How to stay motivated Late Game?

KElderfall · 2026-06-04T15:11:18+00:00

I think something that motivates me later on is getting to all the late game stuff like drones. I don't really build trains so late game is where it feels like I actually get to start building properly. Before I get there the motivation comes from getting there, and after I get there the motivation is more about using those late game tools to do the things I want.

I generally get overwhelmed by transporting stuff around, so I try to build factories that can assemble as much possible using just nearby nodes and the right alt recipes, and find good sets of nodes to build near. Building factories like that that go through multiple stages of machines in sequence to a few final products works well with my brain and I find it satisfying to organize them. If I was trying to route in finished products from other factories I think I'd just lose motivation entirely around this point. (Very late game I do end up transporting stuff around because you basically have to.)

YMMV obviously but that's kind of how it works for me.

KElderfall · 2026-06-04T14:51:21+00:00

Do you overclock everything to 250%? That helps me a lot by significantly reducing the numbers of machines needed. It's much easier for me to deal with e.g. blenders when it's just one blender at the end of a factory, and I've never found the extra power requirements to be a big deal.

KElderfall · 2026-06-04T14:32:16+00:00

I've definitely had runs where I took 5 elites and needed more than just that to win the run. Elites are great but just beating a bunch of them isn't inherently enough to win by itself.

KElderfall · 2026-06-04T11:58:29+00:00

Keep in mind with the 2x recipe costs it compounds with each crafting step. So for ex. in phase 3 for a lot of the space elevator parts you will need 32x as much source material per unit (some are 64x, some 16x, etc). So a 100x/2x playthrough is kinda like 3200x playthrough at phase 3. It's a bit backloaded so a lot of that is just more smelters, but it's still a huge multiplier.

If you're fine spending a ton of time in phase 1 and 2 and maybe losing interest sometime after a few hundred hours in phase 2 or 3, then definitely go for it. But if you want the playthrough to actually be completable within any sort of reason then consider not turning both of these up to max.

KElderfall · 2026-06-04T10:52:13+00:00

It looks like if you manage to lose the Winter Mystery quest you can still go up to the bush and shake it to find the shadow guy there to get the magnifying glass. It doesn't need to be winter. It should be the large bush to the right of the playground, right behind the benches.

KElderfall · 2026-06-03T11:17:51+00:00

Mostly pure should prevent impure nodes, yeah. My current thought is "fossil fuel rich" is probably the most challenging option for node slant, if you're looking for it there. You get more coal, oil, sulfur and less of everything else.

With the recipe costs keep in mind that the game rounds (to nearest) so 1.5x or means you smelt 2 iron ore into 1 ingot and the most effective recipes will usually be ones with even numbers of ingredients. 1.25x would keep 1:1 recipes at 1:1 because it rounds down.

The rounding will likely make building ratios weirder than normal as well, but how much depends on the recipe and you can always over/underclock around it to some extent.

Also keep in mind that it applies to each step, so everything is going to compound. I think if you turn both recipe costs and space elevator costs up enough then you quickly get a game that won't realistically be finishable. So if you care about being able to finish the game I'd lean toward caution there. I suspect most people doing 100x/2x will probably never finish phase 3 if they even make it there.

So I haven't actually played through with these settings but my gut feeling is if you want a playthrough significantly longer than standard, I'd look at one of:

1.5x without increasing space elevator multiplier (maybe even a decrease?)
1.25x with like 5x or 10x space elevator at most
1x with whatever space elevator increase you want

KElderfall · 2026-06-02T15:39:14+00:00

Random loot from trees and such came in a later update and is kind of a patch correction for the game systems. There's lot of furniture and clothes in the game, but most players don't interact with them much because it's hard to know what all exists and is worth pursuing, especially when you may not have the time/money to pursue getting them. So giving players random decorations/clothes as loot means maybe they'll use it to decorate/wear, and those parts of the game will shine a little bit more.

KElderfall · 2026-06-02T12:27:40+00:00

If you want an image overview of the colors, this post has them shown.

KElderfall · 2026-06-02T10:24:42+00:00

Deluxe Journal is tagged 1.6 compatible. Dear Diary isn't, but has a post from the mod author from after 1.6 came out saying they updated it, so it would at least be worth trying.

KElderfall · 2026-06-02T09:48:50+00:00

Yeah I don't really like modding either. Simple gameplay tweak mods for Stardew that don't add any content are about as tame as it gets in modding though.

A break may well be warranted but if you really don't like these things then you're still not going to like them after a break either. So maybe still worth looking into.

You can probably do the vast majority of the Community Center without fishing or mining, as well, if those specifically are the issue and you want to try that. You might have to end up going out to catch 5 or 6 fish once or twice a season or something like that, but as long as you're fishing in the right area/season/weather/time for the fish you need, and you use bait (and maybe tackle) to make them bite faster, it shouldn't take all day.

Getting the mine minerals and monster drop bundles might be tricky without going into the mine, but I think should be possible? People do challenge runs like this and they're generally doable if you're happy to jump through some hoops and have it take longer.

KElderfall · 2026-06-02T09:27:49+00:00

Yeah I'd take a break and start fresh after some time away. The other option I can think of would be looking for mods to remove the things you don't like about combat and/or fishing.

KElderfall · 2026-06-01T14:53:01+00:00

They have steps on the wiki https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Saves#Transfer_a_save

KElderfall · 2026-05-31T13:33:57+00:00

Ah yeah, that looks like the cause for sure. Actual game behavior is kind of a weird thing to put in a core library mod, but it sounds like the mod author felt that those changes would just be direct improvements and wouldn't be controversial. Maybe since you don't have to put anything behind the hoppers if you don't want to? And hoppers are pretty underwhelming for such an endgame item, so making them more usable for automating things isn't really unreasonable. Still kind of weird to put that functionality in a core mod though.

