Farming Ideas and Suggestions

Because there are too many crafting/profession skills for each to have its own forum.
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Irylia
Posts: 274
Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:20 pm

Farming Ideas and Suggestions

Post by Irylia »

Farming is finally getting its own thread! Yay! Bringing in ideas from the farming introduction thread as that's more for the implementation announcement than anything else. Adding ideas from other threads as well to bring it all together and bump some older ideas.

Add Orchard/Grove Crops:
- I think these could work along the same principle as other plants you don't have to re-seed after harvest. You could still make them weather-based and maybe they go dormant in off-season or you can come up with ways to keep them producing year-round.
- Would suffer from weeds.
- Might require fertilizer.
- Might require at least one beehive to produce fruit (for cross pollination).
- Might get infested with snails or other bugs and require ducks to keep healthy.
- Would require significantly more land space and/or be limited by number or type allowed per farm. (Only 4 varieties/farm, only 20 trees total/farm, each tree takes 4 plots/farm etc.)
- Examples to start with: Apple, Pear, Plum, Lemon, Lime, Peach, Cherry, Orange.

Forage seeds from wild and non-store-bought plants:
- There's a wild potato-type plant now and it would be great to be able to grow it as a crop by foraging samples, cutting them up, and planting them.
- Being able to forage seeds from some of the new berry types would also be awesome (or just wild plants in general).
- This would be helpful for crop diversity as well as because the current forage limits per room don't really make it a great option for use aside from emergencies or if you're playing a more wilderness-based character. I'd rather save the limited supply for them.

On winter crops:
Summary:
Cold-weather plants to potentially put up for sale or to grow wild as seeds/forageables. This should help with adding to recipes when cooking comes out. Some might need new names from the real world equivalent. Show will be in regular text and flavor profile will be in parenthesis.

Greens:
Kale - Deep green ruffled leaves attach to long,thick stems. (The crisp leaves boast a deep, earthy flavor with just a hint of bitterness.)
Spinach - A cluster of stems shoots tightly together, each topped with a tender bright green leaf that is smooth and spade-shaped. (Tender leaves break down to a slightly sweet flavor that almost melts in your mouth.)
Chard (swiss) - Bright gold and fuchsia stems bear thickly-veined, broad leaves of pale green. (Each leaf balances the sweetness of the stem with a mild bitterness from the leaves to make a crunchy and satisfying bite.)
Mache - The velvety green leaves are thin and tender. (Soft, velvety leaves crunch slightly with crispness, their nutty, herbal flavor playing out with each bite.)
Lettuce (rouge d'hiver) - The head of lettuce forms a natural bouquet of broad leaves in muted red and green. (The leaves have a buttery texture that melts in the mouth, leaving a refreshing taste of mild sweetness.)
Claytonia - The heart-shaped green leaves bear tiny white flowers in each center. (Crunchy stems and smooth green leaves give a mixture of sweet and tart.)
Collards - I got nothin'. Someone else can do this one, haha.

Vegetables:
Spring Onions
Beets
Radishes
Cauliflower
Broccoli
Sprouts (brussels)

Forageables:
Dandelions
Violets
Mullein
Sweet Birch (apparently you can make alcohol with the sap)

Non-Cold Weather Herbs/spices that might be grown, foraged, or store-bought:
Oregano
Bay Leaf
Nutmeg
Cinnamon
Wild lemons
Source of Salt
Peppercorn
Mustard

