As an experienced Stardew Valley player with over 400 hours invested, I‘ve done my fair share of experimenting with the mushroom vs fruit bat cave options. Both provide good passive resources, but have important strategic impacts depending on your goals.
When the choice comes up, here‘s my expert advice on weighing the pros and cons of each.
Mushroom Cave Yield and Profits
The main advantage of the mushroom cave is hands-off profits. Once set up, it reliably generates mushrooms to process into valuable artisan goods. But just how much are we talking?
Here‘s a breakdown of potential daily yields:
| Mushroom Type | Max Daily Yield |
|---|---|
| Common | 2 |
| Red | 2 |
| Purple | 1 |
| Chanterelle | 1 |
That comes out to 6 mushrooms per day, or 42 per week.
Now let‘s analyze profits based on processing into artisan goods, assuming maxxed out farming level and stats:
| Item | Base Price | Regular Artisan Good | Price | Iridium Artisan Good | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Common Mushroom | 40g | Fried Mushroom | 100g | – | – |
| Red Mushroom | 75g | Pickled Mushroom | 225g | – | – |
| Purple Mushroom | 250g | – | – | Mushroom Wine | 2,310g |
| Chanterelle | 160g | Juice | 480g | Wine | 1,920g |
- Artisan profession required for 2x artisan goods price
- Does not include extra cost of input items like oil or vinegar
With this, we can calculate weekly revenue:
- 18 Fried Common Mushrooms = 1,800g
- 18 Pickled Red Mushrooms = 4,050g
- 7 Purple Mushroom Wines = 16,170g
- 7 Chanterelle Wines = 13,440g
Total = 35,460g per week
That comes out to over 1.85 million gold per in-game year – extremely lucrative! And again, this required no effort beyond the initial crafting.
Analyzing Bat Cave Tradeoffs
Now let‘s compare to the bat cave. Daily output here is randomized rather than fixed:
- Produces 1-2 fruits per day
- 14 possible fruit types + blackberries
- Some fruit only available seasonally
This makes quantifying weekly or yearly production more variable. However, based on community testing, over a year bats produce an average of:
- 210 apples
- 140 cave carrots
- 160 oranges
- 85 peaches
- 55 pomegranates
- 35 dragonfruits
- 8 sweet gem berries
Plugging these quantities into the artisan goods formulas:
- Apple Wine: 462g base
- Carrot Juice: 168g base
- Orange Jam: 120g
- Peach Wine: 672g
- Pomegranate Wine: 945g
- Dragonfruit Wine: 550g
- Sweet Gem Berry Wine: 3,150g
The total yearly artisan revenue, again assuming maxxed farming, comes out to just 788,960g.
This is less than half the earnings from an entire year of mushrooms! And that gap will only widen as the mushroom cave output scales faster over time.
The variance in fruit spawns also leads to issues like filling kegs efficiently. You either have unused capacity or need to stockpile fruits.
Community Center Bundle Impact
However, bats provide exclusive access to some fruits needed for the Community Center. This can help players finish bundles earlier and unlock the greenhouse. How much of an impact does this have?
Overall, bats supply just 4 of 94 total items needed. And most bundles with bat fruits don‘t unlock areas critical to profit. For example:
- Pantry: Unlocks bus route for desert access. No bat fruits.
- Crafts Room: Unlocks crystalariums for duplicating diamonds. No bat fruits.
- Fish Tank: Unlocks recycled machines and gold clock. No bat fruits.
- Boiler Room: Unlocks minecarts. No bat fruits.
- Vault: Unlocks bus to Calico Desert. No bat fruits.
- Bulletin Board: Unlocks bridge to quarry. No bat fruits.
The exceptions are the Orchard and Exotic Forage bundles:
- Orchard: Unlocks the greenhouse which lets you grow crops year-round. Requires apples, pomegranates, peaches, and apricots. Cannot complete Year 1 without bats.
- Exotic Forage: Reward is auto-petter to max friendship. Requires dragonfruit and sweet gem berries only available from bats.
However, the orchard bundle only blocks <12% of total crops in Year 1. And with proper planning, you can buy needed fruits from the traveling cart or overlaps with fruit tree growth. The exotic forage reward is also minor.
In other words, bats provide only marginal Community Center acceleration compared to their opportunity cost. You sacrifice 50% profit for small, non-critical bundle gains. The greenhouse and other areas offer far larger revenue potential.
