The plant refinery: A strategy guide to time reducing, tools and artisan drops.

EDIT: There's a section with strategies, hints and suggestions that may be useful!
Further additions always in purple

Contents:
1. Early considerations
2. Terminology
3. Improving basics
4.1. Bring on the tables
4.2. Early Bloomer
4.3. Effectiveness
4.4. "Does it pay off"?
5. Tools
6. Artisan ingredients
7. Strategies, hints and suggestions
8. Final note

1. Some considerations before I begin:​

1. Improving basics is the key word here. I don't feel I should explain the basics of refinement. Those can be found on a very informative FAQ's thread called "Plant cultivation: Greenhouse and refinement" under the "Game Faq's" section in this forum. When starting reading this guide, one should already understand the basics. However, there are tips to improve your performance that a FAQ could/should not explain. It's up to us to find them and eventually share.

2. Plant refinery is a very slow process. It can be frustrating getting the needed refineries for your style of gameplay but in the long run it pays off.

3. If you're a new player or if you’re mentoring a new player, don't start refinement before level 12. As I said, this is a very slow process and can be very frustrating. Those crops below Strawberry level, offers so little (if visible) rewards in the long run that eventually a new player would dismiss the refinery after a while.

4. This guide does not take in consideration that you use Super Grow (SG), Suzi supergrow (Suzi), manure or Barnyard Bills (BB) on a regular basis. I'll treat these kind of enhancements as your choice and I'm not going to take them in consideration as a rule.

5. This guide has no affiliation whatsoever with BP, as a whole or in part. This is just a guide made by a regular player that wanted to share with their fellow players and nothing more. Feel free to copy, translate any part or the whole guide.

6. I'm no English native. So, if something isn't clear, please do tell and I'll try to explain the best way I can. Also, I'm no expert at the refining process. So, any advice, tip, clarification and correction from you all are most welcome.

Having this said, let's begin!

2. First and most, a little terminology. Otherwise we’re “Lost in translation”!​

Refinement is one or a group of bonus you can use for reducing time growth or increasing tool drop or increasing EP or…

Research is when you deliver crops to “search” for refinement.
There are three possibilities quantity-wise to start a given plant research. Those will be called small, medium and large research quantity.

The result of a research found becomes available in a slot.

Every plant has 9 slots. Each refinement is associated with a slot. Therefore, 9 refinement slots you can choose to profit. Slots are divided in three levels (the FAQ calls them bonus brackets) and each level has three slots. The three levels will be called as L1, L2 and L3, with the last level being supposedly the highest type of bonus. Some of the refinements are useful, some of them… well, doesn’t seem so at a first glance. (To put it mildly).

Slot refinery is the place where you put a certain refinement in order to take effect on that specific crop planting. The slot refineries are available in the Plant Refinery section of your farmhouse (next to the greenhouse).

3. Improving basics​

This guide will focus on two things only:
1. Reducing time growing
2. Tools and artisan drops

Sometimes, they can work in conjunction, sometimes they don’t.
I don’t take in consideration EP increasing.
Why? Because, reducing time growth is already increasing EP per hour, plus the fact that the game have so many enhancements on EP (recipes like Carrot bread, pets, runes and so on) that even if there’s a decrease in EP they can be counter parted with the multiple enhancements the game has to offer.
Besides, even to new players who don’t have much access to those multiple enhancements, EP from crops are never your main EP incoming. EP-givers are always your main income.
So, the loss of EP from a crop is residual in a 24-hour basis.
Also, EP loss due to negative refinements goes from 4% from short crops to 20% in longer crops. If you have access to longer crops, you have access to buy a simple Carrot bread.
So, focus. The main goal is to reduce time growth and/or improving tool drops. Not EP.

Q: First dilemma: Which research quantity should I begin? Small, medium or large?

A: Just to be clear: Small, medium and large researches are in no way associated with L1, L2 and L3 respectively. You can get an L3 refinement from a small research and vice-versa.

Q: Then why is it broke down to three quantities of research??

A: To be frankly…, I don’t know! Probably, it was conceived to increase chances. But from my experience and other players’ experiences neither they nor I have seen faster results.

However, you can still research even after all refinements are researched. It’s strange that you can do it, but probably the reason is that research is also programmed to earn stuff other than having a successful refinement or the return of crops.
Since you may like it to do so, then probably large quantity is what you may want to deliver to get better results from it.
Mind you, it’s a possibility. Not the truth.

Whenever you begin researching a plant by small quantity, you may wind up with any result. Yes, even an L3 slot at your first attempt. Every time you get a refinement, increases chances of not being successful for the next researches. Hence, when you only have left L3 slots to research, it gets slower and slower to be successful.
There are some people that stick only to small and they report good results.
However, once I have every L1 refinements, I change to medium quantity.
If I was lucky enough before that happens, I could have one or more of the L2 and L3 already researched before having all L1 refinements. If I wasn’t… well since I don’t really understand the strange mechanics of the refinement program they created, I stick to the middle.
Once you have every L1 and L2 refinements researched but you still need the elusive one on L3, here’s my advice that you may follow or not: Don’t change to large quantity!
Why? Because of the refundable crops.
More often than not, in an unsuccessful attempt, 90% of the crops are refunded to your inventory from a small research. Occasionally, instead of crops, it can be EP, CC, Super Grow (SG) and other stuff (see FAQ for more info about it). The longer the crop, the larger that kind of “prize”. SG earned can be up to 30 in carnations (the longest crop) while corn probably returns 1 SG (if it does ever)
But in the middle and large quantities research, you’ll only get 90% of the crops IF all two or three unsuccessful stage attempts return the crops to you. Otherwise, you “lost” a lot deal of crops. Whatever the “prize” returned in a research stage, (and unless is SG) don’t think it’s a good bargain. But that’s my opinion.
On the other hand, let’s say you were successful at the first stage of the large quantity. It’s rare but it happens. You donated 1000 crops (instead of 500 or 300) not refundable… And you have to start all over again, this time probably you don’t have enough crops to start a research… And you have to buy or wait until you grow them.

