Unify Agriculture Behavior

[Omicron 62]

Situation:

When creatng a farm, some crops will be harvestable via rightclick once fully grown, and others will not. This can confuse a player if he observes or expects one specific behavior but finds it not apply to other plants for no particular reason. He might never discover that rightclicking works on some plants, simply because he tries it on the wrong ones. Or, conversely, he may think that already fully grown crops aren't fully grown yet, simply because he cannot rightclick them yet. Also, the recent introduction of the agriculture skill, combined with b77's implementation of nutrient levels, has made the rightclicking option extremely unattractive even for those plants that support it. Breaking the plant gives a chance for bonus seeds, allowing you to expand your farm, while rightclicking supposedly gives you the bonus of having the partially reverted plant re-mature to harvestable status more quickly. Due to how nutrients work, however, this rarely works in the player's favor, as even reaching the first maturity consumes nearly all the nutrients of the type the plant needs. Leaving the plant in the same space without having fertilizer available will result in a plant that takes just as long or longer to reach full maturity even from an intermediate stage than it takes a fresh seed planted somewhere else with full nutrients.

 

Suggestion:

- Unify the harvest behavior of crops by allowing all plants to be harvested by rightclicking their fully grown form for just produce but no seeds.

- Give the agriculture skill a different effect depending on which harvesting method is chosen by the player.

- Optional: add support to the scythe for rightclick area harvesting.

 

Effect:

- The player is no longer confused and will know how to deal with any kind of crop, even if he hasn't seen it before. He no longer needs to refer to an external resource to determine which crops support a specific behavior. If the player comes from a different agriculture mod, he will feel much more at home, as rightclick harvesting is sort of an unofficial standard in the community which many mods have taken up. The system now also encourages intelligent decisions on which method of harvest to choose.

 

Detail:

Plants which can be richtclicked to harvest right now are those which do not die seasonally. For instance, a tomato plant stays a tomato plant year after year, and just occasionally produces harvestable tomatoes. Ingame this is represented by the tomato plant reverting to an earlier, intermediate growth stage when rightclicked. In contrast to that, a wheat plant, once harvested, dies and does not regrow; it must be resown. Other plants, like cabbages and potatoes, are even dug out wholly and leave no remains behind at all, not even a dying part. This makes allowing the rightclick harvest option for these crop types unintuitive at first glance.

 

However, since leftclick breaking the ripe crop always returns a seed along with the produce, and the farmland itself is not negatively affected (it must not be treated with the hoe again or anything of the sort), nothing keeps the player from immediately replanting that seed they just got into the exact same spot they got it from, resulting in a stage 1 plant. It stands to reason, then, that you could just as well rightclick the plant to harvest produce but no seeds, and have the plant revert to a stage 1 plant. Code-wise, if you already specify which stage the plant reverts to when rightclicked, then specifying the very first stage is no different from specifying an intermediate stage.

 

Now that all plants support rightclick harvesting, the agriculture skill can be modified to benefit it. Right now, when leftclick breaking a plant, the agriculture skill adds a chance for a second seed. Conversely, when rightclick harvesting, it could add a chance for a second produce item, or an increased amount on the produced item (developer's choice). The chance would be comparable to the bonus seed; in other words, only a very experienced farmer with hundreds of points would consistently see a bonus. Obviously, this function is meant to be mutually exclusive: you either get only the seed bonus when leftclick breaking, or only the yield bonus when rightclicking. The player can choose which one he needs, at the expense of the other.

 

For an experienced farmer who does not have access to fertilizer, this skill bonus offsets the low nutrient levels in the soil that slow down plant growth. When fertilizer is available, this can allow dedicated farming players to eventually manage compact yet high yield farms for an entire community, representing the rise of focused, institutionalized agriculture in human history.

 

 

 

Thoughts? Criticism? Improvements? Feel free to discuss

[AllenWL 186]

However, since leftclick breaking the ripe crop always returns a seed along with the produce, and the farmland itself is not negatively affected (it must not be treated with the hoe again or anything of the sort), nothing keeps the player from immediately replanting that seed they just got into the exact same spot they got it from, resulting in a stage 1 plant. It stands to reason, then, that you could just as well rightclick the plant to harvest produce but no seeds, and have the plant revert to a stage 1 plant. Code-wise, if you already specify which stage the plant reverts to when rightclicked, then specifying the very first stage is no different from specifying an intermediate stage.

 

Thoughts? Criticism? Improvements? Feel free to discuss

True, that, it made more sense when you had to harvest the plant, make the seeds, then plant the seeds rather than this break-seed-plant thing.

