No farming sim would be complete without a home for the player to give a personal touch, and Sun Haven delivers with its Home Sweet Home locale. Each player in Sun Haven has their own customizable home, in which they may arrange the decor and amenities to their heart's content.
In multiplayer games, this cozy home provides a private getaway from the communal grounds of the farm, which each player can call theirs alone. In solo play, it serves as a base for players to come back to. To get the fullest benefit from their homes, players can make use of the game's crafting system to expand their real estate.
Basics of Upgrading the Home
Each upgrade to the house doubles the number of rooms, giving the player approximately twice as much space to place furniture, crafting stations, and other utilities around their home. Beyond extra floor space, there are no inherent benefits to upgrading the player's house, but as the player's hoard of knickknacks and decorations grows, every square foot will be appreciated. Upgrading the player's house will likewise make the building appear more grandiose in the overworld. This is purely a visual change, and does not affect the footprint of the house, meaning anything placed outside will be safe between upgrades.
Performing an upgrade takes 30 minutes of in-game time, and must be performed at a Construction Table. This workstation is created using 25 Wood Planks and 50 Stone, which may be obtained through means described in the section below. A house upgrade is applied upon using the upgrade item on the desired house. This cannot be reversed, nor can the player skip directly from Tier 1 to Tier 3.
Unlocking the Tier 2 House
The materials for the Tier 2 upgrade are readily found through normal gameplay:
- 100 Wood Planks: Made by processing Logs at a Crafting Table. Logs may be obtained by chopping trees, or by defeating the Chimchuck or Leafie enemies in the Eastern or Western Forests, respectively. Logs are converted into Wood Planks at a rate of 4 to 2.
- 250 Stones: Obtained by mining rocks in the Mines or Quarry, by defeating the Steel Slug enemy in the Mines, or defeating the Torto enemy in the Eastern Forest. Unlike Planks, Stones do not need to be processed before being used in crafting.
- Tier 2 House Permit: Purchased from Emmett for 10,000 coins. Emmett is available in the Town Hall from 8 AM to 8 PM.
The limiting factor in unlocking the second-tier house will likely be the money needed to purchase the permit. Given that upgrading the house’s size does not come with any immediate benefits, players should typically avoid rushing for the permit. Instead, focus on making purchases that will help with the early game, such as crop seeds and tool upgrades. Wait to upgrade the house until it's more feasibly affordable.
Unlocking the Tier 3 House
Appropriately for the final upgrade to the player's home, the Tier 3 upgrade has steeper requirements than Tier 2. The player will be expected to have leveled up a variety of skills, upgraded their tools, and become familiar with the world of Sun Haven before attempting to unlock this upgrade.
To harvest each type of material, the player will need tools made of adamant metal or better, which require the player to reach at least level 20 in Exploration. Adamant axes and pickaxes may be crafted at an anvil using 8 and 10 adamant bars, respectively, or may be purchased from Solon for 12,000 and 18,000 coins.
- 50 Hardwood planks: Made by processing raw Hardwood, which may be obtained by chopping Hardwood tree trunks (pictured above) around the farm or in the Eastern or Western Forests, converted at a rate of 4 Hardwood to 2 Hardwood Planks. The recipe to process raw Hardwood is unlocked at level 20 Farming, creating an additional soft requirement for the Tier 3 house.
- 200 Heavystone: Obtained by breaking Heavystone deposits (pictured above), which may be mined around the farm or at the Quarry. Like regular stone, Heavystone does not require processing.
- Tier 3 House Permit: Purchased from Emmett for 30,000 coins.
The player may alternatively purchase the materials from Harris, who runs a stall outside the Quarry, for 200 coins per plank or piece of heavystone. The rationale for not dumping all the player's cash into the Tier 2 deed applies just as much for not bulk-buying the materials for Tier 3. Doing so is both much more expensive than simply buying the adamant tools (totaling 50,000 coins), and does nothing to help the player harvest those materials in the future. As such, this option can only be recommended for players trying to complete the game with the lowest stats possible. If that's not the case, it's much more cost-effective to harvest the materials oneself.
Sun Haven is available on macOS and PC.