Also, three small researches takes 18 hours total.
One large research, to be fully completed takes 26 hours.
Do the math…

I use SG to reduce the time of researching. Only once for every stage. That is instead of waiting 6 hours, I wait 3 hours until research is completed.
Why I do that? Simply, because I want and I can. My SG reserves allows that.
I have absolutely no idea if that increase chances of being successful. But cuts my time of waiting by half.
However, I know by experience that short crops like oat or corn, seems to have little chances to be successful. If it’s only with me, I don’t know. What I do know is I never use SG on short crops. Try it yourself, if you wish and take your own conclusions…

In conclusion: Whatever the quantity of your research (small, medium or large) just go with your results and intuition. Sometimes, a player’s experience is not accurate due to the lack of experiments. Other times, a feature’s chance don’t work the same way to another player.
Chances are like the slot machines in a casino. You never know when you’re successful…

First dilemma solved. Onto the next.

Q: I got a refinement from my research, but it’s useless to me. Should I take it anyway?

A: YES! YES! YES! Imagine you don’t keep it. The next time you’re successful on your research, there’s a possibility you may get the same refinement you just rejected. Not to mention the fact that you may get it over and over!
Focus. You have 9 slots to fill. And refining is a very slow process (I cannot stress this enough!). Don’t make this painful. If you’re after a specific refinement and you only get it at your 9th successful attempt, that’s really unlucky but it’s not your fault. But, by rejecting a refinement, you may wind up to have the one you want at your 30th successful attempt. And that’s really your fault!!!
One last consideration before moving to the most important:
I've had horrible experiences on a given crop in trying to get a refinement. Any refinement. You know, too many unsuccessful attempts in a row...
On the other hand, I may have been too lucky on another crop.
There really is no pattern.
However, if I’m having too much unsuccessful attempts, I change to another crop.
It may sound silly and random, but sometimes it works when I return to the previous crop.
Coincidence or not, if you feel the same, please report back in this thread. Maybe we can crack a pattern that make us all more successful in the refinement process!

4.1. So, let's bring on the tables!!!​

How to read them:
First, an apology for an inconvenience. In Portugal we use a coma (“,”) instead of a dot (“.”) to separate the decimals. I tried to change it but the software didn't recognize. And to fix it, it would mean a lot of trouble. So, I ask for your indulgence and please, whenever there’s a coma, consider it as a dot on every chart. Thank you!

Second: In every table, there's always the addition of water and manure. (But not SG, which will be taken in an appropriate section).
Plus, how many time you gain with each addition. Either EB, water, manure, water effectiveness, manure effectiveness... Just for you to see exactly if some slots are worth the trouble for you.

First (three) tables are what you earn with no refinements. That is a crop reduced with water and also manure. Minutes are always rounded down. So, when you see 52 minutes that means somewhere between 52 and 53 minutes. Tables have that small inconsistency. Sorry about that! Otherwise, there could be strange time values of 7h60mn. Which obviously means 8 hours...

Don't bother to look for Red Poppy, Rosemary and Basil.
They still don't take part of the refinement "club". Hopefully... yet!
(This paragraph disappeared from the original draft. Thanks Ivancica to remind me!)
However, let's add them manually now:
Basil - 3h22mn - Values are very much like Chamomile (3h23mn)
Rosemary - 4h30 - Values are exactly the same as Cabbage and Peppermint.
Red Poppy - 10h33 . With water: 8h26mn (2h07mn gain). Adding manure to it: 7h35mn (0h51 mn gain).
Now, you can make your own chart to print it with these three crops. But again, there's no refinement on any of them.

To end a myth: To sprinkle a crop with water and manure it’s not reducing 30% of the original time. It’s actually 28% of the original time. No matter which one you put first, the other will pick up from the new time and not the original one.
Why? Because, that's how it is. No matter how fast you are, you can never sprinkle the two of them together. Besides, if you forgot to sprinkle them with water and you realize it afterwards, they're not going to reduce from the original time. Especially, if you realize it only in 2 hours left on a 10 hour crop!

​

As you can see, there are different shades of green in the name of the crop. That is from 0 to 5 hours, then 5 to 10 hours, and last from 10 hours up.

From now on, every crop shorter than 2 hours will be eliminated. Not that you shouldn't use water and manure, but because refinements from those crops don't reduce much visible time.
Besides, once you understand the formulas and you still want those refinements, just do it yourself. It's not difficult.
But, don't forget that it's more difficult to have successful researches on shorter crops! Enough to make you quit refinement once and for all.
And also, there's really interest in reducing time from longer crops. Not shorter.

Where's the frontier between a medium crop and a long crop?
I don't think it's the same to everyone. And I thought very carefully on how to determine that. And I came to this conclusion:
Long crops are the ones that (on a regular basis) you can't plant it twice between the minute you login to the game in the morning until you go to bed.
Whether you use it water and/or manure or none at all, this could be YOUR definition of the frontier between a medium and a long crop.

4.2. First important slot​

It’s called Early Bloomer (therefore known as EB). It’s recognizable by a clock symbol. Almost any crop has it. They can be found either in L1 or in L3 with a bigger bonus but with negative buffs associated. Many times on both.
Whenever there’s two EB for a given crop, it’s better to understand that they don’t add (unlike I thought in the beginning, unless it was another of those situations that were “fixed” afterwards…). Rather takes effect on the new time of each single EB. It doesn’t make any sense, because when you plant the crop, you already have the two EB refineries ready in the slot. Hence, they should add. But someone (or something) thought they shouldn’t…

An example:

Blueberry is a 10 hour crop. Has two EB’s. One with 7.5% growing time reduced and another with 15% (let’s forget for the moment the negative downsides of this last one).
It should be 7.5 + 15 = 22.5% reducing time.
But it isn’t…
It is:
10 hours – 15% = 8h30 hours
8h30 – 7.5% = 7h52 hours
(if you start this calculation with the 7.5 taken from the 10 hours and the 15% after, the end result is exactly the same. So, it really doesn't matter which comes first)
The difference however is only seven minutes more. It still reduces 2h08mn from the original time of 10 hours. Not bad for a long crop! And I’m not counting water and/or manure in the equation!
But because the EB on L3 has a negative consequence on the effectiveness of water for this particular crop, I don’t want to calculate any further.
Plus, water effectiveness has some thinking on its own, explained later. It’s not as straight forward as it sounds…

Negative consequences of the L3 Early Bloomer can be of any type:

1) Decrease time of less than 24 hours until weeds appear (if you’re not planning on staying away from the game longer than 12 hours AFTER the crop is matured, I wouldn't worry about this one).
2) EP reduced by a percentage up to 15% at most.
3) Decrease water or manure or SG effectiveness instead of increasing.
4) Suzi’s Super grow (Therefore known as SSG) EP reduced by a percentage not bigger than 20%.
5) Chances of using 2 units of water, manure, SG and/or SSG instead of 1 on a single plot increased up to 10% of all plots. (That can be hurtful, especially with manure).
And… I don’t think I forgot any.

Reducing time with EB: Look at the tables!!!​

From left to right:
Time - The original time
EB1; EB3 - The Early bloomer refinements available. Sometimes two, other times only one.
Those EB are in %.
EB+water - That is how much time it takes for a crop to mature with all EB refinements in conjunction with water sprinkle (but not with water effectiveness refinement!!!). Remember that sprinkling a crop with water has become a mandatory part for practically any crop plantation.
+ manure - if you also sprinkle with manure in addition to EB and water (no manure effectiveness refinements). Not many do so on a regular basis for medium crops. But since manure has become more interesting lately, it's better to consider putting it in the table, just to see if there's a good gain.
"Yellow" gain - the time you gain when you have EB refinements working (includes water, of course)
"Brown" gain - what you gain if you add manure to the previous gain. That is always in addition to water. Manure is always defined as 10% because of the rune. But more of that, later.

And now the colours of the crops!!!!

Green - Those are the only refinements in reducing time you have. Only EB('s). No water or manure effectiveness for that crop. Still, the EB's for them are very good!!
Pink salmon - They only have manure effectiveness in their refinements, but no water effectiveness. The manure effectiveness don't make much difference, though (less than 10 minutes).
Winter jasmine - (Not a colour, I know!) The same as the above except the manure effectiveness refinement does make a difference. (As you'll see later).
Blue - They all have at least one water effectiveness refinement and/or manure effectiveness refinement, too.
Red - They all have negative water effectiveness due to their EB3 as a consequence. When you sprinkled with water, water becomes less effective but for a bit. EB3 is way too big to make it a visible difference as you can see. Still, you can always counterpart with one small water effectiveness refinement (it has no more than that). But you'll see it won't make much difference, EB reducing time is still great and there's no need to waste another valuable slot for that.
Orange - The same as red crops but you have at least one great water or manure effectiveness refinement to counterpart with.

​

You didn't find some of the crops?
That's because they don't have EB refinements. Those are:
Cucumber - 2h
Tomato - 3h15
Violet - 3h53
Crop circle - 5h40
Radish - 6h30
Barley - 18h (this one's a pity!...)

Perhaps their water and/or manure effectiveness refinements can help these five? Now, here comes the tricky part: Effectiveness!

4.3. Effectiveness on water, manure and SG
​

There are three symbols to identify each one's effectiveness:
It's the symbol of each one with a small clock attached on the bottom right side.
Water effectiveness is called "Water Love"
Manure is "Fertilizer Love"
Super grow is simply "SG Love"
Occasionally, there's combos:
That is, the same L2 slot can both have water and manure love.
It's called "Green Love" (don't confuse it with SG!)
And also, "Duo-fertilizer Love" which is a combination of both SG and manure.

Q: But what's effectiveness? Or rather what does it mean?

A: Suppose you have a refinement that says "Increase water refinement by 8%". What would you think?

Q: Easy. That water will reduce 28% instead of 20%. Right?

A: WRONG!

It means that whatever time is reduced by water, it is reduced 8% more on the TIME that was reduced.
Again the example of Blueberry – 10 hour crop.
Water reduces 2 hours normally. Now, those 2 hours have an increase of 8% (which is roughly 9 minutes and half). So, with that specific refinement water reduces TIME of blueberry by nearly 2h10 minutes instead of just 2 hours.
That is water reduces 21.6% instead of 20%...
Confused? I would!
And yes, I can "hear" your frustration for knowing this fact. It was the same to me...

Let’s try a different approach:
Effectiveness refinements only take place after a defined final value of time reducing for water, manure or SG is found.

In case of water it’s easy. The defined value is always 20%. There’s no other enhancements in the game. No recipe associated, no rune that changes its value, no cloud row, nothing. Plain and simple, if you don’t use any refinement, water reduces 20% of the crop time. Always. At least, up until when this guide was made.

Q: Then why don’t they put the real value of how much time, water is going to reduce? It seems confusing like this!...

A: I totally agree and it didn't make sense until a certain quest came to us about a year ago. The famous raccoon quest!

You see, manure and SG don’t have the same situation.
In case of manure, we forgot that new players start with 5% reduction until you have the rune that defines the value to 10%. And that’s the big difference!
New players have their manure reducing the growth time by 5%. Effectiveness increasing will take place on this value.
But after we get the rune that doubles the value to 10%, so will double effectiveness increasing.

In the example above of Winter Jasmine (and why she was "mistaken" by a colour), there’s that refinement that says increasing 50% on manure effectiveness. Well, increasing 50% is increasing half.
If manure is defined to 5% (without the rune), then manure will then reduce 7.5% of the time with this refinement for Winter Jasmine.
But then manure is later defined to 10%, thanks to the rune. Then manure will reduce 15% of the time because of the refinement effect! It’s a big difference, isn't it?
This is why they don’t put the real percentage value that water or manure will reduce time of the crop maturation. They don’t know which will be that value for each player.
True, water is always 20%. But who knows in the future?

