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Update 11: The Runey Situation
I think the official update schedule is now Wednesdays and Saturdays. If it seems like progress is slow, that's just Frontier. When we hit about Summer 10th then things will speed up dramatically after the first round of bachelorette voting.
Yeah, Mist just leaves after saying you share the same interests, A.K.A. turnips. Any mention of the whole fluffy chicks thing in that conversation was all me.
but what if it wasn't
What I didn't explain last time in favor of my joke is that certain constellations correspond to a girl in town and trigger a tiny, one-time event with them. This happens to raise their LP, as well as still raising Cinnamon's.
Before I call this night, I plant a bunch more turnips and get them watered.
The goal is to stop using this out of whack field configuration by Summer. Now that I have better tools, I can start working towards that. I'll be using just the front half of the field, and letting the back half stay a lumberyard and herb garden.
UZUKI - Comes from a distant land of the East. Loves to learn about cultures.
Here's Uzuki's profile. Her naginata will never not be cool.
Music: Spring
It's a new day!
Unfortunately, I was too busy picking strawberries and missed Anette at our house.
ANETTE: Huh? It's for me? Thanks!
So I just caught up to her outside of Mist's house instead.
ANETTE: The sun feels so nice. I'm sure it would be great to take a nap in this weather.
I dunno, last few time Bush tried sleeping on the ground it didn't go so well.
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"I'm counting on you." - Uzuki
Bush, I wonder if this letter will reach you.
I would like to apologize for the other day.
I have overstepped my bounds.
I hear you are quite the adventurer.
If you find anything, anything at all that could be
related to my brother, please inform me promptly.
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A large part of Uzuki's characterization is this search for her brother, and it'll be the focus of her events for the most part.
She's also probably the most formal speaking character, outdated english included.
"Do you abide here" is also just stuck in my brain for some reason.
Trout Sashimi Lv: 3 was synthesized with expertise!
Gotta remember to slice specific fish into tiny raw cuts every morning.
I'll still forget to from time to time, but hunting down sashimi fish is a lot harder than say, Cinnamon, who'll take anything.
Might as well go ahead and deliver it before I forget.
DANNY: Buy some vegetable seeds while you're here.
Hey, what's up Dan-
what
suddenly bright pink grocery store
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What pleasant weather we're having.
It's perfect for going on a picnic with a nice boxed lunch.
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You people and your boxed lunches. If I didn't know better, I'd say Turner wrote this sign.
[Materia]
Business Hours: 9am to 6pm / Closed Holidays
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Guess we'll just have to come back later. Might as well check in on the letters while I'm here. First up's the Bathhouse.
ANETTE: It's a letter from Sharron! ♪
Sharron hung around the entrance to the 6th dungeon in RF1, and was probably a ghost or something. Regardless, the only things she had any interest in was ruins, the dragon Grimoire, and Melody.
She's a required part of marrying Melody in the first game, being the only way you can find out about her backstory.
ANETTE: "Trampoli Trade Association." We actually have one?
ANETTE: "Chairperson Rosetta"! What?! Rosetta is the chairperson? Wow...
Yep, that'd explain it. Rosetta's urge to do capitalism strikes again.
TSUBUTE: Good morning, Anette. Please shoot that arrow with a letter attached to it at Bush.
ANETTE: Tsubute, be sure to place the letters inside the mailbox.
The game just automatically cuts to doing Uzuki's mail here. I think this was meant to be done at the Snowstyle's mailbox but it'll be like this from now on. I just managed to make it stranger by having Uzuki properly join the town and Rosetta build her shop all on the same day.
And yes, Tsubute requests that we be shot every time.
ANETTE: Ganesha, you got an order from Kardia!
There's our hometown.
I wonder what's up with the farm there now that Mist isn't around to scam people into having to take care of it.
UZUKI: Bush, I heard you went to the Green Ruins. If you find anything about Brother, please tell me.
BUSH: Yes, of course.
UZUKI: Thank you.
ANETTE: It's a letter for Rita! It's a picture postcard. I wonder where it's from.
