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anonymous conservative

Staking and Mounding- simple but important agricultural amendments.

11 posts in this topic

Tomatoes and green beans grow up poles, but these poles appear out of nowhere when tomatoes/green beans are planted. How about the player has to have sticks in his or her inventory when they plant the tomatoes or green beans, and each time one is planted, it takes away one stick, representing the stick that is stuck in the ground for the plant to climb up. This would be similar to having to have a hammer to chisel with. When the plant is harvested, there would be a chance that the player would get the stick back.

Also, as an irl grower of many different crops, most of the ones represented in TFC, I have learned through trial and error over the years that potatoes, onion, garlic, and a few other root crops absolutely cannot be grown with any hopes for success without one simple step: you have to plant the potato/onion/garlic in a mound. You see, they need very, very loose soil to grow in- this is most often accomplished by breaking up some dirt and raking it into a mound in which the potato/ onion/ garlic will grow. It could be implemented like this: before planting the afore mentioned vegetables, you'd have to take your hoe to a piece of farmland and, well I'm not sure how, but anyway, you'd rake the dirt with your hoe into a mound. You'd take the seed of one of the afore mentioned crops and plant it in the mound, just like planting it in the farmland. After that point, no more special work would need to be put in... kinda like regular farming as it is now. Now perhaps the garlic and onion textures would have to be changed- the bulbous root would be hidden within the mound, leaving only the green leafy part shown.

This could be made an optional step... but the harvested amount would be increased two or threefold if you did do the simple mounding step. So that this wouldn't be made an early game exploit, the player would have to have a moderately high agricultural skill to do this, kind of like being able to see the levels of A, B, & C nutrients.

I definitely don't think that this would add any unnecessary tedium- it really actually isn't possible to not plant your potatoes/onions/garlic in a mound and still get a significant harvest irl. I've never had any success not mounding them...

But for the sake of believability it would not be absolutely required, just extremely beneficial.

I was trying to simplify this- sorry if it gets a little confusing! I realize I can be a pretty incoherent writer sometimes...

Edited by anonymous conservative
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I would love this. Anything that makes TFC more unique , believable, and realisti- oh sorry I meant believable, gets a big thumbs up from me.

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Bioxx, on 29 May 2014 - 7:52 PM, said:Posted Image

Believable does not mean that everything has to be accurate. The idea behind believable is that it gives us much leeway to change facts as we see fit to provide a desired gameplay outcome. A great many things are possible in the real world, but that does not mean that all of those things are beneficial to providing a progression based gameplay experience.

 

While I completely agree with you regarding the growing conditions of various TFC crops, I'm not sure this suggestion would add any value to gameplay. Since you have two related but separate themes in your post, I'll address them separately:

 

Sticks for tomatoes and green beans: You have a point, in that there is clearly a stick that the plant grows up. And really, the increase in cost is exceedingly minimal, since sticks are very easy to acquire in great numbers. What concerns me is that unless you already know these plants require sticks when you try to plant the seeds, new players mind get confused as to why they can't plant tomatoes and green beans. But other than that, I do rather like the idea of having a stick sink. But, as a game designer, I am always asking myself "what value does this change add to the game?" Since there isn't really a tech progression or anything like that added by this suggestion, I have to wonder if it adds any value.

 

Mound required for potatoes, onion, garlic, etc. : Sounds like effort. The big turn-off for me with a lot of farming mods in the huge amount of steps it takes just to get one plant growing. First they want you to build a frame, then you have to set up an overhead sprinkler system, and of course you can't forget about fertiliser, and soil ph, etc. etc. etc. I know it's realistic, and it might irk people who know anything about plants, but as somebody who has never really considered growing a vegetable garden, I'd be lying if I said that the particular growing patterns for crops effect the believability of TFC. And as an intrinsically selfish being, an update that adds no apparent value while decreasing the yield of improperly planted crops is unappealing to me.

 

Now that I've rained all over this place, I do want to say that I like the potential of expanding on the agriculture system. I'd say the major issues currently is the lack of added value, and a lack of rewards for the player (since everything currently makes the game harder).

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Hmmm... with the staking, maybe a message would appear if you didn't have sticks on hand, similar to the "overburdened" message with barrels. That way, those players who didn't previously know would know to pick up some sticks.

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I have no idea as how easy or hard would be to code and implement, but as far as functionality it should be easy.

One easy mechanic would be for the seed to check the conditions of the soil. With different requirements for the different crops.

So you use the Hoe and tile the soil normally. Using the hoe again creates a new block on top of the tile block, that would be the mound, one block one texture, so there is no need to change all the tiled soil textures. Using the Hoe one more time removes the mound, that would help with the player clicking twice by mistake.

Right click with a stick in your hand on a tile soil and you create a new block, is now a stake on top of the tiled soil.

When planting the crops each crop would check and see if the conditions are met, if not the player gets a message stating what is wrong. That or just the wiki with the information. There is just no way for any one to play TFC without using the wiki any ways.

So tomato and green beans would check for the stake, onions, garlic and potatoes would check for the mound.

 

As far as the adding value to gameplay, we could be arguing this to the end of time with no avail. In the end what matter is if one of the Dev's like this idea or not. If they like it will be implemented, if not it will not be and that's the way it should be. Since this is a very subjective issue, there are so many features in this mod that I absolute love and others hate. For example the prospecting system, once I learned I fall in love with it.