And if speedrunning bundles in Year 1 is the goal, mushrooms enable buying whatever fruits are needed. Their profits can easily cover traveling merchant fruit stockpiles or rapid tree growth via deluxe speed-gro.
Mining Strategies for Mushrooms
Of course, we‘ve only analyzed the cave outputs so far. A valid question is whether mining provides enough mushrooms naturally.
In my experience, the spawn rate for purple and chanterelle mushrooms is far too low without the cave‘s help. Even with daily mining runs, you‘ll average finding each only ~2 times per season. That‘s barely enough for a handful of life elixirs!
The most efficient way to find mushrooms is to focus efforts during Fall in levels 81-120 of the normal mines. This biome has the highest density of mushroom nodes. You can use staircases to quickly descend and check each level.
I suggest always setting a daily minimum threshold when mining, such as leaving after encountering 3 chanterelles and 2 purples. This ensures you don‘t waste entire days without making progress.
You can further improve luck with food buffs like Pumpkin Soup. This biases RNG to drop more desired items. Combine with Spicy Eel for added speed and luck.
Just note that even with ideal strategies, your yields will be a fraction of a dedicated mushroom cave. Expect to gather enough mushrooms for maybe 1-2 artisan goods per week.
More Advanced Processing Ideas
Beyond raw artisan goods, some interesting processing options can raise mushroom profits even further.
For example, both oil and vinegar can be "aged" by leaving casks in the cellar over time. Higher quality input means higher quality output. In turn, these can be used as ingredients for Pickled/Fried Mushrooms and fruit juices.
After a month, iridium-grade oil/vinegar sells for 2-3x base price. And another month for the artisan goods boosts market values dramatically. Some permutations with max price multipliers:
- Silver-Star Purple Wine – 2,310g
- + Iridium-Aged 2★ Wine – 6,930g
- + Iridium-Aged 2★ Vinegar – 20,790g
- + Artisan Perk – 41,580g
Similar compounding works for fruit juices with iridium-aged vinegar. This roughly doubles potential bat cave profits.
Casks and preserve jars require substantial investment in materials and time. But if pursuing the 100% perfection goal, it can make sense to age excess artisan goods over many seasons.
Another tip is turning the various mushrooms into dyes via the dye pots added in 1.5. This converts up to 3 input items into a single dye worth 8x the base value.
For example, 3 iridium-quality chanterelles worth 480g each combine into a single Red Mushroom dye worth 1,920g. That‘s nearly a 3x multiplier with no production time!
End-Game Usage Comparison
In the super late game after completing the Community Center bundles and achieving 100% perfection, usage changes slightly for these resources.
At this point, the most valuable output comes from gifting loved items to villagers to grind friendship levels. Both fruit and mushrooms have solid loved recipients:
Top Mushroom Gift Choices
- Purple Mushroom – Caroline
- Chanterelle – George
- All Mushrooms – Linus
Top Fruit Gift Choices
- Peach – Elliot
- Apple – Pierre
- Pomegranate – Demetrius
- Coconut – Sandy
Quantifying this gets more complex given gifting mechanics and decay. But suffice it to say both produce types are decent.
One tip is to cook loved dishes before gifting. For example, the Life Elixir made from Chanterelles and Purple Mushrooms heals Harvey fully and gives a whopping +150 friendship!
Fruit also tends to have broader appeal as more universal likes. However, mushrooms seem to generate slightly higher individual friendships.
For min/max players pursuing 100% perfection, I recommend ultimately setting up both options. Having every villager at max friendship takes 10+ years of daily gifting. Any advantage helps, no matter how small.
Final Verdict: Mushrooms Win Out
While fruit bats offer some exclusive items, niche bundle help, and decent gifting options, mushrooms simply generate far higher profits with less effort. The numbers speak for themselves:
- 1.85 million gold per year AFK from mushrooms
- Hands-off growth without daily harvests
- Funds fast purchases of needed fruits
- Better supplements from crafting or gifts
In almost all cases, the opportunity cost tradeoff heavily favors mushrooms as the best cave choice for Stardew Valley players. Their low-maintenance scalability can‘t be matched. And you‘ll never find rare types reliably without the built-in farming.
Hopefully this analysis gives you confidence deciding between two solid options. Let the shrooms grow, my friends! Now get out there, make millions, and pet those chickens!