Stop the presses, the Snowstyle got mail that was somewhat interesting!
ANETTE: I feel like some... "Chinese Bun" right now!
There is also a Fantasy China in this world, courtesy of Xiao Pai and Lin Fa from Rune Factory 4. It is not called China, therefore I must wonder where they got this name from.
Anyways, this means it's 9:00 AM now, so it's time to check out that new store.
Music: Business District Buildings
Fancy place...
And a familiar face!
ROSETTA: Welcome to Materia!
This looks... a bit off. It's not just me, right?
Although, I guess you can say that about a lot of the cutscenes.
BUSH: R-Rosetta?!
ROSETTA: Haha... I knew you'd be surprised.
ROSETTA: I moved over here. Starting today, this is my store and my castle.
ROSETTA: Come again.
And then she says this like we're leaving. 
ROSETTA: I'll still buy the things in the shipping box even if it's not crop-related. But don't put garbage in there.
But where else do I put it? It's traditional Harvest Moon gameplay to treat the shipping bin like a trash can.
I'm still not selling my collection of weeds, regardless. I was forced to make that mistake in the past, but never again!
Now that's a selection!
If you were wondering all this time where the flower shop was, this is it. Erik only sells vegetables, and Danny only sells Turnip seeds. I have to wonder if this weird delay in getting access to these prompted them putting the flower shop so front and center with RF3.
Still, it's a much better deal than what RF4 sticks us with, even if we're already halfway through Spring.
Most flowers take a while to grow, but they usually sell pretty well overall. Well, except for Moondrops. Outside of them being a flower, they're pretty much a worse turnip in terms of profit.
They are good for gifts though.
Some flowers take a ridiculous amount of time to grow, like Lamp Grass at 90 days, which requires them to be grown inside of dungeons as otherwise the season changing kills them. I never bother with these, really.
RF1 gave them the weird name of Phantom Crops, I guess because they shouldn't exist. How did we ever get seeds for these if they can't survive in the environment long enough to bloom on their own?
I guess this what you get when you have a world where certain areas are permanently frozen into specific seasons.
Also, here's Mist's favorite gift- the Emery Flower. Wildly expensive solid gold flowers whose seeds cost a lot more than a house extension at the grand price of 26,000G.
seems a bit too convenient if you ask me 
BUSH: This couch looks like it'd be comfy to sleep on.
bush, is this all you ever think about
Meanwhile, Danny has nothing to say about the shop that opened right next to his.
I did buy a Wappen (it's a little patch with a wooly on it) and Neck Towel from Rosetta, even though we could try to make them on our own. We had the money and I figured having them now would let us jump start being able to fight things. We're still low level.
(Also I forgot that the accessory workbench comes with the forge until a bit after this.)
Music: Town Buildings
SELPHY: I feel like something is missing since all I can do is read books.
Heading to the other parts of town, we find that Selphy is having an existential crisis.
SELPHY: I just came up with this, but why don't I start writing books? It's like thinking outside the box.
Seems like a logical next step, if you ask me.
SELPHY: You know that giant bean stalk in front of the clock tower?
SELPHY: That's connected to Whale Island isn't it? I wonder if you can reach Whale Island just by climbing it.
SELPHY: It feels just like a storybook so it's exciting!
I would normally consider the idea of climbing a beanstalk miles into the sky to reach a flying, sapient, whale shaped island to be a bit impossible, but we've already done it.
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~Runey Research: Part 2~
"Now then, what can one do to increase the number of Runeys? Runeys are a type of Rune, which means, just as with runes, one must enrich the land. Till the land and grow crops."
"Once the crops ripen, Runeys will be born. Catch the Runeys with a tool called a 'Harvester' and free them in a place you want to have them settle down in."
"When you look up at the sky, Runeys gather around you for some reason. Use this habit to your advantage and catch them effectively."
"Move the Runeys this way, and add more of them into an area while keeping a good balance of the 4 types. A Runey rich land is just around the corner!"
