Basic Domestication/Evolution in Farming

[dabman10 34]

New Plant (or just the default grass patch): Wild Wheat

1. When "Wild Wheat" is harvested off of grass, it could drop:

-1 "Wild Wheat Seed" (1 in 5 chance)

-1 wheat (1 in 20 chance)

2. These wild wheat Seeds can be planted and grown on grass or dirt year-round, eventually maturing into their regular form.

-Wild wheat matures on un-plowed dirt or grass at 50% the speed of regular farming.

3. If planted on plowed dirt, wild wheat Seeds will grow at the normal rate (like it is now).

4. When harvested from plowed dirt, wild wheat could drop:

-1 wheat (1 in 4 chance)

-0-2 wild wheat seeds

-1 "wheat seed" (1 in 10 chance)

5. Wheat seeds represent a mutation in the plant that allows it to grow more productively.

-Wheat seeds can only be planted on plowed dirt (dry or wet)

-They do not grow during the winter.

-They grow 25% faster than wild wheat during the spring and summer.

6. When harvested, wheat will yield:

-0-2 wheat

-0-2 wheat seeds

-1 "heirloom wheat" seed (1 in 20 chance)

7. Heirloom wheat is an even more productive variety, but has some disadvantages:

-Heirloom wheat seeds can only be planted on wet, plowed dirt

-Heirloom wheat grows 50% faster than wild wheat during the spring and summer, but dies during the winter if it is not harvested

-It can only be grown in the sun

8. When harvested, heirloom wheat will yield:

-1-3 wheat

-0-2 heirloom wheat seeds

-1 "wheat seed" (1 in 10 chance)

This very basic principle could be applied to other plants and animals as well.

[cevkiv 156]

Awesome. I dig it.

[slackgiver 13]

is good

[Crysyn 179]

I have to say I really like the idea of this.. I am not sure if I would want a field of heirloom or wild wheat though!! Maybe a small one of both!?

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

+1

[valkupo 17]

I like that there are different levels that essentially make the profitable ones more care-intensive (or at least have to pay attention more). It allows for the whole job specialization idea for servers that keeps popping up.

[barkingnoise 19]

This is pretty complicated, but I wouldn't mind it at all.

Wouldn't it be more intuitive though if you simply had to basically "breed" the right wheat from wild wheat?

Like this:

Wild Wheat (or grass, if you'd like) grows in the wild and doesn't yield regular wheat like you need for food. When harvested, they yield wild wheat seeds. So far the same.

However, the drop rate should usually be one per wild wheat. Two occasionally, so you can make more without taking more. Basically almost the same as usual wheat is right now, although not ridiculous as it currently is.

Now, here is where it could possibly go two ways.

Either they have a really low chance to drop regular wheat seeds ALONGSIDE the wild wheat seeds. The regular wheat drops regular seeds at the same rate as wild wheat does.

The other way (basically the same, but also) to go would be an intermediate stage in the "wheat evolution", like "half-domesticated wheat" (preliminary name of course for the sake of discussion), working the same way as the other two types. You could even add several intermediary stages, but it might be too much. So basically, this way creates Tier 1 Wheat (wild wheat), Tier 2 Wheat (half-domesticated) and Tier 3 Wheat (regular, breadmaking wheat).

What this would do is to intuitively make the player selectively "breed" wheat in order to get to the final stage, at which it would be mostly self-sufficient.

This also makes it take longer to get to "bread stage" than as it is currently, as well as encouraging the player to make "safehouses" of surplus regular wheat seeds in case of flood or raid or something, as backup.

[Just_Another_Guy_:) 1,066]

It would work perfectly for plants, so i second this idea. But i think that maybe it should work a little differently for animal breeding... I would like to say something about it, but right now my brain is being lazy .

[dabman10 34]

Yeah, the idea can definitely be simplified.

Perhaps wild wheat planted on plowed land has a low % chance of dropping wheat seeds. When wheat is planted, each plant has a low % chance of dropping heirloom wheat seeds.

This would only require the creation of 4 new objects, provided grass, seeds, and wheat are reused (they are wild wheat seeds, wild wheat (incl. all growing stages) heirloom wheat seeds, and heirloom wheat (incl. all growing stages)).

Another branching option would be to specialize the wheat for growing in underground conditions. Perhaps if planted and grown underground, wild wheat has a low % chance of dropping cave wheat seeds. Cave wheat would have the advantage of being growable all year, but could have some disadvantages (lower yield of wheat).

