My Time at Portia - tips and hints

Am I the only one who's playing it? Shame on you if I am. But if there's noone but me, lemme add some pointers for lurkers and those who'll get here via Google.

- Go in the game options and slow the time. Move the slider all way left and time will pass 50% slower, that way you won't get frustarted with excess stamina you couldn't spend during a day. Tell me nothing - I was at the end of the first year when I've discovered it. So many XP and levels wasted.

- Always keep at least two of the same type producing machines. There are not enough of furnaces so spam at least 6 of those.
Grill and cooking pot… One of each is enough.
Note that some schematics need an older machine you're using for production. And those obsolete ones you can donate later in the game to museum when it gets built. But if the machine is filled with "fuel" and mats, you won't be able to. To empty a machine, pick it with F, then empty into inventory with R. You can also hit it with an axe twice for the same effect, but if you have no stamina, you won't be able to swing an axe.

- Forget reaching #1 spot on the comissions leaderboard in first two months. At the end of the first year keep in mind it's enough to have 12.000 town reputation points to reach #1 spot. Means if you got past that point, no reason to waste hard to get ress for much more as the leaderboard resets next year.

- Gold comissions are in fact the main story. While you can take only one normal commission daily, if there is a gold one on the table, you can also pick it although you got a normal one already. Also once you finish a gold commission, you don't have to wait for the next day but can pick another immediately. Unlike normal commissions, gold ones are available during weekends - note that Higgins doesn't take commissions during weekends which means prepare mats for them all then wait for the weekend for max reputation points.

- You get town reputation points on plenty of stuff (quests, commissons and items checkout when your rank reaches C), but you can also pay for newspaper advertisment and later in the game for donating stuff to museum when it gets built.

- There is no money tree in this game, but there is a crystal tree. That drops crystals. And sometimes gems. Get seeds for it early in the church. And large planter box there too. In fact get at least two as early as possible, trust me, you'll need tons of these crystals during late game and you want to avoid grinding (mining them).

- You need tons of money desperately? Tought luck very early, so you'll have to micromanage stuff for a while, not too long though… Just don't bother with it much until you unlock the desert. Once you do, grab your fishing rod and go fish in oasis. 30K of $ daily guaranteed!
Note that you can donate fish later in the museum (second floor, aquarium) and earn rewards for collecting all types of fish. Better the fish quality collection (normal, emperor, king), better the reward! Fish donations don't count to donations items total for specific rewards at the front desk, fish collection reward is separate and without spoiling it, I suggest getting all emperor (with one star) collection in the first year. King fish type is very rare and if I'm right, except in the desert oasis, they have higher chance to appear during rainy days.

- You mined numerous CDs, wtf. Go to research center and give them to Petra who'll return you new schematics. You can't give those to her if she's outside. There is no reason to speed up any research - you'll get all of schematics possible from Petra during the first year. Those you don't get that way you'll be able to purchase later.

- If you're mining in abandoned ruins for ress, use the best pickaxe you have. If not for ress but for relic parts, use the worst one as it uses less stamina.
Museum, why of course, you can donate relics to museum. Once. Doubles keep at home for additional bonuses. There is also a certain relic you want 4 pieces of it, one to donate and 3 to equip late game but we'll cross that bridge…

- As soon as possible buy a stable in A&G and then your own horse. The first month you won't have the money for that, but the second? You need it. Desperately. Only 20K of $ for both and trust me, you'll have it.
I mean you saw some unreachable chests on the town's walls? Well yeah, you'll be able to open those with a mount. The chest on a small island no, for that one you need to finish the game's main story.

- Some people romance looks, some practicality. You'll notice some potential spouses have a special bonus of helping around house. Means when married to you, they'll refuel what's necessary, collect products, feed animals… Dunno, wash dishes, digging wells, etc.
Feel free to ignore that when choosing who to marry because there is a robot you can hire to do the same thing for mere 1200 per month. Assuming you're friends with it.

- Helper's box can contain twice as many items as metal box and is not complicated to make. If you did pay to the robot or got married with helper, make sure items you don't want to be used for production, feeding or whatever else aren't in helper's boxes.

- In the town's furniture store there is a +7 DEF rubbish respawning daily with a price cca 1000. Stack a few of them inside the house till you hit the current house level cap (click on the plaque by the door to see what the cap on HP/STA/ATK/DEF per furniture currently is).
No, I didn't find any buyable +ATK furniture (yet) and I have no idea if +% critchance furniture exist. Some events, some relics and some quest reward items do provide +ATK furniture.
Remember to equip three +% critchance equipment on your hero, you'll swim in these.

(looks at the people with big heads chopping down trees)

I think I'll take the shame, thanks.

No love for chibi?

Hey joxer, have you romanced Emily?
After she became my girlfriend, her grandma asked me to help them dayly by gathering 999 pieces of manure and feeding their animals 999 times. After that I ragequit, but I am starting to think that's a joke and the mission will be over well before I reach anywhere near those numbers.

