Did you just talk to Demetrius? I’ll bet that you just got handed a decision you’re unsure about. It isn’t the simplest choice, especially since its permanent. This guide will tell you everything you need to know. Choose wisely!
What triggered this event?
In your character menu, you have a “Total Earnings” value to your name. When your total earnings is 25,000 or more, Demetrius will ask you about using the cave for research.
Does it matter?
It really depends on who you’re asking. Each path you choose to go down will take you to the same destination, but how you get there is what you need to decide.
Do you like fighting in the mines?
Then, you may want to be able to make more potions.
Are you thinking about the end-game?
Fruit trees make for excellent gifts.
Let’s dive into each path. We’ll go over the short-term and long-term benefits of each, and where well have to make up for benefits that we lose out on.
Mushroom Cave
This is the option that most players choose. It provides a steady source of income and allows players to heal themselves more often. Eating common mushrooms and making life elixirs makes going into the mines less of a threat.
How it works:
Once you choose mushrooms, there will be six specific spots for where your mushrooms will grow inside the cave. Every day, you can harvest each of these spots for 1 mushroom each. There are 5 different mushrooms that can spawn, and they all have individual spawn rates.
Here are the 5 mushrooms and their spawn rates:
Common Mushroom: 80%+
Red Mushroom: <15%
Purple Mushroom: < 3%
Chanterelle: <10%
Morel: <10%
Why it’s a good decision:
- Mushrooms are reliable. You can sell a common mushroom for 40-60g(depending on quality) to pocket yourself some extra money.
- The rarer mushrooms are worth way more than common mushrooms. A perfect purple mushroom is worth 500g!
- Mushrooms are a fantastic source of healing. You will be able to heal yourself for 40-70 HP regularly, and once you start collecting rarer mushrooms it will be more(100-300 HP),
- You will be able to craft lots of Life Elixir. A potion that requires lots of mushrooms to create, but will restore your health to full.
- Each time you harvest a mushroom, you earn Foraging experience.
Why it’s a bad decision:
- You won’t be able to fill out your Artisan Bundle as easily. Since most of the ingredients are fruit, you’re going to have to figure out other ways to complete it. This means you won’t get as many kegs, either.
- You can get become dependent on using common mushrooms are your only source of food. As you progress, there are better options for food. This dependency could cause you to skip these foods entirely.
- If you don’t have much trouble with combat, you may not need all the healing supplies. Some players can make a trip through the mine without taking any damage. If you’re one of these players, you probably won’t need mushrooms.
- Daily harvesting takes time. It will have to be a big part of your daily routine to visit the cave.
- The rare spawn rates could leave you frustrated when you need to create life elixirs.
Fruit Bats
This is the less popular decision between the two. The fruit bats will leave fruit in your cave. Sometimes they won’t. You don’t even get to decide which fruit will appear.
How it works:
Throughout the day, fruit bats will leave different fruit in your cave. It is up to you to keep going back and checking if there are any new fruit waiting for you.
- The rate that these fruit will drop is pretty low.
- You can expect to get a fruit every other day or so.
- The fruit that drop are random.
- The rarity of the fruit is random. (For Iridium quality, you will need to have to take the Botanist profession.)
Some fruit have different spawn rates. There are 10 different fruit, and they are split between two drop rates. 5% chance and 20% chance.
Fruit with <5% chance to spawn:
- Apple
- Cherry
- Orange
- Peach
- Cherry
Fruit with 20% chance to spawn:
- Apricot
- Wild Plum
- Blackberry
- Salmonberry
- Spice Berry
Why it’s a good decision:
- One of the biggest benefits you will find right off the start is your ability to complete the Artisan Bundle from a very early point in the game. To complete the Artisan Bundle, you need to collect 6 of 12 different artisan goods. Half of the eligible items are fruit!
This is the only way to earn a Keg.
- Having lots and lots of kegs is a common way to make a lot of money in Stardew Valley. So much to the point that people have entire buildings dedicated to being keg farms.
- The fruit you pick up are affected by the Level 10 Foraging skill “Botanist”. This means that all the fruit you pick up would be the highest quality possible.
- You can get fruit that you normally wouldn’t find. You can get fruit that is out of season out of a fruit bat.
- Finding mushrooms can be easy if you know where to look. They can mostly be found in either the mines or Secret Woods.
- You might want to treat your bats like pets. Having them in there means those are your bats!
Why it’s a bad decision:
- Later in the game, you’ll have enough space and money to grow all different kinds of fruit trees. You will soon be able to harvest these fruit without much effort.
- Orchard fruit are rare to come by. You may not always get to fill out the artisan bundle completely by using fruit bats. At best, they may be able to supply 3 out of 6 of the fruit you will actually need.
- Because of the extremely high randomization, you may have a streak of bad luck. This could hinder whatever plans you may have if you begin to grow dependent on fruit bat results.
- Some mushrooms are hard to obtain if you don’t have them in your cave.
- You’re going to have to work harder to keep food on you at all times. When you have the mushroom cave, you have a steady supply of food with you always.
The Long-Term Game
Once you’ve played on your file for long enough, you will find that most of the problems you had near the beginning of the game aren’t really problems anymore.
Getting your hands on most of the items that come from the cave can be found from several other sources. You will eventually treat your cave like a small little bump if you need to make a quick sell.
Hopefully this made your decision real simple.