About SG, things get even better (or rather strangely better).
SG reduces 50% of the crop time. But there’s that rune that defines the value to 60% instead of 50.
Plus, there’s those two recipes (White Innocence and Fruit Cake) that defines the value to a total of 75% of the time. And finally, there's also the 2014 harvest hoedown cloud row (the chestnut cuties) that plateaus the value to 80%!!
The higher it is the number of SG reducing time in these circumstances, the more effective is the refinement on SG.
Here’s a simple formula to know exactly how much effective is your effectiveness refinements.

Let’s pick an example of 10% increasing effectiveness on the three reducing enhancements.
Water is 20%. Convert to decimals: 0.20
10 x 0.20 = 2
It’s an increase? Then add this number (2) to water value: 20 + 2 = 22%.
Water will reduce 22% of the time instead of the regular 20%
It’s a decrease (due to negative consequence L3 refinement)? Subtract the number: 20 – 2 = 18%.
Manure is 10% (with the rune). Convert to decimals: 0.10
10 x 0.10 = 1
Add 1 to manure value (10) = 11%
SG is 80% with WI, FC, rune and cloud row = 0.80
10 x 0.80 = 8
80 + 8 = 88% for SG reducing time crop.

Sometimes, a given crop has more than one refinement on effectiveness. That is, for example two or three Water Love refinements.

This is tricky. Two or more water love refinements (including negatives) don’t add their value as I thought in the beginning. Rather each one pick up on the value of the other. It makes every calculation for us more confusing (actually a nightmare!) but the good part is that it makes it a tiny bit better than if it were added. A tiny bit worse if one of them decreases. But believe me, it’s just tiny bit.
Let’s go back to the formula:
Imagine you have 2 positive Water Love refinements and 1 negative due to an EB slot.
The values are as follows: 10% ; 15% and -8%.
How it is calculated? In much the same way, but with a twist.
Since we already know that it doesn't matter which value you begin with, let's start calculations by that order:
First refinement: 10% increase on water effectiveness. (Starting value is 20%)
(10 x 0.20) + 20 = 22%
Second refinement: 15% (this time it picks on 22%, hence the colour changing)
(15 x 0.22) + 22 = 25.3%
Third refinement: -8% (it picks on 25.3%)
(–8 x 0.253) + 25.3= 23.276%
Final result is this last one. Water will decrease time by 23.276% instead of the regular 20%.

In conclusion, Water Love is good but not great. However, on longer crops can make a difference. Provided there’s good L3 refinements of water love.


So, here's the table(s) for Water Love only:
Notice that this time, they are broke down by relevance instead of colours for crops. That's because, the description of that break is on the right to save time.

​

In every break, crops are from the highest gain of Water Love to the lowest.
But you can see that no Water Love refinement(s) has a time gain higher than 1 hour. And many of them have a gain of 15 minutes or less...
And take a look at the slots used. Is it worth it to use so many slots just to gain 18 minutes in the case of mushrooms?
Take your conclusions.

The manure was added and calculated without Fertilizer Love.
Except when there's Green Love... That is a combo of water and manure effectiveness in a single slot.


Those crops are the following:

(and also:
Carnation 8 / 10
Rye 8 / 10
that for some reason eluded me. Sorry about that!)
​

Finally what will become if you're using "Fertilizer Love" in addition to "Water Love"?
Too many slots used and for a gain of less than 10 minutes for every crop that has it, except these three:

​

You couldn't find a certain crop? That's because it has no Water Love. See the EB tables to find what are these ones (search in the coloured crops explanation).

And now two of the most bizarre and extreme situations!
First one is Cucumber. When every water and manure "Love" takes place, it doesn't decrease time!... It increases! (Celery also has the same situation but it's a 1h44 crop. It's not contemplated in these tables).
How to prevent that? Don't use L3 "Fertilizer Love".

The second one is described as follows:

​

SG LOVE​

Should I tell you how you should spend your SG? Absolutely not!! I have no right to do it!!

Can I suggest one way you could spend it? Hmmm... Ok!

Imagine you're having a hard time to get an event drop. Because you were on vacation for two or three days but you really want to do the whole event.
Crops are no problem to you, but event drops are.
You have a good reserve of SG, so you can afford to use, let's say, 202 SG units.
What to do to maximize your event drops?
With refinements on SG effectiveness (and thanks to the experience of our lovely fellow farmer player, Mir) few of the crops have the possibility of being ready to harvest, the second you sprinkle with SG. Even without using water or manure.
Sci-Fi? No. It's one of the best discoveries of SG effectiveness refinements (called SG love).
For this to happen, some things have to be made in order to do so.
SG is (for a new player) defined to reduce time growth by 50%.
The growth boost rune defines it to 60%.
White Innocence and Fruit Cake recipes (10% and 5% respectively) highers that value to 75%.
Finally, the 2014 harvest hoedown cloud row (the one with the cute chestnut "dolls") lifts up to a total of 80%
A few crops have a 25% SG effectiveness refinement. Do you know how much is that? Let's pick the formula again:
25 x 0,80 = 20
Add it to the 80%:
80+20 = 100% reduction time for those crops. That is... instantly done maturing!!

Ok, so the cloud row is not available for some people. True! Still, you have everything else available. And 75% is still a lot as you'll see. Enough to have a long crop like carnation (almost 19 hours) reduced to half an hour. Maybe less.

How is this helpful for event drops?
Again, you have 202 SG. If you spent them all in a field of 1x1 plots, you had one harvest with, let's say 44 event drops in half an hour of carnation growing. Not bad!
(Don't forget one thing. Carnation may be maturing for about half an hour. But on its basis, it's still the longest crop. Hence, the best results for a event drop harvest. Plus, have SG refinements.)

But, hey! Why don't you turn your 1x1 field into 44 plots of 2x2 size? Therefore, you can have 4 harvests in this fashion spending the same 202 SG. Plus, half a field harvest or so.
Do you see where I'm heading?
With the same 202 SG you earned more or less 202 event drops in, let's say, 2 hours if you use 2x2 plots instead of 1x1 which is the way it is normally done.

