My Time at Sandrock - Starting Out Tips

As the title mentions, these are tips to help those players, like myself, who enjoy the game, but are just overwhelmed with quests and missions they can’t seem to complete fast enough.

Important Tips

All credit goes to Owl->208!

Change the length of the day in the options menu to the longest setting, which is .6. This makes the day last longer, giving you more time.
Do not advance the main quest story until you are ready to do so. This gives you a LOT of time to build up resources, make multiple furnaces, recyclers, dew collectors, etc. It gives you time to focus on romance and side missions that crop up and takes a more relaxed approach to playing the game. Some people like fast and having everything thrown at them quickly, but I do not. If you are like me, slow things down.
Yes there are timed quests and missions, but they will tell you flat out that there is a time limit. Commissions also tell you how long you have, but if you are maxing out gol earning, you are likely trying to fill the commission same day. especially if you have skill points invested. If you slow down the day and do not advance the main story, you will now have the time to focus on those timed quests with a reserve in case you need it.
There are daily activities you want to prioritize and do every day, like salvaging at the Eufala Salvage Yard or visiting the mines, especially if you are paying the 200 gold fee at Eufala. You also want to make sure to visit love interests and give them gifts – taking your time gives you more gols in the long run to focus your spending, Investing early on in equipment will guarantee later on that you have the capacity to bypass Yan as the best builder.
It is much easier to advance research if you slow things down. Often second and third tier research has a multi-day delay or it costs you more data disks to speed up, so slowing things down gives you time to get things in place before a quest requires it. There are only so many gols to go around – taking your time gives you more gols to spend as you go.

How to Execute the Delay Main Quest Strategy

So the next question is where does it make sense game play wise to slow down? I would get the early stories done quickly so that you are a registered builder. I think the mission is called Picking Up the Slack where you want to start your delay tactics. I usually wait 10 days before I complete that mission, giving me time to do things. Once I’ve upgraded my tools, made multiple machines, advanced my research, etc., then I complete this quest.

Then, the next pause is building the Stage after the sandstorm. This again, gives me time to catch up. Really works out well. When you feel like you are ahead of things, then do main missions quicker. For me, I always pause when I start to feel overwhelmed so I don’t miss anything critical. This strategy really increases my enjoyment and takes the work and frustration out of playing the game.