Speed
| Speed | |
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| Type | Mechanic |
Speed covers two separate things that share a name. Weapon Speed is how quickly a sword, dagger or club swings and recovers, and Player Speed is how fast the farmer crosses the map. Both can be pushed up a long way, and the sources barely overlap: weapons gain from the blade itself, from an Emerald Ring and from the Forge, while the farmer gains from coffee, from cooked dishes, from two books sold by the Bookseller and from laying paths on the farm. The two do touch in one place, because a movement buff also quickens a weapon, so a cup of coffee makes a sword hit faster as well as making the walk to the Mines shorter. A handful of debuffs push in the other direction, and being frozen by a Skeleton Mage is the worst of them.
Overview
Weapon Speed is measured in the time a swing takes from start to finish, including the pause before the next one. A sword sets the baseline, a dagger is much quicker than a sword, and a club is far slower, which is why a club's enormous damage per hit does not translate into enormous damage per second. Slingshots have a fixed rhythm that nothing changes.
Each point of Weapon Speed shaves a fixed slice off that timing, which makes the first point worth more on a sword than on a club in percentage terms. The relationship reverses at the top end: a sword reaches a practical floor where extra points stop helping, while a club keeps improving well past that, so a heavy weapon is the one that benefits most from stacking speed. Movement buffs pile on top of weapon buffs, so a weapon with two points of its own swings like a three-point weapon while a coffee is running.
Weapons themselves are split between the light and the heavy. The Steel Smallsword, the Pirate's Sword, the Cutlass and the Forest Sword are all brisk early blades, the Insect Head is quick and favours critical hits, and the Bone Sword and the Steel Falchion are the fastest things the Adventurer's Guild sells. At the top, the Galaxy Sword and the Infinity Blade are both fast as well as powerful, which is a large part of why they end the weapon progression. Against them sit the heavy options: the Iron Edge, the Claymore, the Tempered Broadsword and the Lead Rod all swing slowly in exchange for damage or defence, and the Dark Sword is the slowest blade in the game. The Slammer and the Kudgel are clubs built entirely around the trade.
Three things raise Weapon Speed beyond the weapon. The Adventurer's Guild sells an Emerald Ring once the fortieth floor of the Mines has been reached, and it speeds up any weapon by a tenth. The Forge at the bottom of the Volcano Dungeon takes an Emerald and adds speed directly to a sword, dagger or club, up to three times on the same weapon with the cost in Cinder Shards rising each time. Tools work differently and are enchanted with a Prismatic Shard instead, which makes the tool itself a third faster to use.
Player Speed starts with a simple difference: walking is slow, running is well over twice as quick, and a horse is quicker again. Feeding a horse a carrot makes it a shade faster for the day. Terrain then interferes, but only on foot. Grass slows a farmer down, growing crops slow a running farmer down, and flooring laid outdoors on the farm gives a small boost, which is the real argument for building paths between the barn, the shipping bin and the gate. A horse ignores all of that, and no amount of bad terrain or debuffing can drop movement below a floor the game enforces.
Food and drink are the everyday sources. One drink buff and one food buff can run at the same time, which is how two points of speed are reached: a drink such as Coffee, Triple Shot Espresso or Joja Cola provides one, and a dish such as Pepper Poppers, Spicy Eel, Crab Cakes or Super Meal provides the other. Coffee is the dependable one, on sale at the Stardrop Saloon every single day and brewable from Coffee Beans in a Keg, while Triple Shot Espresso is made from three Coffees and lasts far longer. Green Tea gives half a point from a Keg full of Tea Leaves. Magic Rock Candy includes a point of speed among everything else it does. The Chef at the Desert Festival sells five dishes built on Uncomfortably Hot Sauce that each add a point of speed and stack on top of ordinary food, which makes the festival the one place a farmer can run at a genuinely silly pace.
Several special buffs come from equipment and events rather than from eating. A Savage Ring grants a short burst of extra speed on every kill, and a Golden Spur grants one on every critical hit. The Statue Of Blessings can hand out a half point that lasts all day, and the Calico Statues at the Desert Festival give a five-minute boost. The debuffs are sharper: being hit by a Slime slows the farmer heavily for a couple of seconds, a Magma Sparker's burn cuts speed along with attack and defence, and a Skeleton Mage's freeze is the harshest effect in the game. Drinking alcohol brings a Tipsy penalty for half a minute, which is a reason to finish the Pale Ale after the fight rather than before it.
Permanent gains come from the Bookseller. Way Of The Wind in two parts each add a quarter point of movement speed for good, with the second needing the first to have been read. Horse: The Book adds a half point on top, but only while mounted. Ol' Slitherlegs is the terrain answer, cutting the grass and crop penalty to a fraction of what it was, which matters most on a farm packed edge to edge with plants.
Notes
Books are the only speed boost that never runs out, and that is what makes them worth their high prices. They also work indoors and in the caves, where a horse cannot follow, so they fill exactly the gap the horse leaves.
The terrain penalty is easy to underestimate on a mature farm. Running through a dense field of crops is slower than walking on a path, so a grid of flooring through the middle of a large planting usually saves more time than it costs in tiles.
Stacking everything at once produces a farmer who crosses the valley absurdly quickly, and it takes a drink, a dish, a festival plate, a statue blessing, both books and a Lucky Ring effect firing at the same moment. It is a novelty rather than a routine, but it demonstrates how far the statistic can be pushed.
All Mechanics
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