True that event drops "drop" better from 1x1 plots than a 2x2 plots. But it's also true that with an (almost) 19 hour crop like carnation, the difference is very little between the two kinds of plot. Remember, it's the time of the crop that affects the drops. Not EP!

Keep in mind that this is just for extreme cases. Usually, no long time player have problems with drops in a regular dropping event, assuming he stays online for every day of the event. Are we clear on that?

Let's move on, shall we?

Below is the table of SG effectiveness for crops equal or longer than 10 hours. If you want to know about crops shorter than that, you have to find it yourself. But for the majority of the players, those are the ones that counts.
In the columns of SG-60; SG-75; SG-80 are the situations described above (rune, recipes, cloud row).
The results are the SG % that time is effectively reduced when the refinement is put on slot for the three situations.
When SG is defined by 80%, negative water effectiveness doesn't apply because you don't have the time to use water!!!
All L2 SG effectiveness refinements come with the "Duo-Fertilizer Love" combo. That means that the value in brown belongs to manure, not SG. Again, in some cases you probably don't have time to use manure, too.
In L3, a few values are in pink or red.
Pink means that there's a negative Water Love associated. I wouldn't worry at all about this one.
Red is much worse. That means that the negative part is there's a small chance to spend 2 units of SG instead of 1. Ouch! These are the only spending situation I really care about. SG is gold! Water and manure are not! A bad thing that Roses and carnations have it. Those are the only two crops I use for SG...
The "SG" help column means that (and quoting) there's a small "chance of fertilizing with SG without effecting your SG reserves". Great, isn't it? Those crops that have this refinement are the ones with the light green square in this column. Good thing that roses and carnations have it, too. Although, lower than the negative one...

​

4.4. Does it pay off?​

Final table is a conclusion. A comparison between the original time and the new reduction time after every refinement possible on this subject (SG apart).
From the highest to the lowest.
Keep in mind that sometimes using all refinements many not be as good as it seems. Some may harm others. But those are calculations that would take much more time than I would want to spend.
Besides, apart from the two quoted paradoxes like cucumber and celery that actually increases time when using all "Fertilizer Love" refinements, the difference of percentage wouldn't be much visible. So, this is the table that counts, at least for me.

Using water reduces 20% of the original time.
Adding manure is reducing 28% of the original time.
Look at radish and barley at the bottom of the chart.
30.4% and 30.86% respectively. Is it worth it? You decide.

​

Crop square has the highest percentage of all when all of its refinements take place.

However, there's a fellow player that noted a long time ago that Raspberry is the one that cuts off the most time. 8h27mn cut off to be exact. She is still fondly called as "the raspberry girl" when the subject is refinement!

About the singing flowers cloud row (relevant suggestion of Mooboy)

Because it's not readily available to all, I won't make any table about it. Really sorry!
But you just have to understand that for each crop that falls into the "flower" category, time can be reduced 10% more.
Consider the final outcome as this:
X = The percentage number of the last column (just for those that falls on flowers category)
Subtract as follows: 100-X = Y
Multiply by 0.9 as follows: 0.9 * Y = Z
Subtract as follows: 100-Z
The result must now be 1 to 10 points higher than the original X. And it's the real time reduction percentage when in conjunction with the singing flowers cloud row.

And that's all about time reducing!

Next subject? Tool drops!!!

5. Ah! The Tools!​

Before talking about tools, we have to understand how drops work.

For every single pen, tree, workshop pen and single crop (either small or large) it may drop something "out of the land"! The "something" may be as follows:
1) One and only one tool: It may be either a nail or a wooden hammer, for example. Plus...
2) One and only one event drop whenever there's an event going on. Plus...
3) One and only one artisan drop for each type. That means 1 sugar plus 1 salt plus 1 wire plus 1 elyxir plus 1 mandrake. (Yes, it is possible).

All three possibilities may happen altogether for a single crop, pen, tree,...
Of course, the chance of the three possibilities occurring at the same time is more likely to happen from a really long workshop pen.
But it can. Imagine harvesting your pink koi pond and discover: 1 scissor plus 1 event drop plus 1 sugar, 1 salt, 1 wire, 1 elixyr and 1 mandrake.
Chances are very slim. But not impossible. However, three types of artisan drops is more likely to happen.

But we can't refine animals or products. Only crops. Therefore, 1 tool plus 1 event drop plus 1 artisan drop seldom happens but it's possible for a single plot of a really long crop.

A final consideration is the trophies. Without at least 25% of the two trophies combined, I don't think any of the refinements can be of much help...

Tools categories​

We all know them but let's split them in categories.
I divided into:

1.The small ones (Nails, Wood, Tiles and Bricks)

2.The medium albeit indispensable ones (Hammer, Shovel, Saw, Machine Part, Paint, Spray and Oak Seedling)

3.The “big four” (Basket, Queen Bee, Scissors and Air Conditioner)

4.The Bahamarama tools (Feather collector and Wooden Mallet)

By the time, Greenhouse was created, the following tools didn't exist: Zen Rake, Scrap Metal and the latest addition Drip Tank.
Who knows in the future?
Let’s proceed.

All tool drop bonus are in either L2 or L3.

The small and medium categories of tools can all be found in a L2. All medium tools are also found on L3 in low-leveled crops with much higher drop rate. But as you know, all of them with negative consequences. However, it’s up to you to know if those negative refinements are important. I only identify the ones associated with time reducing.

The “big four” and bahamarama tools may only be found on L3.


There are 17 tools and it's a very slow process (I can't stress this enough). There are also crops that have 2, sometimes 3 different tools associated. Search for a plant that has 2 or more tools associated to reduce your tries in refining.

