Slime Hutch
| Slime Hutch | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Type | Building |
| Cost | 10,000g |
| Materials | Stone (500); Refined Quartz (10); Iridium Bar (1) |
| Size | 7x4 |
| Capacity | 20 |
| Animals | Slimes (any type) |
The Slime Hutch is the farm's monster pen. Up to twenty slimes live inside, and once their water troughs are filled they leave Slime Balls on the floor overnight, which is the cheapest bulk route to Slime in the game. The building also changes something outside it: until a Slime Hutch has been raised, slimes killed underground never drop Slime Eggs, and from the moment it exists they do. The catch is that slimes in the hutch are still monsters. They will attack anyone who walks in, so the hutch is a building that has to be designed around safety rather than simply filled.
Construction
Robin takes the order at the Carpenter's Shop. The price is 10,000g with 500 Stone, 10 Refined Quartz and one Iridium Bar, and that single bar is what makes the hutch a late purchase: iridium comes from the Skull Cavern or from deep in the quarry, so most farms are well into a second year before this one goes up.
Shortly after the hutch is finished, Marlon pays a visit and hands over a Slime Egg to get things started.
The footprint is seven by four, but the interior is far larger at sixteen by eight. Six tiles inside are taken up by fixtures, and the Slime Incubator blocks one more until it is picked up with a tool, leaving well over a hundred usable tiles.
Use
Nothing is produced until the hutch holds at least five slimes. Below that the floor stays bare however much water is poured in.
Water is the whole mechanic. Four troughs sit inside and all of them have to be full for Slime Balls to appear the next morning. A watering can does the job, and sprinklers placed within range do it automatically, which works on every farm map including the Beach Farm where outdoor sprinklers do not. Slimes do not need to reach the water themselves, so the troughs can be fenced off from them entirely.
Slimes breed on their own. A female sometimes approaches a male, recognisable by his round antenna, and if both show a heart a baby appears at half size with the same health as its parents. One showing an exclamation mark instead means the advance was refused. The baby's colour is worked out from the parents' colours, with the game picking at random between taking one parent's shade with some variation, the brighter of the two, or an average of both, so a pen left to itself drifts towards whatever colours dominate it.
Slime Eggs are the faster way to fill the hutch. Five kinds hatch into green, blue, red, purple and tiger slimes respectively, and they go into the Slime Incubator. A Slime Egg-Press turns 100 Slime into an egg of its own, which covers four of the colours but leans heavily towards green. Once the hutch exists, slimes underground keep dropping eggs even if the hutch is later demolished.
Upgrades
The building has no tiers, so the improvement comes from layout. Three things placed inside change how it plays.
Fences, statues or any other path blocker will wall the slimes off into a corner, which makes the hutch safe to walk into. Penned slimes still breed happily and their offspring are penned with them, and the same goes for anything hatched in the Incubator. Fences do decay as usual, so a pen needs replacing now and then.
Sprinklers remove the daily watering round entirely.
Crafted flooring decides where the Slime Balls land, because they cannot spawn on top of it. Flooring the parts of the room meant for kegs and jars keeps the balls appearing in the open stretch where they are easy to collect, and the rest of the floor can then be filled with equipment. Around a hundred and four tiles can be given over to other uses while still housing and watering a full twenty slimes.
Notes
A Slime Charmer Ring is close to essential. It stops all damage and debuffs from slimes, which turns a walk through the hutch from a fight into an errand. Slimes kept here give no Combat experience and do not count towards the Monster Eradication goals, so there is nothing to gain from fighting them.
A witch sometimes flies over the hutch at night and curses every slime inside into a black, half-transparent version. Placing a Wicked Statue indoors prevents it.
Loading a save has an effect worth planning around. Any trough still holding water from the previous day empties on load and has to be refilled, and the slimes will not breed again until the following morning. That day's Slime Balls are safe, since they are worked out overnight, so the practical habit is to fill the troughs last thing before bed.
An Incubator in a hutch that already holds twenty slimes keeps running without ever hatching anything, and no warning is given, so a full pen quietly wastes every egg put into it.
All Buildings
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
| Name | Image | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| Barn | 
|
- |
| Cabin | 
|
100g |
| Coop | 
|
- |
| Farmhouse | 
|
- |
| Fish Pond | 
|
5,000g |
| Gold Clock | 
|
10,000,000g |
| Greenhouse | 
|
35,000g |
| Junimo Hut | 
|
20,000g |
| Mill | 
|
2,500g |
| Pet Bowl | 
|
5,000g |
| Shed | 
|
- |
| Silo | 
|
100g |
| Slime Hutch | 
|
10,000g |
| Stable | 
|
10,000g |
| Well | 
|
1,000g |
| Witch's Hut | 
|
- |