Farming buff

[mirasrael]

Problem: Currently Farming doesn't makes too much sense, because you can get seeds with high rate. OK, they are still less than number of plants, but it may take about a week until you go into situation where you forced to produce seeds from plants. So from beginning farming almost useless and you have hard times with your production (nobody buys seeds, but everybody may farm plants without profession).

Solution:

• Stop dropping seeds from gathering. Only way to produce seeds is farming specialization;
• If no Farmer exists there are still beans, camas and rice (and meat off course) for food, so no dead end;
• Because Farming recipe now requires seeds it should be reworked to require plants instead.

[mirasrael]

I understand there are risk to go out of plants before farmers start to produce seeds, but:

• it adds some additional ecology aspect to the game and forces you to think about reproducing finite resources, like you have to do with trees;
• for smoothing this process auto-seeding may be introduced, when you gather plant it can with some chance seed new plant in near range (they may not appear immediately as plants, but instead place may be marked for grow and they will appear with some delay). It should not work for self-planted though. So even if players will remove all plants in first hour they still will have a chance to collect new ones for farming. And it will really take significant time to completely destroy all plants. It will not reduce Farming meaning too much, because production will be unpredictable and it will be spread over the world, but will save from ecological catastrophe at least for week or about that. I think when players will start suffer from plants deficit they will start going in right direction :)

[mirasrael]

As alternative the seed drop rate may be introduced as admin option. In this case experienced players may set-up world this way and team can get feedback before that go (or not go) to core.

[GokouZWAR]

Not having seeds in early game or intentionally harvesting with the intent to eat raw food instead of having seeds make little sense. If farmers need to have a purpose, yield increase should be the purpose. Making plants grow better and faster with resistance to inhospitable environments should be where the farmer shines, not because they’re the only one who can make seeds. Nobody else needs seeds so why would they care no seeds drop? They’re not going to plant them anyway. Most people’s intent on gathering food is to simply eat it immediately or so basic cooking to eat it. The have no intention of wasting calories making even small farms. They expect the farmer to do that to feed them late game. They’re only eating raw plants early on so they can survive until the farmer gets established. If people are smart, they hold onto seeds, and as the farmer needs them, they sell seeds to the farmer so the farmer can use them better than joe player can, and the farmer spends their money, and the player makes a little as well.

What kills me is farmers have to run around and farm in forests, in snow, in deserts, grasslands and they claim land all over the world. Why should they be forced to do that? They should be able to have ways to control plant environment right where they are. The ability to have environmental controls is key to being able to be an effective farmer. Where the rest of the world simply loses their crop, a farmer should be able to tend to their plant to keep them alive where they are regardless of soil moisture or temperature. Plus they should have the ability to plant them closer together or know exactly how far apart they need to be to survive in the inhospitable environments. They, like miners and diggers, should also get a soil sampler right out the door. The hoe is simple to make, what they need is the sampler.

Seeds are the way the farmer can grow crop. Everyone should be able to obtain them and sell them to the farmer so the farmer doesn’t lose all the crops. Nobody else NEEDS the seeds and anyone who eats them instead of selling them or even planting them is stupid and/or desperate.

Plants are also not a “finite” resource, they are a “renewable resource”. By simply planting seeds, they can be created. Same with trees. If you don’t take the time to specifically harvest the branches and leaves you don’t have tree seeds and they die off. If anything related to seeds is added, a special action should be required for all plants to “gather seeds” so that people can make sure they never run out.

What needs to also be considered is the farmer end game. Making the farmer’s job easier and faster doesn’t help this. Making the calorie consumption of players less as the game progresses doesn’t help this. Removal of calorie efficiency skills are what’s needed to help farmers continue harvesting and planting product. We should also make machines require calories to use so that as people work in the late game they continue to consume calories instead of simply just needing them for skillpoints.

Also while seemingly obvious, we have toilets in the game. The need to poop should be added as well, and disposal of their waste could also be given to the farmer as another fertilizer. As players food processes over 24 hours their bowels will evacuate and produce waste product that can be recycled into farmlands. Those items could be REQUIRED to farm in addition to seeds. The farmer and players could find ways to dispose of it and give or sell their waste to the farmers. That waste could be sold / given to farmers to boost their crop output (possibly even revive dead crops) it could also be there to shorten the growth time. That with watering and spraying with pesticides should also be factored in. (Bugs gotta eat too!) all these things should help keep farmers engaged, spending money and then doing so is rewarded by high crop yields with shorter growth times.

...and sure throw in the ability to get extra seeds too and be good at harvesting them from plants, but don’t make it so nobody can get them. Just make it so they don’t get as much (which I believe is already in the game).