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Just like there is a lot of farming inStardew Valley, there’s also a lot of crafting. From theSprinklersyou need to automate watering your crops, to theKegsthat make the profitable wines you sell. Even decorative items like fences and pathways. To get these items (reliably), you need to make them all by hand.
Which means constantly stuffing your pockets full ofwood,stone,coal, and a bunch of other resources. But there’s an easier way. One that keeps your inventory slots free to hold all the useful things you’re making. And that’s by using aWorkbench.
What Is The Workbench?
In Stardew Valley, a Workbench is an item thatallows you to craft by pulling resources from adjacent chests. In order to use it,you will fill the chests with the resourcesyou wish to use for crafting, such as wood, stone, and all the other items you get from mining, foraging, and combat.
The Workbench reaches for crafting materials in any of the 8 neighboring tiles, including those diagonally positioned.
Once you’ve filled your chests with all the crafting materials you want to use or have collected from your journeys around the Valley,you’ll click on the Workbench. It will bringyour crafting menu upand any items that you’re able to create will bebrightly colored.
This replaces the need to open up your menu and navigate to the Crafting tab. However,the two look identicalto each other, no matter if you open your Crafting window through the player menu or the Workbench. Andthey function exactly the same.
How To Get A Workbench
The Workbench is sold atRobin’s Carpenter Shopin the Mountains. It can be purchased at any time Robin is manning the register.It costs 2,000gto buy, andyou can buy more than one.There’sno pre-requisitethat you need to hit before you’re able to get your hands on a Workbench.
When To Buy A Workbench
Having a Workbench makes crafting such an easy process. Rummaging through your chests for all of the right materials, building something, and then sorting your resources back into the appropriate chests cantake time, cause you tooverlook some of your resources, or simplymisplace them.
But it’s not just about convenience. Depending on your playstyle, you may either have your chests nicely organized, or you might throw everything in the nearest chest and hope you can find what you need later. Either way,your chests will start to fill up, making it harder to move everything to a work area later.
To help with organization, you canchange the color of cheststo signify what’s inside. You can also crafta sign and place or write a kind of material you havein that chest.
Get the Workbench early,during your first year, at least, if not in the Spring or Summer of Year One. Not only will this aid in your crafting, but it will help with your organization and establishing a workspace as, no matter which way you play the game,you’ll know that your materials will have to be in the chests near your Workbench.
It also serves asan easy way to check which resources you needto gather for next. If you want to craftBee Houses, you can quickly see you have enough wood, coal, andmaple syrup, butnot enoughiron bars. So then you know youshould be spending your day in The Minesgatheringiron ore,or smelting the ore you haveinto iron bars.
How To Best Use Workbenches
Like it was stated above, you first want to start by figuring outwhere you want your Workbenchand then you want tosurround it with chests. The chests that you may use to do this are:
36
70
250 Stone
Junimo Chestsdo notwork with Workbenches.
In the early part of the game, there’s no need to use big chests and big stone chests. Not only will itburn through your wood and stone quickly, but it will take time to gather enough resources to completely fill the standard-size chest and stone chest.
No matter which of the above chests you decide to use,you will place seven of them surrounding your Workbench. Then it is up to yourpersonal organizational preferenceshow to place items inside the chests. If you’re unsure how you want to place or categorize some of your items, here are a few ideas to get you started:
A Chest For Foraged Goods, One For Mining Goods, etc.
Color Coded
Black Chest Holds Black and Gray Items Like Stone and Coal
Alphabetically
Battery Packs, ThenBone Fragments, etc.
If you decide to throw things into chests or have multiple stacks of the same item in different chests,there is an order the Workbench will pull fromwhen considering which of the materials to use:
Why Have More Than One Workbench?
When you are first starting out, you only need one Workbench.But as the game progresses,and you begin to explore other areas,having more than one Workbench can be beneficial.
One option isto have a Workbench in The Desertwith chests filled with the resources needed forstaircasesandbombs, as well as what you need to makeField SnacksandBug Steak.
You don’t have to, after all, you can craft or cook those things at your farm and bring them with you to The Skull Cavern. But, if you forget to bring them, thenyou can craft them without needing to run back home.
If you don’t want to set up a space dedicated to a Workbench in The Desert, you caninstead keep a chest near the entrance to Skull Cavernfilled withbombs, staircases, food, and any items you wantforthe Desert Trader.
Another helpful option is tohave one onGinger Island. Once you can sleep on Ginger Island, you may find yourself staying on this secondary farm more than on your original one. So,setting up another workspacewill allow you tocraft everything you need without sailing or teleportingback and forth.
The basics of deciding if you want more than one Workbench comes down towhere and when you find yourself needing to craft items. But, keep in mind,until you have a surplus of resources, then you shouldhave only one Workbenchin an area that is convenient for all, or the bulk, of your crafting needs.