Not much more sense mind you, but a little more sense.

 

I think a better way would be rather then to give all crops the ability to be right-clicked, make it more reasonable.

 

For one, we are missing an important step in crop-growing. seeds. Plants should not go from seed to sprout in less then .5 seconds after you planted it.

I think when a crop it planted, it should first be a seed, then a sprout, then so on and so forth

 

Also, instead of having then revert to stage one, how about adding a new stage?

When you right-click a tomato or something like that that can be 're-used' it makes a 'old plant' that yields harvest at the same rate as a crop of the same kind that is uprooted and replated, but yields much more per harvest, and can last the winter without dying.

 

Also, I think soybeans, maize, green beans and squash should be 'reusable' plants.

That way, players can guess what plan't is right-clickable or not by looking at the ripe plant: if you can see the 'harvest' separately from the greenery and the crop isn't buried, you can right-click it

[Visitor 36]

I am all in favor of the standarization. Generally, because some of the TFC features had to be worked around vanilla game mechanics limitations, lot of it is rather clunky. One particular way of harvesting the crops/wild plants would be great.

Making results depend on how the plants is harvested however I am very unsure about. Even more, not particularly fond of. The only way I wouldn't mind this to work is through right-click harvesting the fruit/vegetable/grain or punching the plant for seeds instead (though, to be honest, in the past I was finding deriving seeds from produce far more believable and pleasant and I'd rather have that, adjusted for the new skill system).

Scythe I am indifferent towards. Not having any issue with it being more practical for harvesting, anyway.

[Omicron 62]

Why would you not want the plant to drop its produce if it was broken with leftclick when fully grown? That would go against all precedent in Minecraft and TFC alike, and it'll really chafe with players. Ooops, wrong mouse button, I just lost the entire plant I waited half an ingame year for, and I have nothing to show for it but what I started with! Now what am I going to eat?

 

Also, I don't think you can justify this distinction from a mechanical standpoint either. Namely, if you break a plant - regardless in which growth stage it is - you get the seed back. This is intentional, to avoid accidentally deleting your only seed of something you needed, and prevent player frustration like described above. Now imagine you have a fully ripe crop, and you have the option to either leftclick punch it to get your seed back, or rightclick to get produce and a stage 1 plant... which you can then leftclick punch to get your seed back anyway. Only the agriculture skill has a really minor effect on that interplay, and it's by far not enough to go for such a counterintuitive setup. The player is basically given a really, really obvious way to go around an intended limitation. You're asking the player not to use an exploit while shoving said exploit in their faces - and no matter what, just knowing that it's there and requires you to actively ignore it will detract from your suspension of disbelief, and thus your immersion in the game. "Don't remind the player he is playing a game" is the number one rule of immersion.

 

The unification of crop behavior I am suggesting here aims to do just that - allow the player to stop actively thinking about what the game expects of them, and instead just act, consistently and instinctively.

[AllenWL 186]

But it takes longer to break the crops in TFC, so unless you are holding down the button, there is little chance of accidentally breaking it

[transcengopher 349]

For one, we are missing an important step in crop-growing. seeds. Plants should not go from seed to sprout in less then .5 seconds after you planted it.

I think when a crop it planted, it should first be a seed, then a sprout, then so on and so forth

 

This is such a miniscule thing. In fact, sprout is there because the game needs to give player feedback on whether or not crop is planted. It's not a good idea to remove said feedback.

[AllenWL 186]

multi-colored dots?

[Kittychanley 1,002]

Multi-harvest crops have been removed for 79. To harvest your bell peppers and tomatoes, you'll have to break the plant just like everything else.

[landryx 36]

keep it multi-harvestable! that was cool.

but maybe only available after some skill points, ADEPT ou SKILFULLY.

[Omicron 62]

Multi-harvest crops have been removed for 79. To harvest your bell peppers and tomatoes, you'll have to break the plant just like everything else.

 

Interesting, thanks for the info. That does bring everything in line in its own way.

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Multi-harvest crops have been removed for 79. To harvest your bell peppers and tomatoes, you'll have to break the plant just like everything else.

 

I admit, I'm not really a fan :/

I love being able to pick a peck of peppers without having to worry about replanting...

[Visitor 36]

Likewise. While some recent changes were good (namely, making it harder to acquire seeds) I actually liked having to choose between sacrificing edibles for seeds or eating them as well as multi-harvested crops in general. I'd rather have it balanced through growth time etc rather than sacrifice variety and make each crop nearly identical as it's not an aspect of unification of agriculatural behavior that enriches the game - quite the opposite.