Farmville crafting

More observations on crafting in FV:

• When you finish a good, you get 1 for yourself and a few to sell. All are the same level as the good you completed.
• You're also offered the chance to share a sample. This sample is level 5 (50 plots).
• When you buy a good, you can share a sample with the seller. This is also level 5, so no need to feel that bad about not sharing.
• The biggest advantage of selling a good is you automatically get 50%.
• I think all your goods for sale of the same type are the same (highest) level, but I haven't confirmed this.

Farmville crafting samples

I'm not sure, but I suspect the free samples you can give your friends when you finish a job are only level 5, regardless of the level of the job you finished. That reduces the value of the samples considerably.

 This screenshot shows I finished a level 5 Restoring Candle, which isn't correct. The question is: do they mean to give out level 5 samples? I think they do, the bug is that it says the good I finished is level 5 as well. I need to see other people's samples to tell.

Construction items in Farmville

At any point in time, you can only gift 2 of the 3 construction items (nail, board, brick). Fortunately, which 2 seems to change, so eventually you'll be able to gift all 3. I know I couldn't gift the nail before, now I can gift the nail and board.

A trick you can use is to find the links to gift any of the 3, that way you don't have to depend on which 2 FV chooses for you.

Farmville crafting

When you finish a good on FV, you're offered to offer a free sample, but only for the first good you finish. The question is: how big a gap do you have to put between goods to offer samples for every good you finish?

Farmville gifts

FV has improved the request system - now you can accept multiple gifts at once, and accepting gifts only requires one click! This is a real timesaver. There seems to be a bug though, gifts accepted this way still appear in the old system and can be accepted twice.

Farmville updates

FV has updated the Market and there are many more options for sorting seeds, including by time. Great!

TIP:
My bad, getting bushels from friends resets at the same time every day, no matter when you start. It's like daily quests in World of Warcraft.

• If you don't get bushels from some friends before the time is reset, that chance is wasted. e.g. Sunflowers are in high demand, make sure you get all the bushels available before reset.

The pig pen's truffle hunting timer depends only on when the first pig goes hunting. If you are in a hurry and can't do all 20 pigs, just do one first. The timer will start earlier, and you can do the rest at your leisure.
Example: it's 12 noon. You're going out and coming back at 8 pm. If you wait till 8 pm and hunt, you can only hunt again 2 days later at 8 pm. If you hunt using one pig now and the other 19 at 8 pm, you can hunt again 2 days later at 12.

Farmville bug

I left my FV window open for a while and this popped up. What's going on?
Typing out the text here so it's searchable: "Hey Madonnald! Can you give me a hand? Can you give me a hand? Can you give me a hand? Can you give me a hand?"

Farmville fuel

When calculating the profit from a crop, besides plowing, fuel is an important hidden cost. If you buy your fuel from goods, 1 plot can cost more than 30 coins. If you plow, seed and harvest, that's 90 + 15 for plowing, per plot! How many crops give 105 coins in profit?

The take-home message is: the money earned from slower crops is more than just (profit-seeds-plowing)/time.

Farmville goods

All your goods on sale in FV are of the same level. If you level up your recipe, the goods you've already made automatically level up too.

That's interesting - I calculated the prices of goods, and it seems that they're the most value for money at level 20, at 23.2 coins per unit of fuel. https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlN0lsSe-F9HdFVOdHR6RXpCQlA1RFZNNGxneE44UHc&hl=en_GB

However, looking at actual good prices, it seems the prices can vary from the formula. I need to see more before I can make any statements.

Farmville tips

There are A LOT of sites claiming to offer FV tips/cheats/hacks/whatever out there, but most of them are rubbish. They're just out to make a quick buck, since there are so many FV players and they're willing to spend money. Here's a tip: instead of spending $20 on a tips book, spend it on farm cash. You'll get so much more out of it, and support the company at the same time. I saw a site with some really ridiculous tips, like "don't plant only 1 type of crop at a time". Yes, of course! I want to log in every 2 hours to farm 10 plots of land!

I'm not a pro FV player, but I'm going to offer my FV tips here. At least you know it's not a scam, I'm not asking you to pay to read a book of unproven use - my tips are open and free, here!

This is my farm right now. Here are some observations:

• You're thinking, "oh, he's gone and planted different types of crops too." Yes, that's because I didn't have enough money to plant a whole farm of yellow melons. Despite that, my crops are timed to mature AT THE SAME TIME
• Blocking the farmer in the middle is very useful. You could use hay bales, or if you want to show off like me, mastery signs.
• Buildings are placed for maximum crop space. If you notice, there's thin strips of land on the top left and right because the plots don't fill the whole farm. I've arranged my buildings so they use up that strip of land. I know there are probably more efficient ways of packing, but this is the simplest, and it can't go too far off. Previously, I tried filling those strips of land with trees.

I know most people play for aesthetics and stuff, but look at it this way: do you want a pretty level 10 farm, or a pretty level 50 farm? Focus on leveling and getting money until you reach your desired level, then bother about looks.

Farmville updates

Some changes I've noticed in Farmville:

• When making pig slop in the pig pen, after clicking on a bushel, it doesn't jump to the first page anymore. This is great. In the past, if you were using bushels on the last page, you would have to keep scrolling back to the last page.
• You don't need to click "yes" to accept gifts anymore.

Farmville buildings that matter

Living post

This is my first experiment with a living post, that means I'll update this post instead of writing a new one.

That's odd, for all the FV help on the web I haven't seen any list of buildings that do things in FV. Most of the buildings are only for decoration, but some are useful and it's not obvious which. If your aim is XP and money, this list is for you.
Orange buildings are recommended.
Aqua features are exclusive to that building.

Storage cellar

This allows you to store unwanted things like gifts. Its storage space is expanded by shovels. Too bad you can't use it to store buildings.

Market stall
This is used to hold bushels for your friends. By having more stalls, you can sell more types of bushels at a time (but friends are still limited to 3 per trip). This is useful if you want the rewards from selling bushels I guess, but otherwise there's no point getting these. THEY DO NOT INCREASE YOUR BUSHEL STORAGE SPACE

Pigpen

• Holds pigs
• Harvest all pigs at once
• Go truffle hunting

Chicken coop

• Holds chickens
• Harvest all chickens at once
• Find eggs while harvesting - but these can only be given away
• Gives your neighbours a chance to find eggs while visiting - more things for neighbours to do, more likely to get neighbour visits
• Coin bonus when harvesting if your neighbours have visited (fed your chickens)

Nursery barn
This holds your young animals like calves. It also allows them to mature into the adult versions, producing 1 more calf for your neighbours. However some adults actually produce LESS money than calves, so check to see if it's worth putting your calf in the barn. It also takes up a lot of space.

Garden shed
Allows you to use perfect bunches, so you can place them on your farm. Without this you can only share perfect bunches with your neighbours or lose them. Purely cosmetic value.

Garage

• Holds vehicles
• Use vehicle parts to upgrade your vehicles

Beehive

Can be harvested and allows you to harvest pollinated seeds. Wait till you find a queen bee before buying a beehive.

Dairy farm

• Harvest all cows at once
• Produce calves, if you have a bull
• There's a bug that lets you get multiple harvests

Turkey roost

• Harvest all turkeys at once
• Produce baby turkeys

Orchard

• Harvest all trees at once
• Produce saplings (young trees)
• You can have more than 1 Orchard