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Nothing this book says is explicitly wrong, but it's also not very helpful. Leaving large amounts of unharvested crops can produce small amounts of Runeys, but doing so is also missing out on profit and locks off a large part of your field.
It also never tells you what this "good balance" is, and that's a recipe for disaster given how ravenous these things are. The value you're looking for when trying to get prosperity is 35/35/35/35, but given the mechanics you actually want 35/35/35/60. Or actually maybe 50/50/50/60.
I'll explain why in just a bit, as I'm going to start working on the Runey situation today.
This system is bonkers.
STELLA: Mist is so strange. I like girls like her.
STELLA: She's honest with herself. Don't you find that adorable?
the nun's in on it
quick, retreat to allied headquarters
CINNAMON: Did you find the Turnip Constellation?
BUSH: Yes. It looked really weird.
CINNAMON: There is a legend where that turnip was eaten by a famous hero before he defeated a monster catfish underground.
BUSH: So he ate a turnip to fight a catfish? That sounds weird.
CINNAMON: I guess.
Cinnamon sometimes gives little origin stories on the constellations after we see them. This still raises LP even though Bush spent the whole time calling everything weird.
Back on the farm, I do farm things.
Our upgraded hammer also has a special attack on it, being this giant slam. Unfortunately, our hammer is still too weak to get rid of these larger rocks. We need silver tier to accomplish that.
Earlier I said that I was planning on trying to use just the first half of the field once we hit Summer, but because of these annoying rocks that also means we need to get access to silver, expand our house for a larger forge, and buy the upgraded forge.
We probably won't meet that dream until mid-way through summer at the earliest.
We can break these kinda half sized ones though.
Pale Carp (20cm) Lv:5 was caught perfectly!
The fishing rod also has a special attack, though all it does is raise the quality of fish caught and make the bar move longer. In this case, it went long enough I got lucky and hit the green range.
This catches a fish perfectly, which in my experience with real life fishing, isn't going to happen with a fishing rod given the nature of a hook.
At this point, I've been trying to stretch out what I can do by making and eating turnips. Power slamming that big rock a lot of times earlier did no favors for my RP bar.
In my defense, it's not very apparent sometimes if your tool is effective against that big of a rock.
I'm mostly trying to get these Toyherbs that I bought from Rosetta planted. They have a grow period of 15 days, which pretty much means today and tomorrow are the last days we can plant them in our field this season.
Toyherbs were always slow growing and kinda expensive until RF3. They grow in 2 days in Sharance. Better soil, I guess.
MIST: Should I make omelets with turnip rice or stir fried turnips tonight or for dinner? I can't decide.
MIST: You know...
MIST: Bush, you never keep your earnings overnight, do you?
BUSH: What do you mean?
MIST: I mean that you're a very nice person.
BUSH: Oh, really? Thanks.
MIST: But I still think you should keep some for yourself.
This is Mist's version of the "hey you give a lot of gifts" dialogue.
Also, I usually do keep my earnings overnight, thank you. I spend them the next morning 
With the farm taken care of, I head to Mist's house to start on the Runey Situation. There's been a bit of discussion about it, and I've mentioned it a few times, but here I'm going to tackle it in full.
Runeys. These little smiley faced goobers are all over the place.
Until they're not.
And they're probably the one thing about this game people hate the most. The game goes out of its way to vaguely explain a few things, but the fact people hate this mechanic so much should be indicative of those explanations being insufficient.
A lot of the following information is derived from many guides, going with what seems to be the most consistent information on this subject. Get ready for a full-fledged infodump here, spaced by random screenshots from the rest of the day.
So, Runeys work in a food chain. Water eats Rock, Rock eats Tree, Tree eats Grass.
Looking at it, you'll notice it's not a full cycle like a real ecosystem. Grass eats nothing and is merely preyed on, and Water is eaten by nothing. In practice, this means that water will slowly overtake every location.
But wait! The overgrowth of water Runeys means they'll eat all the rock Runeys. Then Tree Runeys grow out of control as nothing is left to keep them in check, which means they'll eat all the Grass. This will continue to gradually spiral out of control until every area but your homestead dies out. The death comes slowly, but the decline can get very fast.
