User talk:Zamiel

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Zamiel, when it says templates belong in user space, that means the start of the page must be "User:username/name of template". When transcluding the template, the syntax is {{User:username/name of template|parameters}}. Perhaps a review of mediawiki.org pages is in order before you proceed with multiple edits that require extensive cleanup. Best regards, margotbean (talk) 02:13, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Sell or Eat?

Zamiel, I like your ratio chart, and your rationale, as far as it goes. I hope you will keep it around, as I'd like to reference it from time to time. And I like your observation about the desperate need for food[=energy] and profit (both) in the early game. In over two years' play, I've never found a more critical focus for resource management when starting out. It always has proven to be the key to establishing my farm efficiently.

But you will admit that there are a lot of other factors to consider: friendships, crop planting, farmland clearing, collections, donations, etc., and all that goes with them. So I've never been able to consider any resource solely on an eat/sell basis. Would you agree? So, here's my basic early game strategy in a nutshell. Let me know what you think.

Cooking: Recipes need to be accumulated over time: Queen of Sauce, boosted by friendships. The ones you want most just aren't there for a while. So, I never upgrade the house until Winter year 1 at earliest. The cabin puts the cot close to the door, for minimum time spent in transit to the outside in the mean time. Costs a lot by early standards too, especially in wood.

So, what to eat? The key is salmonberries first, blackberries later. I just must have as many as I can possibly get to fuel all my activities throughout year 1. That means dedicating the berry seasons to gathering them, going throughout the map to maximize. It also means boosting Foraging skill a lot very early. Foraging 4 by the start of Spring 15 doubles salmonberries, Foraging 8 by the start of Fall 8 triples blackberries. It's doable, but you have to cut a lot of trees, everywhere, and keep cutting them down. Build the beach bridge by day 3 if you can (more foraging there). Upgrade backpack pronto, axe soon, as many times as possible. That also means upgrading pickaxe, because you need metal. But you also need lots of wood, and hardwood, and stone, and cleared farmland, so that's all mutually supportive. You also want Foraging 6 by Summer 1 so you can get lightning rods at the earliest opportunity. It fits. Chop chop.

Summary: you grope for food until Spring 15 (get every spring onion). Field snacks if you can. After that, you're basically supplied by berries, and it should be manageable after. The initial game elements should all be open and available by Spring 6.

That leaves money. Fishing is the great starter. But it takes energy, and you're going to have to use a lot of that chopping trees too. Farming is work (more energy), but you can't ignore the benefits of building community center donations. For money, you must have the Greenhouse, as early as possible. And to make that pay best, you also want Farming level 10: Artisan Profession. Make lots of Kegs, and some buildings to put them in: there's much of your resource consumption in year 1, even beyond. Tree farm for oak resin, a little for the other saps.

Money strategy: artisan is year 2 and beyond. Fishing is as early as possible, Fiberglass Rod as early as possible, mining for bug meat as you go to get bait (and not spend more money). Forget Iridium Rod until you go for sport fishing in later years. You can get everything you need in year one with the Fiberglass Rod, even completing the collection minus the legendaries. And that doesn't cost so much you can't do it early.

However, you can fish all the holes out. You need to develop other sources as much as possible. Farming. Foraging. (Collect the normal items. Keep some Daffodils for gifts: you need friends. A couple of Leeks too. Gather collections of four, make spring seeds and sell those rather than the individual items: better profit. Summer works that line even better.) Exploit Museum gift awards to plant crops. Exploit CC Forage bundles to get seeds. Grow the first 30 as crops: you get a little Foraging skill boost, and you end up with many more seeds you can make from the produce: more profit. Plant all the mixed seeds you collect. It's free crops: pure profit.

Potatoes get you the best farming return on money in Spring. Six days to grow, collect your profit, and now you can grow not only your original investment again, but also your profit. That's why it beats cauliflower. And even day for day, it equals cauli, because it produces extras sometimes: up to 25% MORE. Parsnips give a nice high return very quickly also, but the base value is so low it takes a lot of work and energy. Less effective overall. Grow those for cheap gifts and the crop and quality crops bundle. That covers a lot of early ground: they're mostly liked.

