Basic Tips & Tricks

The following tips and tricks can help you in a number of ways, including improving your game play such as naturally figuring out when you need to add additional Harvesters and the like...

We present them to you in no specific order or organization, to be perused and taken in as you like!

Achievements & Trophies -- Life is full of opportunities for making bad decisions, but the one really bad decision you can not make is to focus yoru game play around Achievements and Trophies. Or specifically around unlocking the same.

Listen mates, no matter hoe it may seem with the exception of a few specific Achievements there isvery little among them that actually requires you to alter your game play and play style so as to unlock the different game Achievements or Trophies.

With that in mind - and observing that Serendipity and Surprise is almost always preferable to the a more predictable unlocking experience, you should try to let the Achievements / Trophies come at their own pace rather than forcing the issue. We are just saying that often times surprise is its own reward!

Adding Harvesters is a tricky proposition, for when do you know when it is time? A simple answer to that question can be found in the crops you grow themselves! When you discover that you cannot harvest your entire crop in the four close fields that make up your base farm (Fields ) without losing some of the crop to rot or degradation, it is clearly time to add another Harvester!

Daily Maintenance Woes -- You should soon notice that all of the vehicles, attachments, and tools you own rack up a daily cost in the form of Daily Maintenance fees - and that some kit costs a lot more than other kit - so looking to reduce the impact that the Daily Maintenance Costs will cost you is a very good idea indeed!

One of the most effective methods for managing those costs is to carefully upgrade your fleet so that it is made up of only modern and current-generation kit, which has a much smaller Maintenance footprint in terms of daily costs. Another step you can take is to ensure that you only have the kit and machines you actually need (and use) so that you are not paying for kit and machines you rarely or never use.

Daylight Savings Time - Just kidding, as setting the clock in your game and on your farm has been taken care of by Benjamin Franklin and the Railroads a long time ago! But being able to work during the daylight hours? That is convenient.

When you discover that your crops need harvesting and it is the middle of the night or early morning dark, you can adjust that situation by opening the Settings Menu and turning off Plant Growth and withering, then changing the Timescale to x120 and allowing the clock to advance to daylight.

You can then safely put the Timescale back to x1 and turn those two options back on, and do your harvest in the bright and cheery light of the sun!

Learning Curves -- If you're new to the FS Series or Farm Simulator 15 is your first game in the series you would be well advised to make serious use of the following in-game resources:

Tutorial Lessons: From the game Main Menu you can select and play the primary Tutorials (there are 13) as they will help you to acquire mastery of each of the many tactics and stages of the art of farming. we cover those lessons extensively in the Guide Section titled "Tutorials" in the first section of our WTG Table of Contents.

Telephone Call Box -- Dr. Who and Superman are not the only blokes who can benefit from the presence of a Telephone Call Box!

Beside the Machinery Shed on the north edge of your main farm on the European Map is a call box that you can engage using RB that will give you access to the Aggie Helpline - a fancy title for what is essentially the in-game help and information library. In addition to being rather spiffy the Call Box also grants access to lessons on the following subjects:

• Buying Fields

• Great Demand

• Finances

• Job / Mission Boards

• Selling Vehicles / Tools

• Vehicle Shop

Those are just to name a few of the subjects - the Call Box Helpline also covers practical subjects, gives general advice, and can even help you in mastering the complicated procedures of selling eggs. We are just saying, it may sound silly but if you are an FS Virgin that Call Box could save your life!

Mind the Gap -- When you begin the Harvest Stage of a crop cycle it is a good idea whenever you plan to utilize hired help to set the Harvester going and then work the Rule of 3. What is The Rule of 3 you ask?

Basically The Rule of 3 is that you always leave a gap of 3 rows between different types of farm machinery. So when you begin the Harvest Cycle simply do the following steps:

1. Begin harvesting the first field;

2. When the Harvester completely clears the third pass/row start the Cultivator;

3. When the Cultivator clears the third pass/row start the Sowing Machine

In this fashion you can quickly and efficiently turn over the fields to a new crop while harvesting the current one! As our good friend and best mate Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell**) likes to say: Easy-Peasy!

Mission Staging -- In the previous games in the series Missions were announced via a pop-up window to let you know that they were available, but in FS 15 you must seek them out actively by visiting a Mission Board.

When you can afford to do so (which translates to when you have an extra $59K) it is a good idea to purchase a nice new Lizard brand Piqup Truck in the color of your choice, and then park it beside a convenient Mission Board so that you can quickly switch to it, jump out, and check the Mission Board for any available Missions!

You should also bear in mind that the Timer displayed on the Mission Board only tells you when THAT mission will expire, not how fast you must do it. Once you flag a mission (no matter what that timer said) you have the regular timer for the mission to complete it.

