Stardew Valley Expanded, or SVE, is one of the greatest mods made for Stardew Valley. If you’re like me though, you won’t be satiated with just one mod. Once the door of modding games is open, I can’t help but grab all kinds of mods. This article will go over some of the best Stardew Valley mods compatible with the Stardew Valley Expanded mod so you can mod your game easily and get back to playing!
First, we’ll go over some utility and similar mods.
One very useful mod is the “Generic Mod Config Menu”. This will allow you to change the settings of all kinds of compatible mods. Instead of opening the config file and changing it like that, you can now change them in-game and on the fly, as long as the modder has made them compatible.
Another useful mod is the “Skip Intro” mod. This one lets you skip past the logos and intros when booting up the game, putting you straight on the main menu so you can get back into Stardew Valley much faster!
The “NPC Map Locations” mod. This mod will show you, in real time, where all NPCs currently are in Pelican Town and surrounding areas. With all the new NPCs from Stardew Valley Expanded, it can be a little much to keep track of everyone’s schedules on top of everything else, like their likes/dislikes. This mod will be incredibly useful in easing that, plus it’ll help you learn the routines of all the new NPCs!
Another is the “Skip Fishing Minigame” mod. This mod, as you might guess, skips the minigame that starts when you hook a fish. Instead, it immediately gives you the fish. If there had been a treasure chest, it’ll give you that too! This is great for those of us who have a hard time with the minigame.
“Automatic Gates.” This one will make it so that all gates will open automatically for you, and close behind you when you leave their radius. They do not open for animals. This is just a small quality of life mod that feels right at home in our mod list.
Another very useful mod is the “Mod Update Menu.” This mod adds an in-game menu that will tell you which mods are up to date, which mods need updating, and has included links to their mod pages to make it even easier to update them!
Lastly we have the “No Fence Decay” mod. This does exactly what it says on the tin, preventing any fences and gates from decaying. This will save you so many resources and so much time in the long run, so it’s definitely worth checking out!
Next up are some gameplay mods, with some that include new mechanics!
“Better Ranching” is a fantastic mod. It increases the range for milking and shearing; no more clicking the wrong spot and missing! It also has a bubble over your animals indicating they are able to be milked, sheared, or pet!
“Wear More Rings” is a mod that adds 6 more ring slots, for a total of 8. This mod works out of the box with any rings added by other mods, allowing you to stack rings and become even stronger!
“Automate” is a fantastic mod that, you guessed it, automates crafting. Placing a chest with raw materials next to, say, a furnace, will put the raw materials in and then collect the processed materials. This’ll let you farm crystariums and furnaces when you’re busy!
“Yet Another Harvest With Scythe Mod” allows you to harvest all your crops and flowers with a scythe. This mod is very useful, allowing you to speed up the process of harvesting crops immensely. No more individual clicking on each tile, just swing away! To use this mod you will need to install the StardewHack mod though.
One of my favorite mods is “Better Juminos.” If you’ve played the old Harvest Moon titles, you’ll remember hiring the Sprites to help you around the farm. This mod makes the Juminos of the base game like that, doing many more chores around the farm for you. They’ll work in the rain and in the greenhouse, they’ll fertilize crops; so much more useful than the base game!
“The Love of Cooking” is a fantastic mod that expands on the entire cooking system. With this mod, you’ll get a whole new skill to raise, tons of new recipes, tool progression with the new frying pan; there are even new crops! This alone would make an amazing update to Stardew Valley, so getting it all in one mod is incredible!
Now we’ll be going over some portrait mods.
Firstly, to install portrait mods you’ll need “Portraiture.” This mod allows some portrait mods to work at all. Follow the instructions on the mod’s page to install it!
“Seasonal Outfits – Slightly Cuter Aesthetic” draws new portraits for all the NPCs, giving them seasonal outfits and portraits. No more jackets in the summer or dresses in the winter! You will want to pair this with the “Seasonal Outfits – Slightly Cuter Aesthetic for SVE” mod, allowing all NPCs to dress appropriately for the weather!
“Shie’s Portraits” gives everyone new portraits that are in an almost comic book or manga style. It’s compatible with some other mods, such as the Rasmodius marriage mod, which we will cover soon!
Lastly, we’ll be going over some very big, unique mods.
Firstly, we have the “Ridgeside Village” mod. This mod adds a whole new town to Stardew Valley with everything included! This mod could be a DLC for how much it adds. A brand new town, 50 new NPCs, items, shops, new festivals, new music, new questlines and new quests entirely! This mod puts in a lot of effort to be as unintrusive to the base game as possible, while still meshing well with it and feeling right at home in Stardew Valley. This mod advertises both quality and quantity, and it absolutely delivers in every category.
Secondly, the “Deepwoods” mod adds a whole new “mine-like” area in a deep woods. Full of monsters and harvestable wood, this mod randomly generates the woods, much like the mines of the base game allowing a new experience everytime you go in! The forest also generates based off your luck and your combat skills, rewarding you with better loot and challenging you with harder enemies.
Lastly, is the “Romanceable Rasmodius Redux Revamped (SVE Required)” mod. This mod makes the wizard a romance candidate, just like the other possible spouses. It adds character events, heart events, completely overhauls his dialogue and adds more, and brings him to festivals. If you want as well, you can install the “Jello’s Vanilla-ish RRRR Wizard Portraits” mod, to age him down a bit.
How to install your Stardew Valley Expanded compatible mods
These mods are amazing, but how do you download and install them? Here’s some instructions on how to do so from installing SMAPI, the Stardew Modding API, to Stardew Valley Expanded itself, to whichever of these mods above you like.
- First, you want to have Stardew Valley installed on your PC and have booted up the game at least once.
- Then you want to go to Nexus Mods and download their Vortex launcher.
- Navigate to games, then unmanaged, then press the button on the picture of Stardew Valley to add it to your managed games. You should now see the artwork on the top left of the launcher!
- Next, you want to download SMAPI.
- Navigate to Files, then click “Mod Manager Download.”
- Now install it in Vortex, and you’re good to go! If you want achievements and the Steam overlay, keep reading. If you don’t mind not having them, skip down a bit.
- To keep the achievements and Steam overlay, you’ll want to keep the installer window open.
- Then you want to copy the path that ends with “%command%,” the whole thing including the quotation marks. It’ll look something like this: “C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Stardew Valley\StardewModdingAPI.exe” %command%
- Next, you want to right click Stardew Valley in your steam library.
- Click properties, then at the bottom will be a text box. Copy and paste the path into there. Voila! You now have achievements and the Steam overlay while using SMAPI.
- Now, on the main page of Stardew Valley Expanded you’ll see a box that says “Requirements.”
- Click that, and all the ones on top are needed for Stardew Valley Expanded to work. It may look a little daunting, but they can be installed just as easily as SMAPI was.
- Click on each one, click into Files, and click “Mod Manager Download.” This will place all the mods in the proper game folder; doing all the work for you, making this super easy!
- Then install them in Vortex, same as before. Once you have them all installed, you can install Stardew Valley Expanded.
- To install any of these compatible mods, you do the same as before.
- Open their web page and install any requirements, just like Stardew Valley Expanded.
- Then, back on their web page, navigate to Files, and click “Mod Manager Download” Some mods need a new save file, so don’t install these on an existing save!
I hope you give some of these mods a try, and breathe some new life into a game we’ve all come to love. All of these mods are great picks, and you can install almost all of them together. I highly recommend you explore the Nexusmods website and find some mods yourself to enhance your game in just the way you want. There’s tons of new content to be had! Make sure you endorse the mods you like though, and maybe even consider donating to your favorites! Most mod pages have a Kofi link.
