10 Essential Stardew Valley Quality of Life Mods

It’s no surprise that Stardew Valley has a large and loyal fan base. With sales that have been booming since its launch in 2016, and the continuation of free content and quality-of-life updates from its developer, Stardew Valley is a game that continues to grow and thrive within its community. It’s that same community that sees the little things that can better the game still, and creates their own quality-of-life mods to make that happen. While, unfortunately, modding Stardew Valley isn’t possible on consoles, for PC players, here are 10 (give or take) quality-of-life mods that are sure to improve your gameplay experience.

1. NPC Map Locations

It may not seem like it if you’re on your fifth play-through, but there are arguably a lot of villagers who reside in Pelican Town. It can be difficult to keep track of your favorite (and maybe not-so-favorite) people, especially since their schedules change so often depending on a variety of factors. That’s where NPC Map Locations swoops in to save the day. This simple mod reveals the location of everyone in Pelican Town whenever you open your map. That way, you don’t have to waste an entire day searching for someone just to give them their birthday gift.

2. Lookup Anything

If you’re the type of person who likes to know things, then the Lookup Anything mod is at your service. With this mod, one button gets you all the information you’ll ever need, such as when your fences are going to decay, how long it is until your machines are going to be finished processing, when a crop is ready to be harvested, and so much more. My personal favorite feature is being able to click on any villager to see information about them: their birthday, your friendship points, all of their liked gifts, whether you have said gifts, and even whether you have those gifts on your person. You’ll never be out of the loop again with Lookup Anything.

3. Automate

Too often do I forget to collect items from a machine that I’ve put down, not only wasting production time but stopping production completely. With the Automate mod, using machines will be more efficient than ever. Putting a chest next to a machine will automatically throw eligible items into that machine and spit the final product back out into the chest. This is true for kegs, crystalariums, preserves jars, and even crab pots. You can maximize production while making your farm look pretty by creating and using any path (i.e. wooden or stone) to connect a chest to a machine. You’ll have your own automatic factory running in the comfort of your own farm.

4. UI Info Suite

UI Info Suite is a mod that displays. Displays what? I’m glad you asked! In the corner of your screen, you can see some useful information such as what kind of luck day it is, whether the traveling merchant is in town, if it’s someone’s birthday that day, or if you have a tool currently upgrading at Clint’s shop. Apart from that, you also see the range of certain items, such as sprinklers and scarecrows. There is plenty that this mod has to offer, and if there’s a feature you don’t want, you have full control to turn it off in-game whenever you’d like.

5. Part of the Community

Not everyone who plays Stardew Valley wants to go out of their way to make friends with every villager in town, and that’s okay! But it doesn’t make much sense for someone to reside in one place for years without knowing anything about half of the people they run past every day. With the Part of the Community mod, you’ll have many chances to gain passive friendship points with villagers you don’t stop to talk to. This can be done through talking to someone within earshot of someone else, visiting someone’s shop, participating in festivals, and more. This mod is perfect for those who don’t feel like socializing with everyone, but still want to feel like they’re part of the community.

6. To-Dew

Days can go by fast in Stardew Valley, and keeping track of what needs to be done can be difficult. If you download the To-Dew mod, though, then you’ll never have to worry about forgetting to do something again. This mod is an in-depth and highly customizable to-do list that rests in the corner of your screen. You can choose when to show certain tasks by season, week number, day of the week, and even whether or not it’s raining. For those of you who like to keep sticky notes around and strive for peak organization, this is the mod for you.

7. Activate Sprinklers

Sprinklers are an extremely useful tool within the world of Stardew Valley. They save copious amounts of time and energy when watering any number of crops. But one problem with the base game sprinklers is that they only go off every morning—there’s no way to activate the sprinklers yourself. If you spend all day rearranging your farm and planting new crops, when you put down the sprinkler…you still have to water all of those crops by hand. With the Activate Sprinklers mod, you can right-click on any sprinkler to activate it immediately. This is a huge time saver and gives you immediate freedom from your watering can.

8. The Better Quartet

I had a hard time narrowing down my long list of mods, but it would have been criminal to mention one of these without mentioning all of them; therefore, I present to you The Better Quartet…

  • The Better Shipping Bin mod is the king of all kings. It allows you to open up your shipping bin at any point in the day so you can not only see what you’re selling but take things out as well.
  • With the Better Train Loot mod, trains come by multiple times a day and with better loot depending on the train type, making the trip well worth it.
  • For those of you who actually search through the garbage bins (no judgement here because I know I do), with the Better Garbage Cans mod, digging through trash finally will be worth your while. You can check garbage cans every one to four hours, depending on whether you’ve already found anything during your previous search. Just try not to get caught searching for goodies.
  • Finally, the Better Panning mod makes the panning mechanic much more useful by adding more than just ores to collect in the waters. It also slims the chance of the panning area being out of reach. Artifacts, treasure, rings and more will be available to pan after downloading this lovely mod.

9. Harvest With Scythe

Sometimes, hand-picking each crop can take too much time—especially when your farm has grown so exponentially. The Harvest With Scythe mod makes it so that, you guessed it, you can quickly harvest every crop with your scythe. This is true for trellis crops and foragables as well. Since using the scythe doesn’t consume any energy, truly you have nothing to lose by downloading it. If you’re tired of hand-picking every crop, this mod is a neat little time saver.

10. Turn to Your Enemies

There can be a lot of activity that goes on in the mines or Skull Cavern. Sometimes it may seem impossible to get through all the enemies coming your way, especially since you have to manually turn towards them before attacking. But with the Turn To Your Enemies mod, you won’t have to think about where you need to turn at all—simply click where you want to swing and you will pivot that way at the same time.

Special Mention: Gender Neutrality Mod

I wanted to give a special shout-out to the Gender Neutrality Mod. I know that a lot of people struggle to play games where they’re forced to use she/her or he/him pronouns. Stardew Valley is truly a gem, so I would hate for people to miss out on it. Hopefully, this amazing little mod can help you out!

That concludes my top ten (okay, so I’m bad at counting) quality-of-life mods I recommend you add to Stardew Valley. For those of you who are slightly scared to mod, the small changes these bring into your game are a great first step. You really don’t need these mods to enjoy the wonderful world and experience that is Stardew Valley, but for those of you who are interested in something a little more, I highly recommend it.

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alexi
alexi
1 year ago

This was super helpful, thankyou!!!!

Angel
Angel
1 year ago

So glad I found this! I hate playing games with no gender neutral pronouns so this is perfect, thanks 🙂

Genna
1 day ago

What portrait mod are you using? It looks lovely!