#rop animals

[pachaprone]

Do you have any spoiler free early game tips, such as what machines are best to focus on and what buildings I should prioritize?

TAME ANIMALS

this is legit the best early-game advice i can give anyone. tame animals, build animal sheds, start breeding animals

there is so much semi-early, middle, and late game content that you need animal products for - and for a reason ill provide under the cut for people who want to see the spoilers.

one tip regarding animal sheds is once you have the basic one built, don't upgrade it yet - get another basic animal shed. then start upgrading. the basic shed holds 4 animals, and the next upgrade for the shed holds 7. so by getting another basic animal shed, you add one more slot for an animal for less cost! (30 wood and 20 stone for a basic shed, 30 flint and 50 fiber for the first upgrade)

the other thing is make friends with people! a lot of Ideas and quests and materials only become available once you hit a certain amount of flowers with someone! this is a game about community, not making the most optimized farm possible. you literally will not be able to progress unless you connect and engage with others!

in that vein, also, if you are playing single-player: try to take your time and do a bit of everything. fishing, farming, caving, etc. you need materials and resources from some skills in order to progress in another - it's a very well-balanced game. you are not in a rush!! (except the first day, meeting everyone. in which case i will say: the map shows people's current locations!)

thank you for your ask! sorry for the slow response, the holidays and my work has been quite busy!

spoilers for very late game below the cut!

some of the post main story goals require Best Quality animal goods. these are mostly only obtainable with animals bred to Max Stats, and that is a process that takes a great deal of time, even when focusing most of your time on it. you will be in a much better position if you already have some higher stat or Max Stat animals - while i don't care about saving time (this game is one you should meander through), i do care about saving you from tedium. and only doing one thing that's as slow as animal breeding...that's tedious

[pachaprone]

Should I diversify my animals in addition to my plants? (Also, thanks for all the answers :D)

of course, and thank you for all the asks!!! it's so nice to have engagement on this blog!!!

yes, diversifying your animals is a good idea! having a couple of each, enough to have a breeding pair (and then to breed those offspring...im glad inbreeding has no consequences in this game) is good, and not just for breeding!

while some animals, like boars, have males and females give the same resource (for boars, fur), having a male and female of some animals is the only way to get all of their resources! for example, male ibex drop horns, and female ibex can be milked.

taming a lot of animals also can help with easy contribution points: meat! you can send one animal to Grob per day for butchery. the next day you will receive the meat from a Smoke Signal. taming animals you don't have a specific use for, like if you already have enough of that species, is how i do this. meat, especially smoked meat, gives a lot of contribution points!

note: you can also get meat from traps, which you can get once you've unlocked the savannah. this is a good option, too - it costs materials and time setting them up, but can be done every day. meanwhile you get 4 free slots on the flute a day, but it takes multiple days to tame an animal.

there's another reason to tame a lot of animals, but it's a bit of a spoiler (not a huge one), so ill put it below the cut!

spoiler for very minor mid-late game mechanic:

non-pet species of animals have rare color variants! they are not otherwise special - much like shiny pokemon lol. they only appear on specific dates and specific seasons, and they have prerequisites: you must have had a certain number of varieties on your farm at some point! you don't need all varieties at once, just had to have invited them to your farm at some point.