I haven't romanced anyone so far although I've finished the first year yesterday. Quests and sidequests give tons of relationship points compared to talking, dueling and checkers that give just 1 so I didn't bother much. Besides, I'm specced to combat, not to chatty skilltree. Yes I know I can respec via acupuncture nurse at the hospital, but… That'd feel like cheating.
Emily and one of constructors however are currently with highest relationship points because pretty much everything turns around them plus Emily spams chicken run and pumpkin repeatables weekly.

In other words I haven't seen that granny's Daily but I'd refuse to do it definetly.
Please don't ragequit but spoil me what happens when you fail it.

Actually, my relationship with Emily was pretty good too. She looks just like my wife so I decided to romance her and she became my girlfriend. Unfortunately, by the next day her grandma appears with her at my doorstep disallowing the relationship.

At first I thought it was hilarious and Emily reverted to friend status but then came the mission to help them out with dayly chores (999 manure and 999 feeding) so I rage quit. I was well into my second year, desert unlocked and all, no more research blueprints to unlock, so I tried my hand at romancing, with ill results, lol!

Man don't tempt me to pursue her just to see it happening.

Anyways, without actual romancing or sucking up and just questing (and massive +rep on everyone during snowball events) this is the start of my second year - the game sorts highest relationships first:


For those who want to know how many town points Higgins gets +/- probably 500 at the end of the first year (he starts it with cca 5000 bonus points), this is the last day of the first year toplist in my game:

I think that picture alone will be sufficient to scare me away from ever trying this game, well done!!

joxer said:

Man don't tempt me to pursue her just to see it happening.

Anyways, without actual romancing or sucking up and just questing (and massive +rep on everyone during snowball events) this is the start of my second year - the game sorts highest relationships first:

For those who want to know how many town points Higgins gets +/- probably 500 at the end of the first year (he starts it with cca 5000 bonus points), this is the last day of the first year toplist in my game:

Click to expand...

Cool. I got a lot of rep with people during the first year via questing too. You got a lot more though, and I ended at 2nd place in the crafter competition. But I focused a lot on making my house and yard bigger and prettier, and I was quite slow advancing the questline as I did not know there was so much story content.

Edited the first post (and added some new hints).

Tomorrow I'll add some tips about relationships, pets and combat. And maybe irrigation and factory? We'll see.

A few other tips from having played while it was in the late stages of early access just before release.

-->Attend the Fireside Meetings (these are the town gatherings held at 19:00 on Sundays). If you don't, you'll miss out on the introduction of very important people that are critical to the main story, meaning you cannot progress through the main story if you do not attend these meetings.
-->Later in the game when you need to advance the plot and you're not getting any visits or request letters in the mail, consider doing the optional quests. Some of them aren't required for the storyline, but the game won't hand you the next story related quest until some of the optionals are complete.
-->Train your horse every day. Max out his stamina, and you'll be able to traverse a large portion of the land without needing to slow down and rest.
-->There's a skill in the "Fight" tree called "Dash". It's only a two point investment, but it's totally worth the cost. Heavily decreases stamina usage when sprinting. I personally found it incredibly helpful, but this depends on how you typically play your character, of course.
-->Swords are fun, but hammers are great. When built right, the attack rotation with hammers allow for some really heavy hitting swings, and can do a 360 degree attack. Handy for large groups.
-->Always fish on rainy days. I found that fishing was the best source of income for me.

I really need to get back into this game. I definitely agree about slowing down the day time. Two of each production station is a good idea as well, I can vouch for that.

Dunno about early access but the first two things are changed in the release:
- you will miss people and some nonessential food but the story will move on without you attending any of these.
- after one main quest done, usually it takes a few days till another appears. you may completely ignore sidequests, but I'm not sure why would you.

So I finally got around to playing this thing.

I was blown away by how enjoyable it was! Now granted I do like stardew valley, its not a huge leap to think I might enoy this.

I ran into the occasional bug but nothing game breaking. There are more activities than SV, and for someone that generally likes punishing games I strangely enjoyed not having to worry about getting to bed at 3am. There are time limits and window of opportunity on some tasks but I never felt like it was impossible to meet.

I did download a reshade as the "dreamy" look is not something I like. The reshade doesn't change the core graphics (still stuck with retarded looking chibi characters) but its a little more manageable when its not all full of smoke and lens flare effect.

I did lose about 8 hours of game because at a certain stage I couldn't take the main characters voice anymore and couldn't find anyway to hack it. Hex editor included. I missed an option on the character creation to select voice and the default one seemed to get progressively more terrible. Once a character is started, the only option is to turn off all voices, which I didn't want to do. I ended up restarting and picking different voice.

Also as Joxer said above, slide the time scale down a bit once you get lots of stamina so you can both interact and craft/use stamina before night.

Overall 100% surprised how enjoyable the game is.