Expeditions & Explorers

Expeditions are how you gather everything your farm cannot grow: wood and resin, ore, tea, moonwood and the rare building materials that upgrade your barn. You send an explorer out, go back to your farm, and collect the haul when they return.

This guide explains who your explorers are, how areas open up, what makes a mission faster or richer, and how to plan your trips. If you want the Mine, which uses the same crew, read the Mine, Refinery & Blacksmith guide as well.

Your explorers

Every adventure area comes with its own explorer, and you meet them the moment you open that area. Each has a home area where they feel at their best.

Any explorer can go to any area, not only their own. A mixed crew is often the best way to cover a long mission, and a team made of explorers with different home areas also finishes slightly faster.

Power

Each explorer contributes Power (sometimes called EP) to a mission. A new explorer starts at 20 Power and gains 5 more for every level. In their home area they get a 15 percent boost, so Fiona is at her best in the Forest.

Every mission shows a recommended Power. When your team meets it, you get the full experience. When it falls short:

• the mission takes longer, and
• rare bonus finds become less likely.

The shortfall is graded: being a little under costs a little, being far under costs more. Being well over the recommendation earns a small extra boost to rare finds.

Levels and stamina

Explorers earn XP on every mission and level up. Levels do two things: more Power and a bigger stamina pool. (The Explorer Lodge on the Farm Map also trains an explorer with a little XP from time to time.) Maximum stamina starts at 5 and grows by one every 5 levels, up to 15 at level 50. Restoring the Blacksmith in the Valley adds one more point for everyone, and gear accessories can raise it further.

Stamina refills slowly, about one point every 90 minutes, and it does not refill while the explorer is away. To speed things up:

• **Explorer's Ration** gives one explorer +3 stamina. You can forge it at the Blacksmith.
• **Stamina Potion** restores an explorer to full. You find them as rare bonus finds on expeditions and from some exchanges.

Traits

Each explorer has traits listed on their detail page. Five of them directly change what happens on a mission:

• Tracker: finds more rare items.
• Sprinter: the mission finishes faster. Two sprinters stack.
• Miner: brings extra ore. The effect is felt most in the Mine.
• Lucky: a small, steady boost to rare finds.
• Veteran: five extra Power, always.

The remaining traits (Sturdy, Forager, Herbalist and Scavenger) show up on the cards as flavor for their role, so judge an explorer by the five above when you plan a team.

Gear

Each explorer can wear one tool, one armor piece and one accessory, all forged at the Blacksmith. Tools shorten missions, armor adds Power and accessories add stamina. Better pieces add extra effects, such as a chance to skip the stamina cost or to double a haul. See the Blacksmith guide for how gear is made.

The ten adventure areas

An area opens when you reach its level, hand in its unlock materials and coins, and wait out a build timer (from 4 hours for the Forest up to 48 hours for the Starlit Grove). Unlocked areas stay open forever.

Each area also hides a handful of rare building materials among its bonus finds: planks, rope, bricks, nails, boards, screws, iron bars and leather straps. These are the upgrade materials your barn and farm upgrades ask for, and expeditions are the main place to get them. So even if you do not need the area’s regular goods, it can be worth sending someone there.

Many of the later recipes in the recipes table ask for area goods, so unlocking areas as soon as you can pays off.

Missions

Each area has the same ladder of missions; their names change from area to area (for example “Rocky Survey” or “River Guardian Challenge”). Longer missions give much more, but they also cost more stamina and ask for a stronger team.

What you get back

Every mission has a guaranteed haul (the main finds for that area) and bonus finds on top. Some bonus finds always come when your explorer meets the mission’s Power; the others roll on their own with the base chance shown on the Expeditions page. An explorer in their home area multiplies that chance by 1.1, the tracker trait by another 1.1, the lucky trait by 1.03, 1.25 times the Power by 1.05, and Explorer’s Luck on Wednesdays by 1.15; missing Power cuts it. A chance-based find that hits brings 40% to 80% of the listed amount. Every regular mission also has a small chance of a Stamina Potion and of a Mission Potion: 1% for an hour, 0.5% more per hour, at most 6%. A Mission Potion speeds up a running mission. All the numbers are in How chances change.

The Guardian Challenge is different: it pays a single reward, a storage upgrade that permanently raises your barn capacity, and you cannot start it unless your team meets the Power requirement. It is a good reason to level an explorer or two.

Area Mastery

Running missions in an area fills its Area Mastery bar:

Short missions fill the bar quickly, so the first few levels come fast. The 12-hour Survey needs Level 3 plus an Area Permit for that area. Permits are an optional purchase in the Shop, either one at a time or as a bundle for all areas. They are not required to enjoy the rest of the game, and everything below the 12-hour tier works without one.

Your titles follow your mastery too: Trail Blazer for Level 1 in any area, Expedition Veteran for Level 3 in three areas, and World Cartographer for Level 3 in every area.

Finishing early

Do not want to wait? In the last ten minutes of any mission you can pay 5 diamonds to finish instantly. Holy accessories at the Blacksmith can cover this for free a few times a day.

Long Expeditions

Harvest Club members get a 24-hour Long Expedition in every area. It pays more per trip than the 12-hour mission but a little less per hour, so it is designed for days when you will not check in. It does not replace a Permit; it is a different way to play. See the Season Pass & Club guide.

Planning your trips

A good rhythm looks like this:

1. Morning: send your full crew on 4 to 8 hour missions before you go to work.
2. Midday: collect, re-send anyone who recovered stamina on a short 1 or 2 hour mission.
3. Evening: start the longest mission you can afford, or a Guardian Challenge if the team is strong enough.

A few ideas to get more out of each trip:

• Match the goal to the area. Need wood and resin for building? Forest. Need ore and coal? Mountain. Need lavender oil? Lavender Fields.
• Send your best explorer to the area you need most. Rare finds scale with Power and traits, so a Tracker or Lucky explorer is worth sending for rare materials.
• Pair explorers on 8 and 12 hour missions. More explorers raise Power and add the team bonus to rare finds.
• Use mixed crews. A team with different home areas gets a small speed bonus.
• Do not let stamina sit at the cap. Regeneration stops when the bar is full, so a re-send before you log off is free value.
• Compare the forecast. Before you start, the mission screen shows your team’s Power against the requirement and the real duration. A slightly weaker team can still work, it just takes longer.

Tip: Weekly events sometimes boost expeditions, for example a day when rare finds are more likely. See the Events guide.

Quick reference

• Start: Forest at level 25. Rocko arrives with the Mine at level 40.
• Power: 20 per explorer, plus 5 per level, plus 15 percent in the home area.
• Stamina: 5 to 15, one point per 90 minutes, +3 from an Explorer’s Ration.
• Rewards scale with duration, Power and traits.
• Rare barn materials are best found on expeditions.