Talk:Tapper

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Tapper times changed in 1.4?

Ever since 1.4 hit tappers have seemed to be taking longer to produce their products. At first I thought it was just the processing time chages that effected all machines, but the difference seemed to be more than that would explain. So I just checked the times just after putting a tapper on the tree and got these values.

• Pine tree 9,000m (6d 6h)
• Oak tree 12,000m (8d 8h)
• Maple tree 15,000m (10d 10h)

I don't believe I have any mods that should be effecting tapper times, but I'm not in a position to check without right this second. Can someone verify these times? Metalax (talk) 19:52, 9 December 2019

+1 for someone (other than me) looking in the game code to see if base processing times have changed margotbean (talk) 01:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

How did you check the times? I suspect that you did this when the time was 10am. The processing times for the tappers hasn't changed. However, the current time is removed from the processing time when the tapper is placed/product is removed. It seems the intent is to be 16000/13000/10000 from the beginning of the day regardless of when it was loaded. As an aside, tappers suffer from a similar time quirk that was fixed for overnight processing times. The later you place the tapper, the earlier it will be ready. BlaDe (talk) 01:35, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Nope, checked at 6am just as the tapper went on, using lookup anything. I'll check putting one on a tree at the end of the day in a bit. Metalax (talk)

Right at 1am, putting a new sapper on the tree.

• Pine tree 7,500m (5d 5h)
• Oak tree 10,500m (7d 7h)
• Maple tree 13,500m (9d 9h)

So 25h less than putting it on at 6am. So yeah it's definately reducing the time for starting later, and by more than the difference in start times. However it works, it really should go on the page somewhere, because it's certainly not intuitive. Metalax (talk) 03:46, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

1am is 2500, so those numbers make sense. I would have expected you 6am numbers to be 15400/12400/9400 though... BlaDe (talk) 04:24, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

So, does all this apply just to the first product from the tapper, or to all successive products? Or do successive ones depend on the time of harvest in the same way as the original placement? Basically, is the timing permanent or ever changing? Butterbur (talk) 07:09, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

The tappers' time begins on placement or harvest. BlaDe (talk) 07:25, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. Butterbur (talk) 15:41, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

So, in light of the clarification, and re-reading the discussion without the fatigue of the day upon me, it now comes clear. Re "the current time is removed from the processing time", what you're saying is that there is a time subtraction. The processing time is considered to have started at a fixed time for each day, no matter when the tapper is placed or harvested on that day. Interestingly, that fixed time is before the start of the day in question. It does not occur at the 6am time that the game day starts for all other purposes. Rather, it starts at 12:00 midnight the night before, a time that is actually the day before (as game days are marked), so it is "fictional" in a sense.

So, the 16000/13000/10000 "processing times" are not really the processing times but just a basis for finding them. If one runs the clock as the game does, the processing times must be considered to be 15400/12400/9400. That it because 600 is subtracted from prior midnight to arrive at 6am of the game day when tapper activity takes place (100m per hour=overnight passage). Looking at it that way, any additional amount subtracted is the amount of time that has passed since 6am. 1am is 19 hours past 6am, so an additional 1140 ought to be subtracted (60m per hour=daytime passage), leaving 14260/11240/8240. But according to your statements above, the 19 hours is also calculated at 100m per hour, or 1900, yielding 13500/10500/7500. That is the counter-intuitive part. And I would argue that it is probably a bug, because it is inconsistent with the rules of the passage of game time. But this method does get us to a point where we can look at the calculation and say that processing starts at the start of the day in which you interact with the tapper. (Of course, you could say you are still asleep until you service the tappers.)  ;) Butterbur (talk) 16:12, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

It occurs to me that if we say that processing starts at the start of the day of interaction, then it is possible to know precisely when any tapper is next ready to harvest, and that this can be written in the article. No more of "7-8 days", but "7d later at hh:mm". Butterbur (talk) 16:30, 10 December 2019 (UTC)

I've now analyzed this to death, and I can definitively say that version 1.4 does the exact same time-of-day correction as version 1.3. Tapper processing times have only been altered indirectly, via the global version 1.4 change to fixed 1600-minute days. However, the 1.3-based processing times previously posted in the article were actually underestimates (and/or valid only for players who went to sleep well before midnight in version 1.3).

Furthermore, I'm declaring the details of the processing time to be bugged, see Tapper#Bug. I can't imagine that ConcernedApe wanted tappers to behave unrealistically, counter-intuitively and differently from every other machine in the game. From a player point of view these screwy processing times are a nightmare to work out and can easily mess up player games. The most notable problem being preparing pine resin for Egg Festival strawberries. That's how I came here -- I assumed that "5-6 days" meant that placing tappers first thing on Spring 8 would give me pine tar at some point on Spring 13. But nope, I got none. Placing them earlier or later would have worked, which makes no sense. Google shows I'm not the only person who had this problem.

I've explicitly tested all the numbers included in Tapper#Bug using version 1.4 -- placing tappers, recording the times, waiting for them to finish. Plus the numbers are all exactly what you would calculate from the (version 1.3) info posted by Fblhtp (revsion 75445). They match what I get when playing version 1.3 if my player passes out at 2 am.

But there is one unresolved inconsistency in all of this. Metalax's numbers at the start of this discussion are different from what I'm getting, and just don't match what happens when I'm playing the game. I can provide more details if anyone is interested. --Nebulous Maestress (talk) 01:24, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

There are a few processing machines that work like this: https://www.reddit.com/r/StardewValley/comments/e21pft/stardew_valley_14_released_on_pc/faghtke/

Mushroom boxes in the cave are a different beast altogether. They start processing depending on when you go to bed! - I will be posting information on the talk page over there soon to help get the information corrected. BlaDe (talk) 03:07, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Nebulous Maestress - thank you!!!!! The unresolved inconsistency may be due to changes made between v1.4.whatever was current last December and v1.4.5. I don't know, but what's on the page now is better than what's been there since v1.3 at least. margotbean (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2020 (UTC)