Why do we care?
Well, an area in prosperity has 35 or more of each type of runey. A dead area has no runeys left. The former boosts crop growth speed, and the latter slows crops down. Max dead areas makes a turnip take 16 days to grow rather than 4. Max prosperity areas can grow nearly anything in 5 days and keeps any regrowing crop ready to be harvested pretty much every day.
So instead of saving Trampoli from just a giant whale island on track to Majora's moon the place, we've also got to help save the environment from collapsing in on itself.
If you're thinking this sounds terrible and poorly thought out, well, um, it's possible it simply is that. I've seen off handed comments that suggest that this is only something that exists in non-JP versions of the game- the Japanese version has an actually functioning cycle where Grass eats Water. Thus, you can kinda just not touch it and nothing happens.
(At times I wonder if this was meant to be an ecological allegory of some kind.)
Attempting to research the truth of this statement got me nothing but the information that people are really thirsty for Rosetta and getting the main parts of this game's story spoiled for myself.
posted:
EDIT: The Brief Misadventures of Bushi-san!
精霊が集ま り、 形を成したもの。
ルー二ーロックを食ベて膏つ。
どのル一二ーにも食ベられない。
Spirits gather and take shape.
Eat Rooney Rock.
No Ruoney can eat it.
So I investigated the truth of it myself, and it seems from what I can gather with my limited machine translated abilities that it is probably the same overseas. If this finding is incorrect, well it doesn't really matter in the scope of the LP.
The game doesn't leave us completely hanging. Some mechanics are present to let us try and resolve this impending doom.
It just doesn't explain them well, or tell you really what's up. That's why I can't guarantee the following information is fully reliable.
7 Day Grace Period
The first seven days of the season ignore the food chain and only grows runeys. Outside of other influences, this will be about +7 to each type. They'll still cannibalize each other rather fast.
The Area Bonus
Each area outside of our homestead has a specific runey it's associated with, growing just a few of those each day. Two areas, Road to the Beach (Mist's House) and South District (Erik and Kross's houses) have a Grass runey bonus, and this will be key in mitigating a lot of the spiral.
It supposedly boosts the development of that type of Runey in that area. By how much, nobody knows. It also supposedly slows the death rate of Runeys in that area.
Day 20 Boost
Every 20 days, 2 areas get a boost of 20 Runeys of a specific type, usually their area boost defines. Some people say you get it in every area, others say it's only in 2 places.
Regardless, Runeys seem to die at a rate of about 2 per day, so it's not enough to permanently stave off an area dying.)
Unharvested Crops
Fully grown, unharvested crops don't have to be watered anymore, but they also have the property of making a few small amount of runeys per day. What information I can find suggests 1 runey per 3x3 of unharvested crops, though it also seems they sometimes just don't care.
Crops inside dungeons do not provide Runeys, but they're still affected by this whole system. Because fuck you, you're not hiding from the Runey menace, I guess.
Essentially, this means you'll be using most of your homestead to grow fodder you'll never cut because it lasts between seasons (except maybe winter, nobody is clear on this). It's not necessary to do this, but if you want to stabilize the environment in any reasonable amount of time, you'll need to do a bit of this. (Also some information suggests that Runeys don't grow during winter.)
Grass Farms
Not an intended mechanic, but when I said Road to the Beach and South District were important, this is what I meant. By stripping these areas of their Rock and Tree runeys and leaving it only to Water and Grass, you make an area that produces Grass Runeys proportional to the amount of Water Runeys inside, at the cost of Water Runeys. (Optionally, some Rock Runeys can be included to reduce the amount of Water consumed but leads to an overall loss in the total count of Runeys.)
These are the key to fixing the systemic decline, but they're also a pain to manage from the simple fact that Runeys are annoyingly slow and tedious to deal with. On top of this, the conversion is kind of expensive at about 16 Water Runeys a day when starting with 60.
