Lightning Rod
| Lightning Rod | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Crafted Item |
| Recipe | Foraging (Level 6) |
The Lightning Rod is a tall metal mast that catches lightning during thunderstorms and turns each strike into a Battery Pack. It is the main early way to collect Battery Packs, which feed several valuable recipes and a handful of quests. A rod also takes strikes that would otherwise land on the farm, so it guards crops and trees as a side effect. The recipe arrives with the Foraging skill, and one finished rod is also a reward from the Community Center. A row of rods placed in the first spring keeps paying back through every stormy day of the year.
The in-game description reads: Collects energy from lightning storms and turns it into battery packs.
Recipe
Reaching Foraging level 6 teaches the recipe. Each rod needs an Iron Bar, a piece of Refined Quartz and a handful of Bat Wings. Smelting Iron Ore with Coal in a Furnace gives the Iron Bar. Smelting Quartz in a Furnace gives Refined Quartz. Bats in the Mines drop the wings, so a few trips to the bat floors usually gather enough for several rods at once.
A free rod comes from the Vault at the Community Center. Paying the 10,000g Bundle there gives one Lightning Rod as the reward, and that can happen before the recipe is learned.
These are the ingredients one batch needs.
| Name | Image | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Iron Bar | 
|
1 |
| Refined Quartz | 
|
1 |
| Bat Wing | 
|
5 |
Use
The rod only earns its keep on the farm. A storm sends lightning down at random through the day, and each bolt has a chance to hit a rod. The Battery Pack from a struck rod is ready to collect the next morning.
A rod that has been hit stays busy for the rest of the day and ignores any further bolts. Storms often bring several strikes, so one rod catches at most one of them. Building several rods means more strikes turn into Battery Packs.
Placement makes no difference to the odds. A rod does not shield the tiles around it, and any free rod on the farm can take the next bolt. That means the rods can stand together in a tidy corner, well away from the crop fields and paths. Storms never come in Winter, so the rods sit idle through the cold months.
A bolt that no rod catches can still strike the farm itself and destroy crops in the field. A spare rod or two beyond the usual number lowers that risk on days with heavy storms.
Notes
Battery Packs are worth saving rather than selling. Crafting a Battery Pack with a Gold Bar and an Iridium Bar makes the Iridium Sprinkler, the biggest sprinkler in the game. The Crystalarium, the Slime Egg-Press, the Mini-Jukebox, the Farm Computer and both electric lamp-posts each take one too. Five of them help repair Willy's Boat for the trip to Ginger Island, and a single pack in the lockbox in the Bus Stop tunnel opens the Mysterious Qi questline. Maru loves Battery Packs as a gift.
The Solar Panel is the slower partner to the rod. It fills one Battery Pack after a week of sunny days. A farm with both machines collects packs in sun and storm alike.
A rod also works as a tidy prop on a patch of grass. Grass under a placed rod cannot be eaten by farm animals, so it keeps spreading each day. A few rods dotted through a pasture keep a supply of grass alive all season.
All Crafting
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