Another useful Mission Trick is to stage your Mower(s) near the actual Mowing Mission Spots so that you can begin them as soon after flagging the Mission as is humanly possible...

PDA's Man!

Umkay first of all PDA in FS15 does NOT mean Public Display of Affection - it means Personal Digital Assistant and at least in FS15 it is just that - a means of obtaining the current prices for the many different crops at the many difference merchants who potentially will purchase those crops...

If you are selling a crop load when there is no high demand because you need to fluff up the old warchest, DO NOT just sell that load of Wheat / Canola / Barley at the Grain Elevator simply because that is the closest and most convenient merchant.

Open your PDA and page over to the Storage - Prices Screen and check the prices that are currently being offered... On that screen when you push Right0D-Pad you can slide along what is basically meant to be a spreadsheet page display and you can see what the prices are for the type of crop you are selling.

For example right now, for Wheat in our game the prices are as follows:

Without the PDA I would have had no way of knowing that the Windmill was the place to take my load of Wheat, right? If I had taken it to the Grain Elevator (which is closest to the main farm) I would have been deprived of a significant amount of profits...

Crop prices are not the only thing that your PDA will show you - it also helps you to decide when you're going to sow thanks to the Seven-Day Forecast on the Overview Channel. The Finances section of the Overview Page also breaks down expenses (and income) and the News Panel on that page lets us know when there is a special sale or a Crop in Demand!

The Storage - Prices Page reveals how much of each crop we have stored in our farm silos (more than 100K L for Wheat and Barley so WOOT!) We may also check the prices for produce - and significantly Eggs, Milk, Wool, and feed ingredients.

On the Map Views we can check the growth state and saturation for our crops, and the Statistics Page offers a detailed insight into our farming activities and its results. In short the PDA is totally worth having and is a tool that we should be using constantly

Quick Starting Money - At the start of a new game it is always nice to have some extra funds in your warchest to utilize - especially when you need to add some sort of Fertilizing Machine to your fleet.

The good news is that, depending upon the selected difficulty of your game, your farm's silos may already contain a supply of grains, beets, and wood chips! For the grains and beets it is simply a matter of loading up your TIpper and taking them to the best merchant to sell them.

For Wood Chips you are going to need a frontloader (which you do not have at the start. Sellign off the Silo inventory can get you that Fertilizing hardware. Just saying...

Sell with a Smile AND a Handshake -- What we really mean is to turn up in person to sell yoru kit or machinery at the Shop rather than using the menu system. Why? For a damn good reason! You get a better price that way!

No, seriously, when you turn up at the Vehicle Shop and drive your machine (or drop the Attachment or Kit) onto the marked out square beside the building you receive a 30% bonus to the sales ammount. We don't know why that is but it is pretty cool nonetheless!

Silo Banking -- Unless you are in danger of going into the red (operating at a negative bank balance) it is ALWAYS better to store your crop in your Farm Silo and only load up and sell when that crop is specifically in high demand.

Under optimal circumstances you will only sell when prices are high (special demand notices) and you gain the biggest profit from crop sales. With that in mind you should try to maintain a minimum balance in your bank account of around $50K so that you can wait out any long time gaps for demand notices and/or nicely survive when the wrong crops are being requested...

"Wrong Crops" in this instance being the ones you do not have a large amount of stored in your farm silos.

To Wither or Not to Wither, that is the Question! If you leave certain grain types in their ripe state for too long they wither away or rot in the field. Well, they do that as long as you have Plant Withering turned on in the Settings Menu that is... To avoid losing crops to slow or delayed harvesting - or should you discover that you lack sufficient Harvesters to properly harvest before rot and wither set in, you can turn off Withering in the Settings and save your profits.

** No, seriously, Bruce is a mate. Well, maybe not a good mate, and certainly not a best mate, but having met the man three times he is not a perfect stranger by any stretch of the imagination. I met him during that period in my life and journalism career in which I was a total whore and took any gig that an editor threw at me that had even the remotest chance of a free lunch...

(the first time I met him was during the press junket for the motion picture McHales Navy (Campbell played the role of Virgil) in that 1997 remake of the classic seamen comedy romp... The second time was in 2009 for an interview about his role in the TV show Burn Notice (Campbell played the role of retired Navy SEAL Sam Axe), and the third time was for the video game Cars 2 (Campbell voiced the character of Rod 'Torque' Redline) and that was in 2011.

During each interview I found the man to be an incredibly open and friendly bloke, just the sort of fella you would want for a best mate. And the fact that he remembered me from the Burn Notice interview was flattering as all hell. Of course that has nothing to do with this WTG or anything but still... Good times were had. Good times....

So yeah, in the world of the freelance journalist - and especially in the world of the games journo - any junket that is catered is a good junket to cover!