Rainy Days
Rainy days provide a boost to Water Runeys everywhere. If the system was a proper cycle, this'd be fine, but since it's not, it usually propagates the issue.
With grass farms, we can at least take advantage of this because of...
Prosperity Delay
When an area reaches prosperity, the rules change. Other Runey types only grow, while Grass Runeys will only decline at a steady rate of -2 per day. This means as long as we can supply Grass Runeys, the area should be safe from decliine.
Prosperity happens when 35 or more of each Runey is present. Since only Grass declines, you just stock the grass up to the max of 60, and leave the others at 35. However, some people have had their areas fall out of prosperity with just 35s on the non-Grass Runeys, so set your Runey counts a bit higher. At 50/50/50/60, you'll start each day with that area growing to about 60/60/60/58, supposedly.
With the application of Grass Farms, we can supplement that Grass decline.
And lastly:
Homestead Rules
So, the homestead basically ignores all these rules because reasons. Runey population never decreases and will only ever rise, and only rise thanks to the Unharvested Crops rule. For this reason, maintaining prosperity on the Homestead is incredibly easy, and we treat any runeys it generates past 35 with unharvested crops as stockpile we can use to stabilize the other areas.
A lot of those mechanics are never explained by the game. But now that we know them, we can try to build a plan to manage things. Unfortunately, a lot of these plans involve tedious management and real world hour long days just collecting the buggers.
Also spreadsheeting their values and growth, because this mechanic basically necessitates making spreadsheets to keep on top of everything.
So where am I going with all of this?
Despite the native level "hell nah, I ain't doin this" it instills, I'm going to try and do it. Crops are some of your best cash in this game since the majority of anything else you can make sells for like 20g more than it's component parts.
Now, I don't really need money either, because I know how to do an exploit to get infinite cash, almost every RF game has one, but in the spirit of the game, I'm going to try and work with this system and see if I can create as minimal fuss routine as possible that still gets prosperity bonuses, but keeps things from dying. Because I don't know about you, but spending multiple days each month doing absolutely nothing but vaccuuming up little smiley faces doesn't really excite me.
Ideally, this means knowing all this from the start, and jumping on it early. At the time of writing this update, I've already played up to Spring 22nd, and things are... rocky.
The basic loop you have to do to get these places all stabilized is this:
- Prune water and tree populations from every zone. They're prone to growing very high on their own, so keep the numbers down.
- Make a grass farm by stripping all Rock and Trees from the compatible areas (Road to the Beach is best, as it's smaller than South District, which also requires you to enter Kross and Erik's houses to access their fields.)
- Put the homestead in prosperity very fast and fund a decent amount of fodder being grown that you just don't touch.
- Use the 7 day growth bonuses and the 20 day boosts to accelerate stabilizing areas.
- Spreadsheet everything, and keep on top of it all the time.
The problem is, this will never let you take advantage of Rune Wonders, because before you forget about those, you have to fuel those with Runeys and you won't have any to spare.
Also I meant to save these moondrop seeds for something else and not plant them in my field. Whoops. This'll cost me a few days later on.
There's a sort of alternate route you can take to the above strategy:
- Empty everything.
- To avoid the dead area penalty, drop 1 runey from the stockpile in each dead area before going to sleep each day. Then it'll only count as dying, not dead, thus sparing you from the penalty that night. This costs you a total of only 8 Runeys every day to maintain.
- You can place just a couple Runeys of that area's type in that area, as it supposedly slows down how much that type deteriorates.
- When new seasons start, make it 1/1/1/1 in each dying area, and they'll grow to 8/8/8/8 from the seven day grace period. Take this excess and leave them at 1 again. Skip this if you don't need it.
- Rainy days and the 20 day bonus should help maintain this balance.
Both of these things take a heavy time investment, and the Grass Farm is responsible for a lot of that. You have to get Grass Runeys somehow, though. It's either that, or random daily chance from a lot of Fodder plots.
