I’m still getting to know all the characters slowly but I did find out that Victor likes
spoiler
Batteries
Tip for early game money making:
befriend Caroline (Pierre, the store owner’s wife) ASAP, when she’s at 2 hearts enter her sunroom through the back door in their kitchen. The next day you’ll get a recipe in the mail for Tea Saplings.
I didn’t get this tip when I first tried it because tea only grows the last week of every season and doesn’t sell for that much. But you don’t plant them, chuck them straight into the shipping bin (or sell to Pierre if you need the $ that day.)
They sell for 500g each - use this tip sparingly if you don’t want to break the game. I typically use it for emergency cash like “Oh no, I forgot the egg festival was tomorrow and have no money” or “I need to upgrade my watering can while it’s raining but I forgot and bought a backpack upgrade instead”
Other tips:
- get a coop and some chickens as soon as is feasible (and after building a silo)
- selling mayonnaise is a lot of money in early game
- farm animals are a consistent source of Farming Exp (with crops you get Exp when harvesting, but with chickens you get Exp daily from petting them)
- parsnips don’t sell for much, they might be better used to befriend an NPC
spoiler
- Pam because she sends items in the mail that are really useful
- if you randomly get mail from an NPC you’ve befriended (e.g., not after a quest) you can restart the day to get the item you want (out of the small selection of items that each NPC can send you- a few examples below hidden in spoiler tag - some of these are useful for completing the Community Center)
spoiler
- Pam sends batteries and energy drinks
- Demetrius sends pufferfish, rainbow shell
- Emily sends wool
I was about to give you tips on Victor’s fave gifts when I realized that this is a joke
I can’t go without Chests Anywhere and UI Info Suite 2 (download that one from the link on the SMAPI.io mod compatibility page)
Chests Anywhere just because I always forget where I put my things, and forget to bring materials for building upgrades etc. before this mod, I would spend in-game days running back and forth to my house until the shop was closed :,)
UI InfoSuite2 is great because it shows you the range for beehives, sprinklers, and scarecrows. There’s also icons to remind you to check the Travelling Cart, watch tv for a new recipe, and it shows your daily luck as well as a raincloud if it’s going to rain the next day - also icons when you have a building or tool upgrading that you can hover over and it’ll tell you when it’ll be ready (or does the vanilla game do that? It’s been so long). It does even more but I can’t remember all the features.
I use Automate when I’m in the last leg of the game because at that point I have so many materials to process, and it sucks to hang out all day refilling machines or checking crab traps. I don’t use it until I get to the 1.5 content because it’s so OP that it can make early game boring.
There’s also a mod called… Generic Mod Config Menu Or something like that. I highly recommend you download that if you’re using mods because you can change the settings of the mods in-game and have it take effect right away instead of editing the json files.