Energy
| Energy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Mechanic |
Energy is the green bar in the corner of the screen, and it is the budget a farming day is spent out of. Every swing of a hoe, pickaxe, axe, watering can or fishing rod takes a slice of it, which is why a farm's working day ends when the bar empties rather than when the clock runs out. Food puts it back, sleep refills it for the morning, and the Spa restores it faster than anything else. Running the bar to nothing brings on exhaustion, which slows everything down and bites into the next day's starting energy, and pushing further than that ends the day on the ground with a fine to pay. Over a save the ceiling rises: the farm starts with two hundred and seventy points and every Stardrop eaten lifts that for good.
Overview
Tools are the drain. Scythes, weapons and pans work for nothing, which is why clearing grass or fighting monsters can fill the hours when the bar is low, but the hoe, pickaxe, axe, watering can and rod all cost energy on every use, including a cast that catches nothing. Picking up or shifting a chest with bare hands costs a little too, which catches farmers rearranging a shed late in the day.
Eating is the usual answer. Anything edible is placed on the top row of the inventory and used with the action button, and the notice in the corner reports what was gained. Pricier food generally carries more energy than cheap food, so a cooked dish is worth more than the ingredients that went into it. A few items run the other way: Sap and Void Mayonnaise both take energy away rather than giving it, which makes them useful only as ingredients or gifts.
The Spa is the cheapest refill in the valley. Standing in the water restores ten points a second, so a few seconds inside the building up by the Railroad turn an empty bar into a full one at no cost but the walk. In a shared save a farmer can also stand in a bed without ending the day and recover steadily, which is how co-op groups top up at midday.
Hitting zero brings exhaustion, and it is announced plainly: an X appears above the farmer's head and a notice says they feel sluggish from over-exertion. Movement slows badly, tools take longer to swing, and the rod refuses to cast at all. Other tools keep working, and the bar goes negative while they do. Fifteen points below zero the farmer collapses, the day ends, and a tenth of their gold goes missing up to a cap if the collapse happened away from home.
Eating something after that point restores movement and lets the rod cast again, but the exhaustion itself stays for the rest of the day, and it halves the energy recovered overnight. Two things clear it properly: a Muscle Remedy, or, for a married farmer, the first kiss of the day from their spouse. Both are worth remembering, because a cheap kiss on the way out of the house can save half of the next morning.
Warnings come before the drop. Below twenty points, any energy-spending action makes the bar shake and throws off beads of sweat, and below fifteen a notice says the farmer is starting to feel exhausted. Neither changes anything yet, so there is still time to eat.
Sleep is where the arithmetic matters. A farmer in bed by midnight wakes with a full bar. Past midnight the recovery tapers in small steps, losing a quarter of it by one in the morning and half of it by two, and that penalty stacks on top of the exhaustion penalty, so a tired farmer going to bed at half past one wakes up with very little. A day never begins with less than a single point, and going to bed with more energy than the calculation would award simply keeps what is already there, unless exhaustion is in play.
Levelling up overrides all of it. The morning after any skill gains a level, the farmer wakes with a full bar whatever the hour they went to bed and whatever state they were in, which makes the night after a busy day of mining or fishing a free pass. Changing a profession at the Statue Of Uncertainty has the same effect.
The ceiling can be pushed in two ways. Each Stardrop eaten adds thirty-four points permanently, and collecting every one in the game takes the maximum to five hundred and eight. On top of that, two temporary boosts can run at once, one from a drink and one from a dish. Green Tea is the drink, and Complete Breakfast, Lobster Bisque and Red Plate are the strongest foods, with Super Meal, Bean Hotpot, Tom Kha Soup and River Jelly a step behind. Stacking a tea with the best dish pushes the bar well past its permanent ceiling for a few minutes of game time, which is exactly long enough to clear a stubborn patch of trees.
Notes
Enchanting a tool at the Forge can take energy out of the equation altogether. The Efficient enchantment makes a tool cost nothing to use, and on a watering can or a pickaxe that changes how a whole day is planned.
The Statue Of Blessings offers the same thing on a lucky day. Its blessings are handed out at random, and the Blessing of Energy gives a farmer a full day of free tool use, which is the day to clear the quarry or water the entire greenhouse by hand.
The two buff slots are what make the very largest energy pool possible. A drink fills one and a dish fills the other, so a Green Tea followed by a Red Plate carries both at once, and no single item can match that total on its own.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
