Shipping
| Shipping | |
|---|---|
| Type | Collection |
Mayor Lewis leaves a wooden box beside the farmhouse and promises to come by in the night to collect whatever is in it, and that box is how most of a farm's money is made. Dropping goods into the bin sells them at the same prices a shopkeeper would pay, with the gold arriving on the end-of-day screen after sleeping rather than over a counter. The real reason to use it, though, is that the bin is the only thing in the valley that keeps a record. The Shipping Collection in the player menu, three separate achievements and the heaviest single slice of Perfection all count items that went through a bin and nothing else, so a farmer who sells to merchants out of habit can lose years of progress without noticing.
Overview
Using the bin is deliberately quick. The lid lifts as the farmer walks up to it, and an item can be posted either by opening the bin and clicking an item in the backpack or by holding an item and clicking the bin. A whole stack goes in at once. Nothing is paid out immediately: the day ends, the night's takings are tallied on the sleep screen, and the gold is in hand the next morning.
Quality decides the price, in the order a farmer would expect. Iridium pays most, then gold, then silver, then plain, and those are exactly the prices a shop would offer for the same goods. Selling in person and shipping pay the same price, so the only real difference is that a merchant pays today and the bin pays tomorrow. For anybody saving towards a purchase that afternoon, the walk into town is worth it.
The two channels do not accept the same goods. Some items can only be posted and some can only be sold across a counter, with weapons being the obvious case, since the Adventurer's Guild buys swords and the bin refuses them. That split is worth remembering before carrying a day's haul to the wrong place.
What makes the bin matter is the record it keeps. Anything sold to a shopkeeper pays the same gold but leaves the Shipping Collection untouched, and three achievements depend on that collection. Polyculture asks for fifteen of every crop, which is a long project because it includes the crops Pierre only stocks from the second year. Monoculture asks for three hundred of a single crop, which amounts to one large field given over to something cheap and fast for a season. Full Shipment asks for one of every item the collection tab lists, which is the longest job of the three and the one that quietly turns into a Perfection requirement later.
Mistakes are recoverable, but only just. Opening the bin at any point during the same day brings up the last thing placed in it, and clicking that item puts it back in the backpack. Only the most recent item can be rescued, so a Prismatic Shard posted by accident at the top of a stack of stone is gone.
Every farm map arrives with a bin already standing, and it can be moved or taken down at Robin's shop as long as another one is owned. More bins are cheap, costing a modest sum of gold and a pile of wood at the Carpenter's Shop, and they go up the instant they are bought rather than taking a day. Scattering a few of them around a large farm, one by the greenhouse and one by the coops, saves a surprising amount of walking over a year. A Mini-Shipping Bin behaves the same way and can be set down almost anywhere.
Notes
The single most useful habit on a new farm is keeping one of everything back. Any new crop, fish, forage or artisan good should go into a bin at least once before the rest is sold or cooked or handed to a villager, because hunting down a forgotten entry years later means regrowing or recatching the thing on purpose.
The two crop achievements reward opposite plans, so it is worth doing them separately. Polyculture wants a little of everything and suits a mixed farm; Monoculture wants a flood of one thing and is easiest with a cheap, quick crop planted wall to wall for a season, after which the field can go back to being useful.
All Collections
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