[dukejuke 47]

Good idea, +1 for that but let me expand it a bit further

My family owns a farm just outside town where i live and we do have wild wheat and

mixes of different species of wheat.

And sometimes also mutations of these that grow better or have a worse yield less or simply die.

now what if we say you dont know what the fuck the seed is until the plant has grown ?

there is also (d)evolution making a seed become mutated/wild....there could be a chance that your almighty farm

of finely bred domesticated wheat contains some wild/mutated seeds too.

But then theres the stacking problem

Well here's a work around that should be much less code intensive, what now if there would as you plant the seed there were a % chance that the plant is wild or mutated in some way ??

Real life sucks......

[kotoroshinoto 97]

what stacking problem? make some chests or plant them straight away

[Johnny_Madhouse 28]

Just chiming in here as a biologist to mention that there is no such thing as 'devolution'. Evolution can, and often will, result in death and unfavorable mutations. Everything on earth is equally evolved: a human being is just as much a product of evolution as the E. coli living in their stomach. There is no hiearchy of species, with some animals being more highly evolved than others.

As an interesting side note, plants have some evolutionary advantages over animals. Much like how human beings have two copies of their genome, one from mom and one from dad, plants also have multiple copies. However, it is quite common for plants to have 3, 4, or even 5 copies of their genome due to duplication events. This would be like a human having one copy of their father's genes and two of their mothers. The benefit here is that an extra copy provides a safe backup gene set in case one set mutates and breaks the ability of the plant to produce an important protein. The further benefit is that the extra copy also means the plant has more DNA to make mistakes with, so mutations happen more often. Once in a while, a mutation might produce a new, better protein for getting things done in the plant, giving it a reproductive advantage while all the plant's old genes are still intact. Good times!

[dukejuke 47]

Just chiming in here as a biologist to mention that there is no such thing as 'devolution'. Evolution can, and often will, result in death and unfavorable mutations. Everything on earth is equally evolved: a human being is just as much a product of evolution as the E. coli living in their stomach. There is no hiearchy of species, with some animals being more highly evolved than others.

As an interesting side note, plants have some evolutionary advantages over animals. Much like how human beings have two copies of their genome, one from mom and one from dad, plants also have multiple copies. However, it is quite common for plants to have 3, 4, or even 5 copies of their genome due to duplication events. This would be like a human having one copy of their father's genes and two of their mothers. The benefit here is that an extra copy provides a safe backup gene set in case one set mutates and breaks the ability of the plant to produce an important protein. The further benefit is that the extra copy also means the plant has more DNA to make mistakes with, so mutations happen more often. Once in a while, a mutation might produce a new, better protein for getting things done in the plant, giving it a reproductive advantage while all the plant's old genes are still intact. Good times!

I am sincerely sorry if i did not post scientifically correct, what i meant with "devolution" was simply to explain what i meant with the idea of domesticated wheat turning wild again in the limited frame of what is minecraft

Thank you for bringing a scientific opinion in here !

[dabman10 34]

refer to the new post of this idea, this is an old thread:

http://terrafirmacraft.com/f/topic/860-wheat-domestication-flow-chart/page__hl__%2Bflow+%2Bchart__fromsearch__1

[EternalUndeath 1,208]

Just chiming in here as a biologist to mention that there is no such thing as 'devolution'. Evolution can, and often will, result in death and unfavorable mutations. Everything on earth is equally evolved: a human being is just as much a product of evolution as the E. coli living in their stomach. There is no hiearchy of species, with some animals being more highly evolved than others.

As an interesting side note, plants have some evolutionary advantages over animals. Much like how human beings have two copies of their genome, one from mom and one from dad, plants also have multiple copies. However, it is quite common for plants to have 3, 4, or even 5 copies of their genome due to duplication events. This would be like a human having one copy of their father's genes and two of their mothers. The benefit here is that an extra copy provides a safe backup gene set in case one set mutates and breaks the ability of the plant to produce an important protein. The further benefit is that the extra copy also means the plant has more DNA to make mistakes with, so mutations happen more often. Once in a while, a mutation might produce a new, better protein for getting things done in the plant, giving it a reproductive advantage while all the plant's old genes are still intact. Good times!

...I may cry in happiness. I just may.