By summer, you have many more options, but your feet are already on the ground, and the strategy is mostly continuation. Plant an Orange tree outside in Spring, and Apple outside in Summer. Having two cheaper fruit trees provides less demand on building ranching infrastructure: very costly startup, and work-intensive for relatively small profits (except truffles, which are pretty good - eventually). I think ranching is for year 2 and after if you're looking for the Greenhouse in Fall. (Wool and cloth can show up by gift and recycling, so bundle coverage is possible with a little luck.) I plant spring fruit trees outside also, one of each by winter, to have some. I plant 14 fruit trees in the greenhouse, peach and pomegranate, for profit. I don't like blocking the view of that crop field there, and a greenhouse full of ancient fruit, supplemented by starfruits grown elsewhere, all turned to wine, at artisan prices, make just a ton of profit- leaving me free to go further with whatever I want in year 2, with minimal real obstacle.

And for those choices from the details that arise in play, your table has benefits there also. Butterbur (talk) 19:04, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Zamiel, I didn't notice before, but your table lacks Daffodils. I never sell or eat them anyway. They're often liked, but Sandy loves them and they're an inexpensive big friendship enhancer. You tend to get a lot of them too: handy. Butterbur (talk) 19:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the lengthy reply, but I think you might misunderstand the point of the Gold to Energy Ratio page. The point of the page is not to offer explicit advice about what to eat and what to sell. It is just to display the raw ratios in order to give the player a good baseline. At the top of the page, it says that "with all else equal, it is optimal to eat the one with the lower gold to energy ratio". The key phrase there being "with all else equal" - obviously, if you need a particular food for a gift or for a quest, then you should not sell it and you should not eat it. That part of the calculation is left as an exercise to the reader. Thus, I don't feel the need to expand the page and offer more specific strategy prescriptions at this time. Secondly, the page does not list Daffodils because they do not restore any energy. --Zamiel (talk) 19:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, Zamiel. I had forgotten that about Daffodils. As I said, I'd never eat them even if they did restore energy. And thanks for your reply. I think you misunderstood mine. I was not suggesting you were making recommendations, nor was I suggesting you expand anything. I was explaining the context in which I might put your stuff to use, and just sharing my strategy. Thought you might enjoy seeing it. Butterbur (talk) 04:21, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

For sure, thanks for the reply! --Zamiel (talk) 04:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Fishing

Zamiel, I just got a message from Margot about your "Proposed" work page, so I'm halting changes to the article page for now. I told her that we'd probably need to work out philosophical differences before proposed wording changes would make any sense, though. I'm not sure where we are currently on that side of things. I do think that my changes today reflect the goals I was trying to describe on talk pages yesterday, so if you want to see something concrete along the lines I have envisioned, they are already there for the viewing. Let me know what you're thinking please. Butterbur (talk) 17:57, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Having quickly looked over your proposed changes today, I see some things that look perfectly good to me, and some that don't. In particular, "depth" is an inappropriate word to use because it is non-intuitive. The meaning here is specialized to this one engineering application, and what is more, it does not determine anything of importance to the player; it only influences. The player need not be burdened with specialized wording, indeed should not be, and also need not be burdened with the details of how it works as long as s/he has sufficient understanding to know how to play most effectively. The internal numbers used for depths are relevant only in relative ways, and do not provide any enlightenment about what to do beyond "more is better". Do you understand my point? 18:10, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

a) As I've said, I am not opposed to renaming "depth" to some other word. Feel free to make some suggestions.

b) The following two facts are of the upmost importance to communicate to the min-maxers and the player-base more generally:

• 1) Prior to fishing level 4, casting left/right will result in higher depth than casting up/down.
• 2) Casting between 90-99% of the bar will result in an equivalent depth as a 100% cast.

With respect to these two sentences, I feel that they are most clearly and succinctly communicated using a reference to a concept of "depth". I'm not sure how you would formulate these two sentences otherwise without obfuscating the underlying mechanics in a non-helpful way. And at the very least, such a formation would likely be more verbose. --Zamiel (talk) 18:24, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed in principle. Please see new wording I put in the article this morning before being redirected. Let me know if they address your concerns. BTW, I opened a "Depth" section at Talk:Fishing, per my response to you there. Butterbur (talk) 18:34, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Then let's move the discussion there. ;) --Zamiel (talk) 18:49, 31 January 2020 (UTC)