites employed)
Remember that you can still visit the hut on festival days. Also, try to get the Refridgerator as soon as possible so that you can keep a stash of Flour/grasses/Wild Grapes available. You should only need to give them gifts once a week to maintain their affection levels.
You'll probably only be using about 1/4 of your field in your first Spring, but do your best to till the entire thing, because, by the end of Spring of the first year, you should be able to fill up 3/4 of your field, at least, with the money you've earned from crops. You should also be doing your best to use the mines and get Power Berries. By the end of Spring, you can get three of them, as well as the special one from the Kappa, for Cucumbers, which is certainly worth the cost. You may want to hold off on using Sprites for Harvesting so that you can get this easily in the first year without filling up your Rucksack. Don't forget to play with them, regardless!
Now, for festivals and villagers. The only two that really matter are the Horse Race and Carter, though I believe it is theoretically possible to get a cow to win the Cow Festival in your first year. Regardless; you'll want to buy a Basket as soon as possible and try to save as much money as possible so that you can buy lots of medals at the Horse Race. Save scum before you enter the Town Square to find out who wins the races, and bet max on the one that gets the best odds. Please note that this does not always work, as video games are only pseudo-random, which means the results are influenced by the actions you take. This may take many tries. It is much more reliable on an emulator. Once you win, you'll want to spend as many medals as possible on that Power Berry and broaches.
Try and get a chicken quickly, and give Carter eggs as often as possible. You'll want to be attending Confession every day, anyway, so that you can save scum affection from the Sprites, the townspeople, or your animals. Anyway, keep egging Carter on so that you unlock the back door and the Truffles in the Fall.
You'll also want to work on getting house, barn, and coop upgrades as soon as possible. The Mystrile Axe is one of the first things you should consider upgrading, along with the Watering Can and Rod. The first house upgrade should take priority so that you can get the Shelves and Refrigerator, then you can decide whether the Barn/Coop/Kitchen is more valuable to you. I personally take the kitchen, since it takes me long enough to fill up the Barn, anyway, and chickens aren't a significant source of profit.
Um, I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff, but this is probably enough to help you improve significantly, from the way you've been speaking of your files. Rawr. Make sure to mine whenever you have the chance; don't settle for less than adamantite and orichalc, and take one of the orichalc to Saibara to make into jewelry. With this you should be rolling in money in no time. I managed to make 1mil the first year, have all the farm upgrades, blessed tools, and get all villagers to the level where the girls would be at green hearts (some were higher, but eh).
EDIT: Oh, make sure to buy a bag of corn before the end of Summer, to plant on day one of next year's Summer. While you do have two days to spare, it's best not to risk it, because you could have day 2 of the Summer be a Tuesday or Sunday, and then have a hurricane (though you should be save scumming to avoid those, anyway), in which case you would lose one of the harvest days. It's not as important to plan ahead for the other ones, as you can buy Cabbages from Won and Sweet Potatoes can be purchased on either the first or second day of the season without losing a harvest. Of course, if you're a collector/socializer/chef, like me, you'll want to get a decent stash of the other crops, too, in which case you definitely SHOULD buy a small stash ahead of time (by small I recommend having ten bags at any time; five to plant, and five to spare for those times you don't remember).
I don't expect you to read all of this in one sitting, but this is exactly what I did in this first playthrough (with some advice based on mistakes I made) to achieve what is apparently a better save than you have in you seventh year by the beginning of my second. You could probably benefit well from this.
Last edited by Antoids on Jun 17, 2009 7:23 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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haloharvestmoon
- UNoT Extreme Mooomber
- Posts: 3049
- Joined: May 13, 2009 1:18 pm
It's less that it's difficult to think of and more that it takes time. However, I have the goal of getting the vacation cottage by the end of year 5, so I needed to work on a good build, anyway. I'm definitely not doing perfect with this, though. My OCD won't let me use anything less than perfect 3x3 planting patterns, but I could be doing significantly better if I used that grassy edge for crops, since any time you get at least three harvests out of one bag of seeds, you are profiting. I will also definitely need to remove all but 3 or 4 of those grass corners in my animal areas, as that's 500g for a single square on most of them, except the bottom-left one of the chicken field and two or three of the ones on the cow field).