The prosperity oriented strategy is going to be a mix of both:
- Do the initial emptying of every zone, but make the Beach Road into a Grass Farm, and designate one non-Homestead area to be your prosperity location. This will take an agitatingly long amount of time, but this is necessary to reduce a lot of further work.
- Take count of everything you've got. Try to get a 50/50/50/60 in the prospering region, and at least a little in the Grass Farm. Every other zone gets a few runeys of the corresponding type. Grab the daily surplus from both and store it.
- The Water surplus from the prospering region goes to fueling the Grass farm and paying for Rainy Weeks from Candy, if you want to gamble for more Water Runeys.
This should get you an amount of Water, Tree, and Rock Runeys each day as surplus, which will build up to let you make another zone into a prosperous region. Slowly migrate other zones into prosperity, as long as your grass farm can supply them. It's got some time consuming elements, but this is the one I'm going for.
But with that emptying out everything, I realized the math behind the Runeys is a lot more generous than it initially gives the idea.So I came up with this strat as well:
Here's the Managed Stasis strategy:
The trick is the season change grace period and the fact that you only need 1 runey present in an area to prevent death penalties.
- Optional: Empty everything. This will always take a while, but it's the only time you have to do it. Doing this means you don't have to check the status of the Runeys basically ever as long as you take note of what day it is. It also prevents any randomness from reducing your total amount of runeys.
-Place 1 Runey in each of the 8 areas, as this works without even trying to play to Area Bonus. Leave 1 Runey at the Homestead alone. All of this combined will keep you from reaching full extinction penalties in any area per day.
- You need 8 runeys per day to keep this up. Collect the bonus Runeys from day 20 and keep them in the stockpile. Collect extra water Runeys from rainy days, if any..
- On the final day of a month, make at least seven non-Homestead areas have 1/1/1/1. Harvest the excess back down to just one Runey after they hit 8/8/8/8 on the 7th of next season. This'll take a little bit of time, but it's not much. Why? You'll have made 7x4 Runeys out of this spot, assuming we keep at least one of each type to do this again next month.
That's 28 Runeys. You only need 23 per area for the whole month. Congrats, you now have 5 surplus in any element you want, aside from any surplus from rainy days and the day 20 supply.
Now, all the work you have to do after the initial harvest is adding 1 runey per day to each area, add 4 split runeys to each area on Day 30, and collect most of them on 7th of each month. And this is without considering area bonuses, which means you might not have to most days.
No Grass Farms, no fodder farming. Grow everything at normal pace forever. It would take you forever to make a location prosper, Homestead included, so just don't bother. (If you harvest all 8 areas on the 7th, you'll collect a decent bit of excess, but it's not much for a monthly thing.)
The ways Runeys grow by eating each other are not always 1 to 1 ratios, thus why the environment can collapse by itself. The natural sources of replenishment will never overcome the eventual costs of them cannibalizing like they do, so the easiest solution is to stop them from ever doing that.
This all having been planned, I'm still going to opt to try and get multiple areas to prosperity out of principle. I want to show it can be done, and I want to see if any of this decade old information is incorrect.
Also it's the next day.
Music: Spring
Missed Anette at our mailbox again today, because internal autopilot memory of "6-9 AM is do all your farmwork time" makes me forget she comes by sometimes.
ANETTE: You're kidding, right? What is this thing doing inside the mailbox?
ANETTE: Just because it happens often, don't think it's normal... Isn't that right, Anette?
Anette has seen things in Mist's mailbox, and now she's talking to herself.
It does make the "failed crafting an item" noise here on the second line, and it's perfect.
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"Nice weather, isn't it?" - Mist
What lovely weather we're having today.
Taking a nap outside is the best on days like this.
Do you like taking naps outdoors?
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Um, well...
At this point, I think the answer is clear.
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I enjoy napping outdoors, too.
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Yep, that's about right.
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"Grand Opening!" - Rosetta
Grocery Store Materia
Grand Opening!
"High quality for low price"
is our motto!
Come by the Business District
to see for yourself!
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Also Rosetta sent
this really strangely
formatted
letter to us.
