Late Game Contribution

[analog harness]

Hello! I've noticed there's a considerable disparity in contribution gain for various activities, and I want to address that with the following suggestions.

Significantly increase the contribution from items made using the ||cask||.
This process takes several days to complete, but the contribution from one of these items is less than spending ONE day fishing and drying the fish! I feel like these items need to be in the four-digit range for contribution at minimum, because they are that time-consuming. Perhaps I'm thinking about this the wrong way, and they're meant to be additional contribution income as it were, but when I can outperform this process with fishing, it feels unrewarding to use this process.

EDIT - Increase the contribution from items made using the ||pickler||.
Similar reasoning to the first point. The time required versus the contribution result don't feel rewarding.

Slightly increase the contribution of items made using the ||vinegar fermenter||.
This process adds another step, but a number of items made using this structure have the same contribution value as the base item that went into it. I think adding 10% to 15% to the base item would be appropriate here -- a slight boost to show that the next step was worth your time, even if you do nothing else with it.

Increase the contribution of meals.
I'm not alone in thinking this, but prepping a meal should at least be worth the (minimum) sum of the lowest quality of the items needed for it. This is not the case currently; virtually all meals have very low contribution. I'm assuming that they're meant to be eaten instead of contributed...?

[fathom aurora]

I think that maybe they could have a little more contribution but they don't really need all that much

They are more of a passive method of getting extra income rather than fishing which is something you have to actively spend all day doing

[tacit atlas]

i can see the contribution from cask items being increased, as it really takes a long time, but than the items itself are pretty cheap compared to what you get.

pickler does its job perfectly fine and is already the best money maker in the game right now (imo)
its a late game item anyway and you should be more than able to have multiple of those, so just setup a "production line" that you have to attend to once per day and make big money 😉

the vinegar fermenter is a weird item, where you are only really meant to produce vinegar for usage in the pickling process. its not worth going up to vinegar and then selling it.

all of the above mentioned contribution methods are passive processes, that you have to attend once per day and they give you income for free (as in upgrading the value)
(if you have proper "tech" and structures, all you have to do is automated, except for setting the seeds and harvesting the crops, as in having to carry the product from A to B to upgrade them while you can go do something else in the meantime)

compared to fishing which requires the usage of stamina at all states of the game and takes time off your day. and those are the reasons why fishing is such a good money maker, it requires time and stamina for money and you cant do anything else while fishing.

the **contribution of meals ** compared to their ingredients is so low, because you are gaining huge amounts of stamina (and other temp. buffs) from cooking compared to raw or otherwise processed food. pretty much same reason, if you dont want the stamina or buffs, dont cook it, rather sell the ingredience raw or processed for income.

long story short, having played around 100h and reached summer of year 2, i think the contribution rates are reasonable and fine as they are and you can make more than enough money with pickled products and fish in the meantime for even more contribution ;)

[analog harness]

You make valid points, of passive versus active production. Part of my issue was mostly "this takes so long yet I can outdo it so easily through other means." My main concern is that if you focus only on farming, or spend your entire game day on farming, then you're reliant upon production buildings for your contributions. And if the contribution isn't worth it when compared to fishing, then it's a rather feels-bad sensation for a player, would you not agree?