Item Quality System

Overview

Items in Starsand Island have a quality rating represented by stars. Higher-quality items sell for more at shops and produce better results when used as crafting or cooking ingredients. The quality system applies primarily to crops, animal products, and fish. Understanding how quality works and how to improve it is one of the best ways to increase your income.

Crop Quality

Crops harvested from your farm have a star quality rating that affects their sell price. Higher-star crops sell for more and produce better cooking ingredients when processed at the Separator or used directly in recipes at the Campfire or Gas Stove.

How to Increase Crop Quality

The primary way to improve crop quality is through fertilizer. Fertilizers are purchased from Graminova at the Happiness Seed Shop and applied to tilled soil before or after planting.

Yield Fertilizer increases the number of items harvested per crop, while Ripening Fertilizer shortens the growth cycle. Gmax Fertilizer III is specifically for Gmax crops (Pineapple, Watermelon, Pumpkin, Winter Melon planted in 3x3 plots) and increases the chance of a mutation into the giant Gmax variant.

Other Factors

Animal Product Quality

Animals on your ranch produce products at different quality levels. The key factor is animal happiness. Animals need at least 150 Happiness Points for a chance to produce premium-tier products.

How to Increase Animal Happiness

Standard vs. Premium Products

Premium animal products sell for significantly more than standard versions. Gold-quality products can sell for 2 to 3 times the standard price.

Rare animal variants (obtained through breeding) tend to produce higher-quality products than common variants. Breeding specifically for premium-product traits is one of the most effective long-term income strategies.

Animal Byproducts

Animals also produce byproducts with distinct quality variants. Golden Poop and Silver Poop are quality-variant byproducts that can be sold for high prices, especially at the Merchant Ship.

Fish Quality

Fish in Starsand Island have size variants that function similarly to quality tiers. The most notable is the King size, which is a significantly larger and more valuable version of a species. King-size fish are rare catches that appear in the same locations as their regular counterparts.

For detailed bait information, see the Bait Guide. For fishing locations and rod details, see the Fishing article.

Processing and Sell Price Multipliers

Beyond raw quality, you can significantly increase item value by processing raw materials before selling. Each processing method applies a multiplier to the base sell price.

The Pickling Jar offers the highest processing multiplier for vegetables (up to 2.78x), while the Merchant Ship doubles the sell price of any item it accepts. Combining high-quality items with processing and selling to the Merchant Ship is the most profitable approach in the game.

Maximizing Quality and Profit

The following table summarizes the best strategies for each item category:

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