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"It's pleasant" - Uzuki
Turner has remodeled my room specificall to suit my tastes.
It was difficult adjusting to the life in a foreign land,
but the familiarity of this room calms me.
You should come by.
You are welcome anytime.
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So many letters today! Uzuki is being a lot more friendly than the other gals, in a way.
This is in the past tense, so I guess she's already adjusted to Trampoli life. I'd say that was pretty fast, but honestly it's just that chill here. Not many people really even do anything most of the time.
Off to follow Anette even more.
ANETTE: The early bird gets the worm, you know. But I never actually got any worms. Haha.
You can interpret this a number of different ways.
You can also sometimes get in front of Anette and she'll push you with her superspeed. This was supposed to be a gif, but due to behind the scenes matters, I couldn't upload that.
ANETTE: This is from your father, Rosetta. After all is said and done, you're still keeping in touch. That's really nice.
Despite running away from home, she's still sending letters back to Jean. It is nice to see, even if it is probably more business strategies than actual conversation.
UZUKI: The blacksmith, Ganesha, is very skilled. I can entrust her with my naginata.
Uzuki recognizes an awesome blacksmith when she sees one.
ANETTE: I just love to have some "Steamed Tater" after a hard day's work!
Isn't that about the same as a baked potato?
Realized I didn't have a sashimi made this morning and had to go fishing for a proper fish. Got lucky and got it on the first throw.
ROSETTA: Uzuki's clothes are really interesting. I think they look cute so I want to try wearing something like it one day.
If I'm not mistaken, it's mostly kind of like a shrine maiden sort of look.
I find it a neat detail she leans on the counter occasionally. Given the majority of the series uses a more distant perspective and chibi-ish models, the games don't always get too much of these kinds of tiny details.
When they did get them, they usually ended up just being a unique idle pose.
DANNY: I haven't gotten any customers since that other store opened up next door.
DANNY: They just like new stuff. I know they'll be back.
I know Danny has more stuff in his store judging by the details in the shop and we just mechanically can't buy any of it, but I can't help but imagine that Turnip Seeds, Cooking Oil, and cheap jewelry is all he sells.
Gotta get them fried turnip bits.
SELPHY: It's such a great life to be surrounded by books!
If there was an equivalent of the Library of Congress in Norad, then I don't think Selphy would ever leave it. She'd probably discovering some way to subsist entirely off of the aquisition of knowledge.
SELPHY: I stocked up on some new books! Read up!
I mean, she's already psychic enough to tell when you're looking at a shelf. Seriously, she's all the way in her room and I'm far from being within sight or hearing distance.
Well maybe just sight, Bush just jogs everywhere in his heavy boots. It makes a lot of noise.
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~Runey Research: Part 3~
"So, with more Runeys, what will happen?"
"First, Runeys positively affect farms. Crops grow better and thus more Runeys are born."
"Next, people with a little talent may even learn to use powers called 'Rune Wonders'."
"Rune Wonders, as the name suggests, are wondrous powers that utilize Runes (i.e. Runeys)."
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Like usual, it only vaguely suggests how you can go about saving the environment. Nothing about the 7 days rule, Homestead rules, or the day 20 injections.
STELLA: You have to keep your promises.
STELLA: Though it may be insignificant to you, it may be very important to the others.
Stella imparts some wisdom to us before we go the wise old man.
BUSH: Is this some sort of blueprint?
KANNO: I had the machine sent to research Runes, but there still are a lot of problems. Where to start, where to start...
BUSH: Sounds like a lot of work.
Either the machine isn't even made yet, or these are resulting blueprints from said Rune research machine.
I did set up Road to the Beach for a Runey farm, though without large numbers, it's not going to do much right now. I'll get on stocking it a bit better soon.
KROSS: This tastes good.
I haven't forgotten about Kross- I'm still slipping him some of our turnip supply. He likes just about everything you can grow, though his favorite gift is a level 70+ accessory with 6 rare-ish items needed to make it.