Though, it looks like I won't be accomplishing that goal at the rate I am progressing. I will likely need to restart and play through my first year better. I was having issues where I was saving too many of my items and spending too much on certain things, and didn't have enough money to fill my field with Cabbages this season. That's a pretty serious blow. I also didn't mine Orichalc often enough. I should have started doing it once, weekly after I got my shelves, and built up a stash so that I could make a jewelry every day I wasn't upgrading tools or making Makers.
EDIT: I think I will start over and log it. That'd be fun.
Though, it looks like I won't be accomplishing that goal at the rate I am progressing. I will likely need to restart and play through my first year better. I was having issues where I was saving too many of my items and spending too much on certain things, and didn't have enough money to fill my field with Cabbages this season. That's a pretty serious blow. I also didn't mine Orichalc often enough. I should have started doing it once, weekly after I got my shelves, and built up a stash so that I could make a jewelry every day I wasn't upgrading tools or making Makers.
EDIT: I think I will start over and log it. That'd be fun.
Well, I only started this game again because I wanted to finally get the vacation house, and my goal is to do it before 6th Spring. I always restart a Harvest Moon game about a year after I get bored with it and apply my knowledge to a significant goal within the game. Normally, I just play to collect items and get married and stuff, but when I restart, I go all out like this.HMM wrote:Wow, you take all the time to plan ahead, have everything scheduled, calculate expenses, income, and everything! i plan what to do for the next few game days, but never for a few years ahead.
Heh, I used to just plant 5 or 6 crops at a time when I was playing this the first time through, and it took me until Year 3 to get Mythic items. I probably could have had the first one before Winter ended the first year if I had done this playthrough right.
Also, the two applications on Ushi no Tanex4 site helped me immensely in all my planning. I don't think I'd be doing half as well as I am right now without those two apps.
Anyway, you can have fun how you want (it's part of the reason Harvest Moon games appeal to so many people), and if you don't like to plan out super-far ahead like I am, that's fine. You just seemed to be expressing frustration that your game wasn't further advanced than it was, so I thought I'd offer some tips that I learned playing through this game. That's all. :P
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samurai goroh
- UNoT Extreme Mooomber
- Posts: 2364
- Joined: Jan 13, 2004 10:31 am
- Contact:
If you build a fence with no corners it won't be useful against to protect the animals against the wild dog... You could make the fence for the chickens smaller to recuperate the spaces used for the grass...Antoids wrote:So, I'm just thinking about how to maximize my profits, and I've come up with this:
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245281453
(The Branches are merely to indicate where I plant the seeds from. They were a placeholder to make it easier to look at)
...
Does anyone have suggestions? Better builds they've found? Questions about my other obsessive-compulsive tendencies? Comments? Insults? Praise?
BTW, do you plan to leave everything to the harvest sprites? Because you can't walk to water the crops...
Also, here are some layouts I have: Farm Map Designs
I wasn't aware of that dog bit. I'll be sure to corner the outer edges, then.samurai goroh wrote:If you build a fence with no corners it won't be useful against to protect the animals against the wild dog... You could make the fence for the chickens smaller to recuperate the spaces used for the grass...Antoids wrote:So, I'm just thinking about how to maximize my profits, and I've come up with this:
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245281453
(The Branches are merely to indicate where I plant the seeds from. They were a placeholder to make it easier to look at)
...
Does anyone have suggestions? Better builds they've found? Questions about my other obsessive-compulsive tendencies? Comments? Insults? Praise?
I don't think I should have a chicken area at all, to be honest. I can maximize profits by just mass breeding and selling the chickens, maintaining my stock with the eggs they lay on their first day of maturity. P eggs probably won't get me more than that. I could possibly maintain one or two chickens once I get the coop upgrade so that I have a stock with which to woo Carter. This would also pretty much solve the issue I have with Corn.