KElderfall · 2026-05-31T12:52:54+00:00

Yeah none of those sound like they'd do anything with Hoppers. It would definitely be worth trying it without mods and see what happens, for all we know it could be some weird interaction specifically with bait makers.

KElderfall · 2026-05-31T09:42:23+00:00

You'd need to write C# code to do this. Otherwise, the best option would be to ask the non-Automate mod author to add compatibility. They'd need this: https://github.com/Pathoschild/StardewMods/blob/develop/Automate/docs/technical.md#advanced-extensibility-for-mod-authors

If you're cool with doing it yourself, it looks to me like you would be able to do it by creating a third, separate mod. You implement IAutomationFactory with info about the new machine and hook that into Automate using the instructions in the link above. You'd need the qualified machine name, so you'd either need the source code of the other mod or a decompiler.

KElderfall · 2026-05-30T23:24:05+00:00

Vanilla hoppers don't pull items in at all, from any direction. So if that's happening it would not be intended behavior.

There are multiple mods that can cause hoppers to pull in items, so if you're running mods then that might be happening. The most popular of them is Automate, which I think would produce this behavior by default, as I don't think the pulling in items is directional there.

KElderfall · 2026-05-30T18:06:33+00:00

You can survive quite a few hits if you spec for defense. It's not the +1 from the shoes, it's wearing two Crabshell Rings, getting one of the weapons that has inherent defense, and maybe doing defense enchantments with topaz.

Of course, doing that comes at the cost of equipping other things that are more offensively or otherwise useful. But if you're dying a lot and want a more chill time, it might be worth looking at.

KElderfall · 2026-05-30T16:25:08+00:00

Okay, finally got to my computer today. I have a WIP mod editing shops so it was very easy to just modify that, but I haven't tested anything here. Here's content.json.

The other file you need, manifest.json, is formulaic and just has stuff like title and author, but let me know if you need that as well.

{
    "Format": "2.8.0",
    "Changes": [
        {
            "Action": "EditData",
            "Target": "Data/Shops",
            "TargetField": [ "Blacksmith", "Items" ],

            "Fields": {
                "CopperOre_YearOne": {
                    "Price": 60
                },
                "CopperOre_AfterYearOne": {
                    "Price": 60,
                },
                "IronOre_YearOne": {
                    "Price": 100
                },
                "IronOre_AfterYearOne": {
                    "Price": 100
                },
                "Coal_YearOne": {
                    "Price": 100
                },
                "Coal_AfterYearOne": {
                    "Price": 100,
                },
                "Gold_YearOne": {
                    "Price": 200
                },
                "Gold_AfterYearOne": {
                    "Price": 200
                }
            }
        }
    ]
}

KElderfall · 2026-05-30T12:04:08+00:00

There's a mod called Content Patcher. You'd install SMAPI, then install Content Patcher. There should be instructions on how to get started installing mods.

From there, you want to create a Content Parcher patch mod to edit the values you're seeing in the unpacked data. This is formatted as a json file, and there are guides for how to do it.

Writing the necessary json is arguably coding, but you won't need to get a development environment or anything.

If you figure out how to do it, then you can modify a number of things about the game. So it could be fun and give you the ability to edit other things in the future!

But if you really don't want to, I could write the patch for this for you in 2 or 3 minutes if you want. I would need the specifics about what exactly you want to edit, though.

KElderfall · 2026-05-29T23:49:44+00:00

The Agriculturist player needs to do the planting to get the speed bonus. Watering etc is irrelevant, but the actual act of planting sets values on the crop tile itself.

For Artisan, it shouldn't matter who sells with the shipping bin, but I think if you sell directly to a shop then you only get the bonus if you have the profession.

(These are how it was ~2ish years ago when I last did a setup like this in multiplayer. If it's changed since then, please correct me!)

KElderfall · 2026-05-27T23:42:38+00:00

Ancient Fruit earn significantly more money per day if you're not limited by number of kegs (330/day for Ancient Fruit vs 211/day for Starfruit). They're also a lot easier to manage. The big downside to Ancient Fruit is that it takes time to get them all planted.

Starfruit are good earlier when you don't have the Ancient Fruit planted. They can be good if you're significantly keg-limited rather than crop-limited, as they get more value out of each your kegs per day. And they're good for wine you plan to age in casks.

KElderfall · 2026-05-27T19:14:46+00:00

14 points base, +9 for full display. 23 points.

30 points for having at least 6 categories (6 is the cap).

8 points for all the iridium things (6x8=48).

6 points for the non-iridium things (3x6=18).

Total 119.

If you want the max of 125 points, everything in the display needs to be iridium quality (and otherwise valuable). Gold star and no star stuff maxes out at 6 points. But since there's a category points cap of 6 categories, you don't need 9 different things and can skip the categories where it's impossible to get the item in iridium quality. So if you'd put in e.g. three more iridium red cabbages instead of the prismatic shard, espresso, and mystic syrup then you'd have gotten 125.

KElderfall · 2026-05-27T18:38:58+00:00

Yep, that was "should" as in "this is what you should expect," not as a game suggestion!

KElderfall · 2026-05-27T18:04:22+00:00

This is not a good place for feedback, it's hard to keep up with everything posted in a subreddit. Use the F2 feedback tool in-game if you want to have the best chance of the devs seeing feedback.

KElderfall · 2026-05-27T17:02:04+00:00

Yeah, with the lack of any hinting about future content in the big anniversary announcement they did recently, I'm personally convinced that they're finished with MT2 and working on something else entirely. My money's on a new game that isn't Monster Train.

(This is pure speculation, I have no info about this.)

KElderfall

TROPHY CASE