Most people's favorite gifts are like this and it's a bit ridiculous. Like, Kross isn't even a marriage candidate or anything, just a cool guy. Why make everyone's favorite gift so hard to get?
KROSS: This sunlight is so strong. It's so oblivious to the pain it causes us.
KROSS: You're gonna need 900 Lumber and 75000 gold. Are you all right with that?
Already can't remember if I showed this, but this is the second floor expansion cost. We can't get a double bed, and thus, get married, without it.
Still not as bad as RF2 or RF1, as we can access crafting before getting it!
KROSS: The Barn can get as tall as 3 floors, with 1, 3, and 7 rooms as you move up.
KROSS: You're gonna need 10 lumber and 1000 gold. Are you all right with that?
What we can afford is a barn!
KROSS: I'll start right away. So would you wait a little bit?
Fade in and out of black...
KROSS: Sorry to have kept you waiting. Your barn's to the east of your house.
This takes zero in-world time, so Kross just kinda farmer magicked it into existence.
After this I go fishing with Cinnamon on the Lake Poli bridge.
BUSH: Is fishing fun?
CINNAMON: ...Quite. I caught a big fish the other day. But I let it go.
BUSH: Huh?! Why? That's such a waste.
CINNAMON: Catch an release are the fundamentals of fishing. I won't eat it so it makes no sense to keep it.
Bush has never heard of catch and release, which given his only current use for fish is to slice it into tiny pieces or gifting to others, I guess that makes sense.
But if she doesn't eat the fish, what does she do with the fish we give her?
CINNAMON: Squid is good during spring. You can use it for all sorts of dishes, so be creative.
This has been Seasonal Fishing Tips With Cinnamon.
I've never had squid, actually. I kinda just don't like any fish.
CINNAMON: I like this place better than where I came from because it's quiet.
BUSH: What was that place like?
CINNAMON: A very large city. I was researching magic there.
She is a wizard, it just doesn't come up very often.
MIST: When you give things that the villagers like, they will be thrilled. That is the quickest way to make friends with them.
As we warp home, Mist explains to Bush that this world is materialistic, and that money gets you everywhere.
MIST: By the way, I like Turnips and Emery Flowers.
MIST: Does it seem like I'm hinting too strongly for you to give me some?
She's trying the direct approach now.
That, or she's giving us a warning about our current turnip deliveries
You win this time, but Bush will see liberation from your operation soon enough!
Anyways, gotta get started on collecting more lumber. The axe's special attack does more damage to stumps, meaning it takes less hits and less time to break them. We also couldn't even touch them before we upgraded, so there's that too.
No gif this time as it's pretty much the same, just without the jump.
Oh, and here's our barn. It looks small, but like most buildings in this game, is way bigger on the inside. The barn really defies that rule.
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Farm Work Schedule
7AM: Gather edible plants
11AM: Harvest crops
3PM: Water plants
7PM: Gather lumber
10PM: Clear out rocks
1AM: Mow grass
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You can also train your monsters to do your farmwork for you. I've never gotten this to work effectively on any RF game, so maybe this LP will change that.
I've always heard that you should water plants in the early morning or late afternoon, not when the sun's still on them. Something about the sun dehydrating the soil shocking them or something like that.
CANDY: I want to visit you at your house!
Down by the shore, Candy just kinda likes seeing other people's houses. When she's over at Marco's you can see a little more of it.
Picked these Water Runeys up across town, but mostly from the beach itself.
There, now it's stocked. This'll let me build up a stockpile of grass for the future prospering regions.
53 Water and 15 Grass. That ought to be good enough. Now time to just kinda get lazy about collecting the Grass runeys.
MELODY: This village is so nice. This is the only place in the world where you can find a hot spring in the sky!
still don't understand how it works, still not questioning it
NOLAN: In my country, the flowers bloom beautifully during this season.
NOLAN: I hope you can come view it when you get the chance, Bush.
Knowing how Bush is, that would take Mist running off to there.
Where he is running off to now, is Whale Island!
That'll have to wait until next time, thanks to the Runey Situation, but rest assured we get to some more new content up here.