There's a problem with the “big four”. Because they have high CC value, they only appear when you reach farm level 63 and beyond. And even still, only in L3. That's bad for new and medium players because scissors, air conditioner and basket are needed for rabbit, duck, turkey and sheep production pens which come way before farm level 63. The only thing I can say is once you reach the level required to have a plant that refines any of those tools, the rewards are quite enormous. They are all L3 refinements but they have at least one plant with no negative consequences relevant. (Unless you're into SG or SSG).

The Baha tools are awful because there are only three plants for each of the baha tool. All of them with dire consequences for time reducing. Don't panic. Just be prepared that you have to deal with the negative downside of it and treat them as medicine. Awful to swallow but in the end you'll feel better.

About Plant Refinery.
If you want to delete any slot refinery, beware that it will still stay active for the next 24 hours before the slot is available. So, if you're planning on using other refinement right away, you can't.
Plan ahead what you want 24 hours before.
For example: Roses has a L3 feather collector refinement. Plant the roses first (especially if you're having other rose refinements running), then before you harvest, place the feather collector refinement. That way, the negative consequences associated with time reducing can no longer affect this harvest. If you want to continue planting roses for a period of time not shorter than one day until you have all the feather collectors you desire, let the buff run. Otherwise, delete it immediately. You can still benefit for one or two more rose harvests before the refinement wears off. But this time with all three negative bonuses associated with the feather collector refinement.

One thing I find relevant: I don't use 2x2 plots. I only use 1x1. Therefore, I don't know how much the plot size is affected. All I can say is if I want the best result possible I plant all possible fields. So delete all animal pens, production pens, trees and such. Leave only the least exceptions possible. Otherwise you don't get good results, especially on low valuable tools and baha tools. If you want feather collectors, don't use only one field. My first experience (with roses) I got “only” 6 feather collectors with one harvest of three fields. But it's not an even drop because one of the fields came up empty!

Tool drop bonus is based on percentage. I'm not sure but I bet that a certain refined tool doesn't drop the same way with a shorter crop than a long one.
For example: Hop and lilly-of-the-field may both give me 10x chance bonus drop on wood. But one is a 2-hour crop, the other is a 4h30 crop. With no refinement at all in time reducing, they'll probably get me different wood values for one harvest anyway, (Hop being less than lily-of-the-field). However, I’m assuming that two harvests of Hop will come near the number of woods dropped for one harvest of lily-of-the field. Never tried it, though…

Hammers are L2 bonus on roses. 150 chance bonus drop. I wind up with 35 to 45 hammers when harvesting three full fields of roses. Exactly the same result as with L3 hammer refinement in strawberries. But this time with 4 harvests.
That means that 4 harvests of strawberries is 12 hours (no water or anything).
One harvest of roses is 10h48 (again, no water).
The total result is the same (given or take a few).
So, I wouldn't be much enthused if on a shorter crop, percentage of a medium tool on L3 is higher.
At least in this case...

The bahamarama tools are different. You expect to get a feather collector after several weeks, if not several months maybe. So 750% bonus for a feather collector does not mean you get hundreds on a harvest. It means that you'll probably get a few right away, instead of waiting weeks or months.

One final thing. The most important thing!!!!
Don't use two or more tool refinements for the same crop at the same time. Chances are split and you don't get good results for any of them.
For example, roses have nails and feather collector. If you use both refinements at the same time, there's a chance you don't get any feather-collector!

There may be an exception, although I never tried it. It's just me thinking...
Tile and brick have the same importance and CC value. Furthermore, they are not used often in the workshop area. Only a few things require them to build something. Let's just say you use a peppermint refinement of brick and plant/harvest. You got 10 bricks.
Then you delete the bricks refinement. The next day, you try the tiles refinement. You got 10 tiles.
The next day, you try both at the same time. You got 5 tiles and 5 bricks. Replant/harvest. Again, 5 tiles and 5 bricks...
Do you see where I'm heading?...
It's a musing, nothing more. I never tried it, but I think it has potential to work the way I'm thinking.
On the other side, NEVER try with nails and wood (or any other two)! They have different CC values and I've tried it. Awful experience that was!!! Both of them really low drops!

I have 6 tables for the tools.
The small tools have two because of the importance of wood and nails by comparing with tiles and brick. Besides, they are more of two different pairs of tools.
Medium tools are all together in one. And so does the big four and the baha tools.
Another thing is for example: if a crop has more than one tool refinement, those are always shown. Even the artisan drops.

Colours other than green for the squares mean it has something to do with L3 negative refinements. Yellow is ok. Orange is associated with time increasing instead of reducing. Not good but "eatable". Red... is horrible! Sometimes, there's green. That's beautiful! All negative refinements are for something I never use!

The final table is the least number of crops possible combination (I found) that have all 17 tools. It's very valuable, I think. Didn't add artisan ingredients for this table, though. You'll see why when you get to that section...
If you get less than 9 crops, tell me and I'll change the picture gladly!

Nails and wood



Bricks and tiles




Every medium tool



The "big four"



The "baha" tools



Final table

​

And that's all!

6. Artisan ingredients​

I have refinements on salt, sugar and wire.
And I have some bad news.
First, they have the worst negative consequences of all the refinements in the game (Exactly the same as the baha tools).
But the worst news is... they're not worth it! At all!
In the old forum, Teddy and I had a wonderful discussion about it. We both did some experiments and compared the results.
I can't speak for Teddy's conclusions (it wouldn't be polite), but I can speak for mine's.
More often than not, a artisan refinement was never the highest of the harvest. Sometimes, it was the lowest! So what's the point?
I really don't know... And before my big mouth opens, I end this discussion here.
Sugar or salt have recipes (only available to do in the artisan village for a few players, but available for all to buy in the market) that enhances 50% of the sugar or salt. Those are worth it.
But I'm sorry to say, refinements are not.

There's a strange possibility that each refinement enhances not one but all artisan ingredients type. I know, it's far-fetched but who knows? I don't have the results anymore. Maybe one day, I'll try again and see how it goes. But for the time being, the only thing I can show to you is the table...