I got a little lazy on adding descriptions/flavors to the bottom part of the list, but I can edit some in later. I just want to get this out there sooner rather than later now that cooking is in.
On seeds:
It seems like seeds have a lot of growing conditions attached to them which on the one hand is very neat, but on the other hand makes growing things a lot more challenging given the fickle nature of the weather. Would it be possible to make an adjustment from direct weather relation for growth, stagnate, thrive, wither to making the seeds seasonal? Each seed type could have a growing season between 3-4 months or possibly some overlap between one or two seasons. If something is planted towards the end of its normal seasonal cycle maybe the crop could still endure but anything planted fresh into the wrong cycle would have issues. I feel this would make the process of farming more forgiving while still keeping the realism of rotation. Especially as farms can only be in one location at present so you cannot choose your ideal growing conditions based on geography. An alternative to this would be to give the seeds more of a range for growth vs stagnate/thrive/wither in the proper conditions so that one bad IRL day doesn't throw things completely off.
Regarding the above ^ I think just adding a bit more leeway on the seed conditionals would work so that there's a broader range of weather types attached to each seed. That way when the weather is slightly fickle, things will continue to grow. If the weather takes a sharp turn, then there might still be issues, but within a more acceptable margin.
Dennis
Posts: 218
Joined: Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:46 am

Re: Farming Ideas and Suggestions

Post by Dennis »

Helloes I am jumping onto the thread with some farming suggestions after growing 1 field of crops. I decided to grow pumpkins since it has been chilly and cold lately, and based on temperatures, it was a good crop to grow. But I ran into a problem as I went into a week of growth with no crop to show for it. The temperatures at night kept dropping into the freezing, resulting in crops struggling to grow. These daily temperature cycles fluctuating between freezing and warm is doing terrible things to the cumulative growth rate of my fickle plants.

Rather than tying crop health to room temperature, which I noticed can be modified by creating some campfires, I suggest that crops should instead having growing seasons. Seasonal crops makes more sense as a short cold wind shouldn't be killing all of the crops in a field.

That is all I've got for now!
"Always remember that we are a community before anything else. Before being a 'game' or a 'world' we are a bunch of folk who get together to have fun."
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Irylia
Posts: 274
Joined: Tue Apr 30, 2019 5:20 pm

Re: Farming Ideas and Suggestions

Post by Irylia »

I'm having a similar issue as Dennis when trying to grow late-season rimeveil before it's completely un-plantable for 6 months. The crop has the right temperature to grow at night, but not during the day. Broadening growing ranges or changing to a seasonal system would be really helpful - especially since certain crops already only grow at specific times of the year. I feel like this is a barrier that's just not necessary and would honestly rather it go away entirely, even though I appreciate why it was implemented in the first place. It's just frustrating to try to fulfill orders for food or clothing and struggle to get a plant to grow because the weather is right only half the day, especially when there are not alternatives available and there don't always seem to be dedicated farmers to fill these requests. I never really intended for my character to grow plants at all, but it's been necessary because of a lack of consistency. The timing right now with trying to get this last crop in before the end of "winter" and a lot of IRL stuff going on has been painful.

The only reliable and readily available, year-round textile is wool. Sure there are various fiber options from bushcrafty things, but they are so painful to make that I'm not counting them here. We finally got a cotton-replacement plant added (thank you so much for that by the way) and it only grows in super cold weather, but provides warmth suited to summer. In a game where there are already issues with clutter, encouraging people to hoard a winter-grown and harvested crop to use during summer months seems counter to the intent. So I'd really appreciate a way to get around some of these barriers.

So, the potential proposed resolutions are as follows:

1. Make seeds have more varied growth conditions so there is greater overlap between borderline weather days.
2. Change to a seasonal system where plants grow 3 or 6 months out of the year and then go out of season - maybe with a 1-2 week buffer for plants mid-growth-cycle. (would mean having a lot more seeds available to begin with)
3. Get rid of weather requirements on seeds altogether and let people grow what they need when they need it.
4. Significantly reduce growth time requirements on plants so that even if the weather does hinder their growth rate part of the day, you won't be stuck with crops barely growing for 1-2 weeks.
5. Add more crop types in general - especially ones that grow in these weird mid-season weather types that cross between cold and mild.
6. Align plants like rimeveil to grow when they're most needed, or give a warm-weather alternative, to reduce the desire to stock up on them and then hoard for when they're needed months later.
7. Allow people with trading to get out-of-season crops or end-products (thread/cloth) at excessive costs from a special vendor.
8. Allow a construction recipe for a hot house or green house type building to grow out-of-season plants in small quantities and not have to worry about proper temperature (even for cold-growing plants... somehow).
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