Firstly, the goal of this mod is to add some challenge to the game, by removing the players ability to directly purchase seeds from vendors. Instead, players will be encouraged to have a more active approach when it comes to diversification of the farm and the seeds cultivated. It also incites the player to keep some crops to transform into seeds to keep growing said crop, thus slowing down gold accumulation. Last but definitely not least, it declutters the vendors from the tons of different seeds players can have if they use mods like the PPJA suite.

Secondly, if you know jahangmar’s mods, you’re probably wondering what this is even doing here. Well Seeds Are Rare is a really nice mod but it lacks configurations, it removes seeds only from vendor’s listing (they’re still in stock but just doesn’t show up, which may hinder performances on a heavy mod lists), doesn’t support custom Json Assets’s crops and finally, it removes them completely and doesn’t do so per vendors. So, it means that any custom shops are not compatible with it.

I first realized this when I tried to make Seeds Are Rare and Seed Catalogue compatible with each other. After seeing that it couldn’t really be possible, I decided to make this, my first mod. Now it might look like I have a grudge against jahangmar’s mods but on the contrary, I’m trying to improve upon his work. In fact, some of his other mods are splendid and work very well with Seed Shortage, aiming for a Stardew Valley playthrough with more challenge and longevity. So, go check them out as well!

Now then, onto the mod itself.

“Breaking news: utilizing its worldwide influence, some very coveted seeds are now available at your local JojaMart! Join us, thrive!”

The mod also allow players to keep the seeds at JojaMart, but also increase its price (configurable). This is meant for players who still wish to be able to seeds, while keeping the game challenging. It also fits the lore of the game as Joja is depicted as an ever reaching global and greedy corporation and one could only suppose that in a situation like this, such corporation would use its reach to get its hands on those valuable seeds and make an immense profit on the back of poor farmers trying to survive.

“Now that seeds have become so scarce, I fear some of the rarer flowers like the legendary Rafflesia might now be lost for a very long time, if not forever… - A farmer to his neighbor, shortly after the shortage began.”

Finally, the mod has a Better Mixed Seeds config that is required for a balanced playthrough. If this is not used, many aspects of the challenging gameplay and increased longevity this mod aims to achieve will be gone, and as a result can downright break a playthrough. There is two different version of those configs: one with only the vanilla crops, and one supporting the PPJA mods Fruits and Veggies, Mizu’s Flowers and Farmer to Florist. If you want to check the drop chances of each crops, here are the two versions’ spreadsheet. Bear in mind that while the vanilla version is pretty fair and balanced, there will be more grind in the JA version if you want to acquire a specific seed as the number of seeds is vastly increased.

Vanilla Version 

JA Version

You can help make this mod better!

Feedback on both custom config would be greatly appreciated! I’d prefer it coming from people who used it for an extended period of time as it is supposed to add some challenge and longevity to the game but I’ll still listen to everything don’t worry!

As of update 1.4, you can now use 2 seasonal seeds (Spring Seeds, Summer Seeds, etc) in the seed maker to get 2 to 4 Mixed Seeds. That way you're not flooded with useless forage.





Here are the different configuration options available in the mods:


VendorsWithoutSeeds : The vendors whose names are present in this config will not be selling seeds anymore. You must use the exact names of the vendors, and write it in quotation marks and commas in between except for the last one. See here for the available shop owners names.

VendorsPrice : Same as the vendors without seeds, the shop owners whose names are listed here will have the price of their seeds increased by a value defined in the next config. It follows the same formatting as the vendors without seeds, so the exact name, in quotation marks, and commas in between each name.

PriceIncrease : This is where you configure the increase in prices for the shops in VendorsPrice. This supports both percentage increase and a multiplier. Supposing that "P" is your integer number, you can either write "P%" or "Px". For P%, it will increase the prices of each seeds by said percent, while for Px, it will multiply the price by P. If there is no "%" or "x" at the end of your "P", the mod will error out, telling you to change it. (default: "10x")

CropExceptions : The seeds listed here will be added as an exception to the seed removal process. You need to specify the exact English name of the seed you want to add.

See HERE for more informations on the config.






Seed Shortage is compatible with about every custom shop mods as it applies the restrictions on the seeds only per vendors and not globally. It is also compatible with every seed mods out there, and does not remove any sapling so it's compatible with trees mods too.

My BMS config supports the following crops mods:

• Fruits and Veggies
• Mizu's Flowers
• Farmer to Florist
  

If you use my custom BMS config (which is highly recommended), and you want to add drop chances for unsupported mods, you’ll want to check the JA spreadsheet in the description section to get a feel of how rare the different seeds are, decide a drop chance for them, then add them yourself in the config.
If the mod isn’t present in the BMS config, then you will have no way of getting the seeds. So, it won’t be incompatible per say as it won’t crash a game or output an error message but it would just be useless. For more information on mods supported by Better Mixed Seeds, go to the mod page directly.

Finally, the Content Pack has built in compatibility with Stardew Valley Expanded and Canon Friendly Dialogues.




Here are some mods that would pair well with Seed Shortage.

All the PPJA mods by the PPJA Team
Leveling Adjustment by jahangmar
Minerva's Harder Community Bundles by minervaaga
Stardew Valley Expanded and its lower profit margin's config by FlashShifter
Profit Margins by CherryChain
Seed Catalogue by spacechase0
Compost Pests and Cultivation by jahangmar


If you don't know how to install mods, visit: https://stardewvalleywiki.com/Modding:Player_Guide/Getting_Started

• Download and install the requirements: Content Patcher, Json Assets, Producer Framework Mod and Better Mixed Seeds.
• Download and install the custom-crops mods you want to play with.
• Download Seed Shortage then simply drag and drop the 3 folders.
  

If you want to use my BMS config (VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED)

• Once everything is installed, launch the game once and go up to the title screen. This is so that all mods are initialized and the config for Better Mixed Seeds (as well as other mods but we’re not interested in that) will be created. Once you reach the title screen, you can exit the game.
• After that, navigate to the Better Mixed Seeds folder in your mods, then REPLACE the current “config.json” with the one you downloaded here. To check you replaced with the right one, just open it and if you see every crop with a chance of “1”, it’s not the right one.
• You’re done! Enjoy!
  

 
For troubleshooting: Go to the #using-mods channel in the Stardew Valley discord and get some help here, using your SMAPI log. If the problem turns out to come from my mod, just @ me directly in the channel and I’ll get on it !




For those interested, here is the source code of the mod. Feel free to take a peek!

Now onto thanking the good people who helped making this mod:

• Pathoschild for… well so many things, they’re hard to count.
• Wingheart for being my go-to test-guy!
• spacechae0, kdau and epicbellyflop45 for spotting errors and helping out in general.
• Cat and Minerva for spotting smol letter that should have been big, preventing me some hair loss.
• The rest of the PPJA team for making the amazing PPJA mods and letting me edit their beautiful banner for the mod description.
• The entire Stardew modding community for being so friendly and helpful.