Another Farm Roguelike – Challenge Mode: No Crops: Miner Guide

A fairly easy way to conquer Challenge Mode: No Crops using the Miner class.

The Challenge: No Crops

Make it 7 weeks without planting any crops!

This method will let you complete this challenge with the Miner class.

Warning: This challenge is enforced by removing your hoe, shovel, and watering can.

You can’t plant trees! Never Ever Sell your Wood!

• Junk Water upgrade is your only source of renewable wood, via fishing. DON’T SKIP IT!

No Flowers, No Dye, No Crafting Potions

You can’t dig for sand to make glass, jars, and bottles.

• no jars for Juice or Jam – apple/oranges sell more as seeds
• Baked Fish only, no canning fish in the preserves jar

You can’t feed animals

• No eggs, no milk, no truffles
• Meat and hide is still an option
• you can’t process leather on a loom, unless you get lucky with a quest reward or upgrade

Upgrades to Take

Highest Priority:

• More max energy
• Performance (Reduce tool energy cost)
• enchanted crafts (gain 1 energy when crafting item)
• ?? (+1 to resources harvested: ore, rock, gems)
• 100% furnaces return coal
• Extra Space (all buildings +1 slot)
• Furnace Master (Furnaces +1 slot)

Useful:

• Miner Axe (random ore chance from axe use) – even if trees are gone, this triggers when chopping down buildings. Valuable, if slow, source for diamond ore.
• Spooky Tools/Spooky Fish (tool use/caught fish have chance to spawn alchemy item) – for building totems, free money
• Versatile (Craft anything, without craft unlock buildings. Ingredients still needed.) – If you can pick this up early, even better.
• ?? (Animals don’t need to be fed, animal products worth less $) – this will allow you to make fried eggs for energy and wool clothing for cash in later game
• ?? (Alchemy pots give random potions) – Access to potions for bonuses or sales

Free Money:

• Falling Fruit (free money, will pay for itself in less than a week if you haven’t clear-cut the map)
• Tax Error (rent lowered)
• Connections (rent lowered)

The First Week

Like most runs, week 1 rent is to be just matched while you focus on building up your infrastructure.

When harvesting resources, Focus on the largest stone/ore rocks. The Miner’s bonus makes them the best materials/energy ratio.

In Order:

• Build 2 furnaces, get the needed 5 gold ores smelting so as to take your pickaxe to gold in the morning.
• Build a mine, preferably with the range just at the corner of the map. Leave set to stone.
• Build another furnace or two, get 3 copper, 4 iron, 5 gold to get your axe to gold.
• Build a sawmill or two and a quarry. Start saving up the 15 polished stone, 25 planks needed for the jewelry building. Build this ASAP.
• Fish with leftover energy.
• Sell fruit & fish high-ish to make rent. If you have to, sell smelted metal to make rent the day before payment day.

If you can:

• Start building up more mines, neatly with zones touching but not overlapping. Clear out their influence zones for max spawning. Set them to about half stone, half metal, with one set to gems.
• Start building more quarry. You want about even numbers of quarry and furnaces – slightly more furnaces until you get Furnace Master upgrade.
• Upgrade, in order: your pickaxe to diamond, your axe to diamond, your hammer to gold/diamond, your fishing rod to gold.

With a Jewelry Building

Once you’ve made your Jewelry Building (or got lucky with the Versatile upgrade), you’re able to craft jewelry.

You’ll need Cut Gems.

The color of gem used does not effect the maximum value of the finished jewelry. Using different colors will take up more inventory space, but will give you more chances to have something selling at or near max value on a day.

• Set a mine to Gems (red pile icon).
• Mine the resulting gems that appear the next day
• Feed the rough gems to the Quarry buildings – the same building used to craft Polished Stone.
• The next day, you’ll have Cut Gems.

You’ll also need metal bars.

As you’d guess, diamond jewelry is worth the most, then gold, iron, and copper.

• Set a mine to Ore (gold ore icon)
• Set a mine to stone (grey rock icon)
• Mine the resulting ores that appear the next day.
• Mine the resulting coal that appears the next day, and clean up the stone too for use.
• Smelt the metal in furnaces, prioritize by value: diamond > gold > iron > copper

Actually Crafting Jewelry

• You’ll need at least one empty inventory slot, probably two.
• Open the menu, and the crafting tab. Page down twice to find the plain Ring and Necklace crafting.
• Click and hold to craft a stack of a blank ring or necklace.
• Find the crafting icon that matches the blank you made, and the cut gem you have. Click and hold to craft a stack.

Maximize Profits

Once you have the cash, get another row or two of inventory so you can hold on to jewelry. Sell within $25 or so of Maximum Value.

Prioritize Necklaces. The profit per resource is higher.

If you have the Enchanted Crafts upgrade, it may be worth re-balancing to crafting rings: crafting rings means more items crafted, more energy earned, more resources harvested. I have not tested the math on this.

Balancing for Maximum Output

So you have a goal, and can make a profit. Time to expand.

Every day or two you should check this list, in order, before you burn your excess stamina by fishing at the end of the day. Take into consideration the effects of random events – like dirty furnace – and don’t mess up a balanced system because of a wacky day.

Do one or two balancing actions per day, and you should manage to stay balanced and expand quickly and evenly.

If you have less than 30 stone

• Switch a mine to stone. Doesn’t matter which.

If you have less than 90 stone

• Build another mine, set to stone.

If you run out of coal

• Build another mine, set to stone.

If you have extra raw metal

• make furnaces

If you have extra raw gems

• build more quarry buildings. May require chopping wood.

If you have extra cut gems

• Build another mine, set to ore.

If you have extra smelted metal

• build mine, set to gems

If you are about even, with space on the map and energy to burn

• Build three mines, set two to ore and one to gems.

Out of Energy?

Eventually you will run out of energy to be mining more resources. What Now?

Build Totems

If you don’t have spooky tools/spooky fishing upgrades, you will need to acquire alchemy reagents the long way:

• build a couple rat cages (the little black square below the min on the build menu)
• Use the quarry to make two Polished Stone
• acquire 1 each rat tail, 1 rat fur
• Build Alchemy Pot (cauldron on second page of building items)
• Make more Polished Stone when you have more rat parts, and build more.

Strength totems increase your max stamina by 5. (10 if covered by a King Totem)

• 2 bat wings
• 10 wood
• 5 plank

Prosperity Totems give +1 resource for resources destroyed within range. This will get you 1 more gem/ore/coal/rock/wood/fruit per rock/tree. The range is pretty small, unfortunately.

• 2 bones
• 10 wood
• 5 plank

King Totem doubles the effect of totems in range. Only one can be used on Strength Totems.

• 20 wood
• 10 plank
• 5 magic essence
• 5 fossil

Win

Go forth, make bank, buy upgrades, abuse the day bonuses, and rake in the cash.