Unstable ecosystem because of plant space requirements

[BlazeGuy2]

From @Thyriel on February 15, 2018 10:42

The "feature" that plants have space requirements bigger then the one block they are growing on is leading to some pretty big side effects. Players should be the important impact on the ecosystem stability but that feature renders it instable on it's own. Plants spread out and go dead because of nearby plants. Without player interaction (digging the dead plants out to make new space) plants are killing each other in their natural territory. Animals eat the rest and after quite some time, without any player interaction, parts of the ecosystem begin to go extinct just by themself. That doesn't make sense to me.

And as another sideeffect: It's pretty unrealistic that you need to leave huge empty spaces between plants on a field. Fields are typically very crowded in reality.

Copied from original issue: StrangeLoopGames/EcoIssues#4577

[BlazeGuy2]

From @midn8t on February 16, 2018 5:33

u know me and my friend can not figure out space requirements for plants.

for example we cleared a 5x5 a 10x10 and a 20x20 area only had one plant in center, in all cases it said other plants where to close.

even plants in wild seem to have this issue.

this requirement is weird, due to bloc size space requirement also because each block equals 5 by 5 meters so each block represents 25 square feet. in this game so in this game every plant requires what 500 square feet of room ?

if that is case then one plant should make like 150 produce or 300.

if simulation is down scaling size of each block then more land markers should be handed out and amount of space each block represents should be decreased

[BlazeGuy2]

From @Thyriel on February 16, 2018 9:7

Found a way to deactivate overcrowd:

In ecosim.eco config each plant has an entry like that: "CapacityLayerName": "ShrubSpace", "ConsumedCapacityPerPop": 4.0

change 4.0 (or whatever is in there) to 1.0 (not lower !) and they don't die of overcrowding (but the soil sampler still shows them as overcrowded). If you want to reduce chance of plants die because of bad soil / temp / moisture reduce "MaxDeathRate" (must be bigger 0 or all will die)

For example how a field with >80% condition soil for wheat looks like on my server after ~14 hours (i too increased growing time to ~12 hours to balance it better with the deactivated overcrowd): http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1302883692 Only a couple plants died instead half the field

[BlazeGuy2]

From @Thyriel on February 16, 2018 18:13

Just an idea for a far better solution:

• Change overcrowd effect from killing plants to reduce drops
• add a farmer skill to reduce overcrowd effect while planting, so a skilled farmer can make fields with plants on every field

This way overcrowd effect would still be in the game but wouldn't wrongly teach people that nature can't maintain itself without human interaction in an educational game.

[BlazeGuy2]

From @MarjieAVolk on February 16, 2018 19:52

This is a new concept, and we are still adjusting it. You are right that the ecosystem should not just die on its own. But FYI plants require more space if they are in a subpar environment. If you adjust water levels to match what the plant likes, or find a space that is a closer temperature, then the plant will require less space.

[BlazeGuy2]

From @midn8t on February 17, 2018 6:40

this could be a bug then cuz plants that are in prefect environment still say overcrowded all the time but in mean time i guess well just make changes that Thyriel suggest

we made that change so all plants need one space of 1 the succue rate of plants and death seem to be contorled by the soil it self,

for example if there not enough moisture to support x amount of plants then N amount of plants die if there more plants on ur farm then there are nitrogen or water then N amount of plants die.

so the soil seems to control how many plants can grow in given area right now anyways.

also with this change we now see more plants not dieing out across the server any more. so the plant spacing seems to be causemass deaths of plants in wild across the server by removing this spacing limitation we have fixed the plant death issue - and now the soil and land along with biodoms control amount of plants in area.

honestly the spacing seems to be a redundant measure to keep plant life to a min when its already handle by the great eco system in the game.

as a result some farming spots have success rate of 50 to 60 some 60 to 70 other spots 80 to 90

with out spacing as stated the land it self controls plant total growth and what dies.

plants that are bigger should just require more resources like water to stay alive taking away those resources from other plants. thus killing plants in area due to lack of those resources and that in it self is a control system for number of plants can be in area.

if you farm area to much it should cause soil to disappear in the air like during dust bowl.

I think you need more trust in your game mechanics that you have in place to take care of the eco simulation instead of putting resections to try to force system into.