This page lists tips and advice to improve your experience in Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town.
Don't Use Your Bag for Long-Term Storage
Even after you upgrade your bag at the tool shop, you should avoid keeping too much stuff in your bag. You will get new things all the time, such as by-products from your livestock, and grass and logs from keeping your farm clear, and so on. If you are always leaving things in your bag, you will soon run out of space.
Keep Tools in your Tool Bag
The tool bag is a separate section of your inventory specifically for your tools. Keep your tools there when you are not using them to help make sure you don't run out of inventory space.
Use the Y Button to Manage Your Inventory
If you press X and go to the inventory tab, you can press Y to see different actions you can take with the currently selected item. This makes it easy to put tools into your tool bag, or place items on the ground if you need to make room in your inventory, or eat a meal, and so on.
Use Item Boxes
Starting at Mining Lv.3, Draining Lv.3, and Logging Lv.3, you can craft item boxes that you can place on your farm to store things. Be sure to put a lot of these around your farm to hold onto the many things that you need to keep.
Keep Specific Items in Specific Boxes
Try to keep stacks of the same type of item all together in a single storage box. If you separate your things between many boxes, it will become difficult to remember where you put the things you need. For example, you could keep all iron ore in a single box. If you need iron ore later, you will only have to go to that box to get it, instead of having to go around to many different boxes on your farm if you have put iron ore in multiple boxes.
Keep Related Items in the Same Item Box
If you designate an item box for all logs and lumber, a different item box for all ores and ingots, a different box for all fur, yarn, and cloth, and so on, it will be easier to remember where to find the types of items that you need, because you will not be mixing different types of things together in the same box.
Keep the Same Types of Makers Together
If you mix different types of makers together in the same area, it can become confusing to try to find the maker that you are looking for. If there is only one type of maker in a group of them, it will be easier to find the type you need.
Put Item Boxes and Makers in Strategic Places
It helps to have item boxes in certain places where they are most useful. For example, you could keep item boxes near the beach to store all the fish you catch there, item boxes near the lakes to store the treasures you get from draining them, item boxes for rock salt/peppercorn/sugarcane near powder makers, and so on.
Similarly, keep makers in areas where they are most useful. You can have yogurt/butter/cheese makers near barns with cows, mayonnaise makers near coops, honey makers near beehives, and so on.
Plant Fruit Trees Against Walls or in Designated Areas
If you plant fruit trees in front of each other, it will be difficult to see if they have fruit ready to harvest. If you plant fruit trees in front of tilled land, it will be difficult to see if your crops are ready to harvest. To avoid this, try planting fruit trees against the back walls and edges of your farm, or create a designated area for fruit trees where they will be far enough apart that you can see if any of them have fruit to harvest.
Place Barns, Coops, and Stables Carefully
Barns, coops, and stables can also block the view of your crops and fruit trees, so be sure to place them where they are less likely to block your view.
Use Roads
Starting at Mining Lv.1 and Logging Lv.1, you can craft roads. Roads prevent wild grass and trees from growing where they are placed, so if you have a route that you travel through your farm areas every day, you can place roads there to ensure that your path will not be blocked by new trees or grass.
Use Fences and Gates
Starting at Mining Lv.1 and Logging Lv.1, you can craft fences and gates. Fences are useful for creating enclosures around barns and coops so that if you put your animals out to pasture, they will stay in the enclosure and not wander too far for you to find. But be aware that if you do not make the enclosure large enough, your animals might appear outside of it. You can place gates between fences to make it easy to go into and out of the enclosure.
Quickly Putting Animals Out to Pasture
You can go into the barn or coop after ringing the bell to make all the animals go outside immediately, instead of waiting for them to come out one by one. They need to be outside by about 8:30AM in order to graze, so going into the barn or coop to put them outside immediately can make sure that they do not eat fodder because of taking too long to go outside.
Bonus Interactions with Animals
Sometimes an animal will have a different symbol over their heads, such as a happy face or talking face. This means that they want to interact more. After you have done all the bonus interaction(s), be sure to pet them, because the bonus interactions are in addition to their daily petting.
Plant a Lot of Fruit Trees Early On
You can only increase the orcharding skill when you harvest fruit from fruit trees, but the fruit trees only have fruit twice a month. If you don't plant a lot of fruit trees early on, it will take a long time for you to level up the skill.
Buy a Lot of Mushroom Logs Early On
Similarly, you can only increase the cultivating skill when you harvest mushrooms from mushroom logs, so be sure to buy plenty of them from the Carpenter's Workshop after you repair the rotten log in the second farm area.
Grow Plenty of Flowers, and Buy Beehives
You will need flowers to increase your beekeeping skill once you repair the rotten hive in the third farm area, so be sure to grow plenty of them. Buy more beehives from the Carpenter's Workshop after you repair the first hive, and put flowers into them to make honey hives so you can increase your beekeeping skill.
Use Nets, and Keep Catches in Item Boxes near the Beach
Starting at Fishing Lv.4, you can craft nets, which you can place between rocks on the beach areas of your farm. Using nets will make it easier to level up your Fishing skill because you will gain fishing experience while spending less time fishing. Keep item boxes near your beaches to put your catches in, so you don't run out of inventory space when checking the nets each morning.
Use Breeding Kits as Soon as You Can
The quality of animal by-products is limited by the generation of the animal. A first-generation animal can only produce up to 3-star quality by-products, for example. When you reach Animal Care Lv.5, you can use breeding kits at the Animal Shop to create new generations of animals. These new generations can produce higher-quality by-products than their ancestors. You can see which generation an animal is by looking in the notes in coops and barns, or on your desk in your house.