​

7. Strategies, hints and suggestions​

I don't know for how long this feature is going on? 2 years? Almost 3?
It doesn't matter. It's a good feature, anyway. It could have been better if once it was launched it would have been carefully supervised. Especially because it needs improvement and upgraded to the current needs of the game.
One of the few flaws (yes, I think they're generally a few and not more than that) is that it takes too long to refine anything. Myself, after all this time I only have 15 crops fully refined to my needs. The others are still waiting...
But because, there's so much test, error, frustration about it; anyone loose focus on it. Like myself. Good thing they challenged me to redo this!

Refinement takes time so let's focus only on the important stuff. Then if you want to dally, do it afterwards or at your own will.

Some strategies, hits and suggestions:

1) If you're a new player (below level 40), I don't think you should worry about time reducing. Right?
But some tools are important for you to start building workshops. Especially hammer and wood.
Concentrate on strawberry right away. It has hammer and wood. Even if you're not getting any good results from the drops, there's time to improve the trophies and getting the 5% rune tool drop.
Forget any other crop that have another tool that you need right away. Chances are by the time you get that other tool refinement, you no longer need it. Trust me on this. I was a newbie once, too.
Besides, a long-time player knows that wood is by far the tool that inhibits the possibility of making more workshop pens and/or upgraded stables.
So, it would not hurt if you have more than one crop with wood refinement.
Strawberry and lily-of-the-valley are mandatory. You may choose a third one between the last three possibilities (your choice): Orchid, rhubarb and hop.
Back to the new player. If you're lucky enough with strawberry to get those two tool refinements and you have not reached level 53 yet, then I suggest focusing on Lily-of-the-valley because of nails. Don't focus on anything else (until level 53)!!!
And don't worry about hammer refinements on any other crop until you reach level 66.
If you don't get it with strawberry, then try it with Roses. In any case, you already have enough hammers in your barn for you to draw back the state of emergency.

2 )For any new player or long-time player that never bothered with refinement, Roses are the most balanced crop for any refinement need. Start with it and go for it till the end.
They have Nails, hammer and feather-collector.
Nails and hammer are always in need. Feather-collector lost its interest of getting it since it's only useful to build parrot-feather workshops and the tree replaced its need. But they are extremely high-valued! So, when it comes an event that requires tools to be delivered, believe me so when I say that this refinement will come in handy big time!
While time reducing refinements of Roses are only ok, SG effectiveness is the best in the game. So, whenever it is required a lot of event drops (or any other similar situation), it's great to have those SG refinements because it means instant finishing growth.
Keep in mind that you only need one or two crops that have good SG effectiveness, not every crop that have them. So, this is why it's great that you can work this situation right away instead of waiting for leveling up more. Roses and possibly carnations (or any other crop of your choice) are enough about SG effectiveness.

3) The first thing that comes in your mind when I talk about reducing time growth is "How do I get those long crops to be shorter?".
Exactly what should be on your mind!
From level 57 (perhaps 53 but it's debatable) and forward, all you should concentrate is to get that first Early Bloomer on L1 of every crop from Lily to Carnation. Add cauliflower and begonia later on.
Not every crop has L1 Early Bloomer, but most of them have it.
Only when you "collect" a good deal of EB1, you can start to research for L2 and L3 refinements of those crops. Go with Raspberry first. It's one of two long crops (the other is Crop Square) that have two EB refinements.
It's relatively easy and quick (if we can talk about easy and quick about this feature) to get three or four refinements of every plant. And chances are they' ll be more L1 than the higher ones. So, there are good chances to get EB very early in a crop refinement. Right?

4)You care only for tools? Well, Time reducing is also helpful to you regarding tools. Nevertheless, focus on those 9 plants I suggested in that final table above. Or look for what have the ones you need and works best with you. And balance stuff a bit.
Myself, I still don't have any refinements on two of the 17 tools. And it has been two years,...

5) Make two tables for yourself. One for time reducing. Another for tools. But don't include every crop! Only include those that are really important and those with a relative importance below the extremely important.
I think this is very important for you to focus on what to do next.
About time reducing, make yourself any calculation for every relevant time reducing refinement.

6) You only like the goodies stuff that comes with a unsuccessful refinement. Then only use longer crops. From roses up. Grow or buy tons of carnations if you have to. Accept every refinement they offer until you have all of them so that a successful research won't become a "nuisance" anymore. (Something I'd never expect to say it!) Always go for large research quantities (unlike when you want the refinements). And expect the best!

If I'll remember anything else, I'll post it here. Ok?

8. Final note​

Err... don't know if I have any, other than:
Hope this can be of any help!
Any suggestions to improve it are more than welcome. If it's possible to change something, I will gladly.
If I'm mistaken about something, don't be shy and correct me.

Enjoy and happy refinement!!!​

 

thank you very much Arrouquelas, very interesting, you make me want to go and start doing the refinements now, it is a big hard job what you did, and you saved us time and materials by sharing your amazing experience so we know what we should avoid to cut the loss, thank you again, and can't wait to see the next part.

 

Wow Arq, this is a fantastic summary/guide! Thank you!!

I thought I was done with the Refinements, thought I had the ones I needed but realize now that's not the case.

I'm eagerly awaiting the next installment...

 

Arrouquelas This is a Great Thread Regarding to Refinements. As you Know that i do Refinements all the time. There is couple of Things I would like to Add That you forgot to mention into this Thread which is Relevant to Water Refinement. So far you mention Early Bloomer 1 and Early Bloomer 2. Which deduce crop times without Water.

But What about Refinement Called Water Love (WL)

Not Every Crop Refinement has Water Love Refinement. At First Started to Work on all the Best Water Love Refinement Crops, some of these Crops has up to 60% Water Effective when using Water with WL Refinement. This Refinement can be used in conjunction with EB1 and EB2.