I do like features that add Realism to the mod, after all that was the initial reason for this mod, hence all the real world mineral and ores, and no diamond tools and armor, and no enchantment. The motto of the mod was " survival as it should have been". After a while it got obvious that it would be impossible to have every aspect of the game too be really realistic, as it would stop being a game.

I guess today the hardest part of this mod development is to decide how to balance all the features and make a fun to play game.

 

All that said I think this would be a cool feature to be added. It would not require too much effort from the player and adds to the experience.

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I have no idea as how easy or hard would be to code and implement, but as far as functionality it should be easy.One easy mechanic would be for the seed to check the conditions of the soil. With different requirements for the different crops.So you use the Hoe and tile the soil normally. Using the hoe again creates a new block on top of the tile block, that would be the mound, one block one texture, so there is no need to change all the tiled soil textures. Using the Hoe one more time removes the mound, that would help with the player clicking twice by mistake.Right click with a stick in your hand on a tile soil and you create a new block, is now a stake on top of the tiled soil.When planting the crops each crop would check and see if the conditions are met, if not the player gets a message stating what is wrong. That or just the wiki with the information. There is just no way for any one to play TFC without using the wiki any ways.So tomato and green beans would check for the stake, onions, garlic and potatoes would check for the mound.As far as the adding value to gameplay, we could be arguing this to the end of time with no avail. In the end what matter is if one of the Dev's like this idea or not. If they like it will be implemented, if not it will not be and that's the way it should be. Since this is a very subjective issue, there are so many features in this mod that I absolute love and others hate. For example the prospecting system, once I learned I fall in love with it.I do like features that add Realism to the mod, after all that was the initial reason for this mod, hence all the real world mineral and ores, and no diamond tools and armor, and no enchantment. The motto of the mod was " survival as it should have been". After a while it got obvious that it would be impossible to have every aspect of the game too be really realistic, as it would stop being a game.I guess today the hardest part of this mod development is to decide how to balance all the features and make a fun to play game.All that said I think this would be a cool feature to be added. It would not require too much effort from the player and adds to the experience.

I agree. Farming needs to be a bit (just a little bit) more complex, like black smithing. Throwing seeds in the ground with no pre requisites other than good temp and nutrients seems over simplified. I get that the aim here isn't exact realism, but it's seems like a bit more work should have to go in, so it's not so much "set it and forget it." The agricultural system is pretty good, and I'm not complaining. There's just some room for improvement, I believe
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I agree. Farming needs to be a bit (just a little bit) more complex, like black smithing. Throwing seeds in the ground with no pre requisites other than good temp and nutrients seems over simplified. I get that the aim here isn't exact realism, but it's seems like a bit more work should have to go in, so it's not so much "set it and forget it." The agricultural system is pretty good, and I'm not complaining. There's just some room for improvement, I believe

 

There actually are a few more aspects to farming that I guess a lot of players just don't know about. For example, using fertilizer will make your plants grow almost twice as fast, and allows the player to not have to worry as much about crop rotation. Hydration also plays an aspect in that crops that aren't properly hydrated will take longer to grow. There's an entire pH and drainage system that is implemented that allows you to tweak with the flavor profile of the harvested crops.

 

The way that the farming system is designed and balanced is that players can get decent yields without much effort, and will get a bonus of faster growing crops if they actually take all the factors into consideration. We would much rather reward the players that put in the extra effort, than punish the players who do not.

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There actually are a few more aspects to farming that I guess a lot of players just don't know about. For example, using fertilizer will make your plants grow almost twice as fast, and allows the player to not have to worry as much about crop rotation. Hydration also plays an aspect in that crops that aren't properly hydrated will take longer to grow. There's an entire pH and drainage system that is implemented that allows you to tweak with the flavor profile of the harvested crops.The way that the farming system is designed and balanced is that players can get decent yields without much effort, and will get a bonus of faster growing crops if they actually take all the factors into consideration. We would much rather reward the players that put in the extra effort, than punish the players who do not.

Ok, you got me there. Maybe I could modify my original suggestion. The harvested amount without the mounding would be the same as it is now, but the simple mounding step would increase the harvested amount two or three fold. Anyway, potatoes and onions produce tons of food compared to the area they take up. A 160 oz harvest per square meter is not unbelievable. They are pretty efficient. But, so this wouldn't be an early-game exploit, the player will have to reach a higher agricultural skill to unlock this; it could be a hoe option, kind of like looking at the A, B, & C nutrients. Edited by anonymous conservative
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Another thing that has to be taken into consideration with any sort of material that can be "farmed" be it food, trees, animals, etc. is that there will always be the easier alternative of just increasing the size of the farm instead of going through all the extra little steps to get a boost in yields.

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Another thing that has to be taken into consideration with any sort of material that can be "farmed" be it food, trees, animals, etc. is that there will always be the easier alternative of just increasing the size of the farm instead of going through all the extra little steps to get a boost in yields.

Indeed, but for those who haven't reached red steel yet, and want hydration, expanding the farm is quite often not a viable option. Edited by anonymous conservative
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Properly built a farm is easily expandable even in Stone Age. Terraced farming is simple, just have to find an appropriate location.

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