Do you happen to know if anyone else has tried for the vacation house within five years? It'd be pretty cool to be the first, heh.
And yes, I plan to leave everything to the sprites, collecting what I can from the field's yields to hoard for the Star event.
EDIT: A modification of this (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/ ... armMap.png), with no space inbetween the crops or fence would probably be suitable. And the fence could be trimmed on either side, to about 3/5ths its current size for the best yields, I think.
Alright, so I started over my save file today, ready to begin my goal with my 1-year test run as experience. I decided to go with this configuration:
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245354451
By Fall of the first year, I should be able to afford it, as well as have Sprites experienced enough to tend it.
My goals on this run are:
http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll4/ ... 1245354451
By Fall of the first year, I should be able to afford it, as well as have Sprites experienced enough to tend it.
My goals on this run are:
- At least 4 Sprites trained fully in Watering and at least 3 trained fully in Harvesting
- Barn and Coop upgrades
- 16 Cows, 4 of which give P milk, the rest of which give L milk.
- An efficient Chicken factory
- First house upgrade, full kitchen, shelves
- All Blessed Tools
- Mythic Fishing Rod
- Teleport Stone
- Gem of the Goddess
- Vacation Cottage by the end of Year 5
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samurai goroh
- UNoT Extreme Mooomber
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Well, the idea of that map is to use the Blessed Watering Can to water the crop & have all the barn animals outside.Antoids wrote:A modification of this (Farm Map Design), with no space in between the crops or fence would probably be suitable. And the fence could be trimmed on either side, to about 3/5ths its current size for the best yields, I think.
Seems rushed to me. Is it really possible to make it in time? People usually take 20-25 years, I'm sure that in 10 years should be possible, but with only 5 I have my doubts (all the things you would need to manipulate to get cash ASAP...).Antoids wrote:Do you happen to know if anyone else has tried for the vacation house within five years? It'd be pretty cool to be the first, heh.
I think I'm only going to have them outside long enough to get the 600 hours required for P Milk, then keep them inside, because I'll save more time that way. The grass is just for the fodder for that time. And I'll only need to do it with 4 cows, because you can only win that festival 4 times in the 5 year period.samurai goroh wrote:Well, the idea of that map is to use the Blessed Watering Can to water the crop & have all the barn animals outside.Antoids wrote:A modification of this (Farm Map Design), with no space in between the crops or fence would probably be suitable. And the fence could be trimmed on either side, to about 3/5ths its current size for the best yields, I think.
Seems rushed to me. Is it really possible to make it in time? People usually take 20-25 years, I'm sure that in 10 years should be possible, but with only 5 I have my doubts (all the things you would need to manipulate to get cash ASAP...).Antoids wrote:Do you happen to know if anyone else has tried for the vacation house within five years? It'd be pretty cool to be the first, heh.
I don't know if it would be possible in 5. I think, if I wanted to be miserable, I could run the mines ad nauseum, replenishing my stamina with pretty much any food, because that'd be worth the cost, but I'd like to only mine once a day, twice at max, once I get the capability to find Mythic Stones. I only need to get enough money to sell 50,000,000G worth of items, and probably significantly less, because I'll be making money before that event as well with what the Harvest sprites are farming (I should get at least 8mil out of that, alone). When I did my very first playthrough, I think I would have had enough by year 15, playing rather casually. I'll probably have to do some mine misery towards the end to just barely close up the gap, but I think it should be doable. It'll definitely be close, though.
Yeah, but with the cost to actually upgrade it to that level, I could sell the Mythic Stone I would have used to upgrade the can and fund my Harvest Sprites for the rest of the playthrough, instead, and while they're watering, I spend the time I would have used to water my crops to mine or fish, instead.HMM wrote:Dis you know, if you had a mythic watering can, you could water the whole field in 5 or 6 tries.