But if you are refining a Flower Crop and Have Flower Cloud Row Activated the 10% Reduce Crop time on Flowers can be Added to EB1 and EB2 in Plant Refinery

EG... if you are Refining Lady's Bedstraw and used EB1 and EB1, Also Water love (WL), Plus the Flower Cloud Row. It would give you reduce time of Total of 87% Reduce time using Water. Whether I have taken into consideration that we have 20% Reduce Crop time using Water on it own. I have to combine all these Effectiveness together. As I not got to Lady Bedstraw Refinements yet.

As I may start to consider to use Supergrow to Speed up my Current Refinements. As I am also Try to Make the Most of Tool Drop Boosting Refinements too

Arrouguelas, You Said above that using Water and Manure gives reduce time of 30%(Realistically 28%) Without Refinement, but this is not True if those not got the Growth Boost Rune Unlock as Manure only gives 5% if the Growth Boost Rune is Unlocked then Manure Gives 10% Effective

There are some Refinements that have Fertilizer Love Refinement,that can really make Manure very effective. This is only Good if the Price of Manure is Cheap. Since the Changes Made to Manure you are now Allow to have much manure in you Barn as you much as you can afford. Use Manure Effective of you own Choosing

I Hope this Extra Info Helps too. Feel Free to Add anything else that we have forgot to mention ok

 

Thanks Arq - I have always steered clear of refinements (due to the high requirements of crops which I never seem to get round to increasing!) but, once I have reached some personal goals (which are in view I am happy to say), I will start to look into this for my older farm. This one has still so much else to do, I will wait until I get some results on Illy first. But thank you for all your hard work to clarify Refinements for us.

 

thank you Arrouguela for so great help and your hard work now i get push to go do Rafinery and get all that boost i will just add that red poopy is not plant we can rafinement sorry if i am wrong and can you tell what rafinement is best to put in farm plant ? i just can add i have did rafinement for first 5 plants and only 5 slots in farm plant

 

Can we get this stickied when done?

It is very helpful, thank you!

 

Thank you very much for your compliments to all!

Hi, Mooboy!
Thanks for your compliments and thank you more for those suggestions!
I forgot the 10% flower rune. Which can be important to some. Hopefully I may add that in the equation, later. In a separate table.
About the Growth Boost rune, I do mention that when talking about effectiveness. As I did in the old forum. It was just a question of waiting for the next "page".
But because that rune is readily available to new players so soon in the tree of wisdom, I treat every manure reducing time as 10% and not 5%. Otherwise, calculations would be a nightmare.
Also, just to be clear (and I'll explain that in the last part of this section, that will be done this evening): That rune doesn't make manure more effective. It defines the value to 10% instead of 5%. It may not seem that these two sentences have a difference in a first glance but they are in the terminology of the guide. Otherwise, it would mean that manure is 5.5% and not 10%.

A quick question for those who have tried and know how it works:
Does the cloud row that gives 5% on SG, sets the value to 80% (when in conjuction with WI and FC) or not?
I really don't know because I never used it. If anyone knows something about it, please post it in here.
This is the difference between using the 5% SG cloud row in the equation or not.

Happy refinements!!

 

Yes it does

If you in addition use SG refinements that increase effectiveness of SG with at least 25%, the plants are ready in literally no time at all, as the effect of SG becomes 100% time reduction

For example roses with both SG love and duo fertilizer love or for instance artichokes with SG love

I have used this several times, both for extra drops during events and for extra EP during mega EP day/happy harvest day I only have the SG refinements for roses, but will try to get the other ones as well.

This is definitely something that would be good to add to your guide someday

 

Thanks Arq What an amazing amount of info you have amassed here. Looks like I need to spend some more time refining.

 

Thank you so much, Mir! That's good news!!

 

Hi!,
Thank you for the guide, Arq! I did one refinement once (on lettuce ), but then never used it and haven't refined since. Now that your guide is available, I'm thinking I may try again.

-cpeterson

 

Thank you so much for this amazing guide, Arrouquelas. We definitely need to sticky this post. It's too good to just end up lost in the archive, buried underneath hundreds of other [useless] posts. Can't wait to read the rest!

 

It's finished! I hope!

Thank you all for your support and kind words!

As for this being a sticky... well, I don't think it's possible anymore under the new forum rules. Is it?

But (asking gently to the mods) if it's possible never to go into archive?

Happy refinements!!!

 

Looks great Arq

Thank you so much for your time and effort, this is very useful I will read it properly soon

 

Thanks Arq! This is very useful information One thing: The final table is a black picture for me. I don't know if anyone else sees the same, but I thought I'd better mention it

I think I may just copy this all to have it as a back up, just in case this topic does go to the archives.

 

The artisan ingredient table shows up for me just fine. Try checking it after a reload of the forum.

 

I will try to explain d5aisy I don't usually pay much attention to the artisan drops, but I know I get enough herbal elixir for approximately one orange mango smoothie a day, which takes 60 herbal elixir. I will use cotton as an example (randomly chosen).

• Let's assume I get 60 herbal elixir a day from growing cotton on my tree main fields
• Without any refinements cotton takes 14 hours to mature, which means 1.7 harvests a day (with water)
• So I get 60/1.7 = 35 elixir per harvest
• The dropper elixir refinement increases the chance of getting elixir with 20%
• With the refinement I get 35*1.2 = 42 elixir per harvest
• But the refinement also increase growing time with 15%, reduce water efficiency with 12%, and reduce EP with 20%
• Cotton now takes 16.5 hours to grow (with water), and I only get 1.45 harvests per day
• With the refinement I therefor get 1.45*42 = 61 elixirs per day

Conclusion: Using the refinement I get 1 extra elixir per day, but less cotton and less EP, so totally not worth it.

Caution, this is of course a purely theoretical calculation, and one should try it out to know for sure, but I don't think I want to.

Is this understandable? And yes, if the percentage had been (much) higher it could have been a good refinement

 

I'm so glad you made this thread! I just asked a neighbor to refresh my memory on all this because it's been so long since I paid it any attention. This is wonderful. Thank you @Arrouquelas !!!

 

Thank you so very much Arrouquelas. This is totally awesome!! So much time and patience put into it. It needs to have a permanent Home on the Forum.