neinwhal
commented
2 years ago Main Goal
To add a sense of progression to the entire farming system, and allow small farms to reach high yields (up till x15), while providing more costs to farming, to limit players to build "tall" farms rather than "wide" farms.
Side Note
While I didn't add the purpose of the crops here, because I'm still thinking about it, each crop will have an important purpose, whether it be building blocks, deco, fuel or crafting materials, they will contribute to buildings / the crafting system rather than serving as food.
Experiment.
This entire concept is experimental at best. I'm not expecting full adoption of the idea, but rather I'm expecting more ideas and/or concerns.
Components:
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Planter-box Crops will now require planter boxes to be planted, compared to the simple method of ploughing the ground. The most rationale for this is to increase the cost of farming, so as to decrease the number of crops growing at once, hence decreasing lag. Planter boxes require growing medium; which presently comes in 3 forms.
- Clay (Most basic, normal growth)
- Compost (Requires a composter to make, convert high amounts of natural matter into low amounts of compost, slight buff)
- Foam (Moderate-expensive recipe, haven't decided upon its cost, moderate buff)
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Artificial Lighting Lighting is the first upgrade that can be made. These lighting are made with mese lamp. Crop growth are still affected by light, applying these lightings will negate that and ensure its always under optimal light. Additionally, there's an option to intensify these lights, making them consume fuel but increasing the speed of the growth.
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Auto-Planter Box This is an upgrade from the normal planter box and is a lot more expensive to craft. Likewise, it requires a growing medium. But unlike, the normal planter box, it slowly converts the growing medium into useless dirt. In return, however, the planter box will auto-harvest & auto-replant the plant. Artificial Lighting and growing medium buffs still apply accordingly.
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Coldframe (Mini-greenhouse) A coldframe is essentially a combination of the auto-planter box and artificial lighting. While also providing an additional buff. This is achievable only in the lategame as it will require expensive resources and complex recipes. There are 4 stages of upgrades before it reaches its full potential.
- Stage 1: Functions like an auto-planter box + artificial lighting together, consumes planting medium + fuel.
- Stage 2: The cost of planting medium is negated, fuel must still be provided.
- Stage 3: Fuel must still be provided but when mese is provided a massive buff is granted.
- Stage 4: Machine runs purely on mese, consistent massive buff.
The cost of operating and constructing this will be incredibly high as well, but the yield will be incredibly high as well. This is simply to provide an easy way to get high quantity of farming materials for lategame players that have the resources to maintain it.
Special crop growth stages
Much like current farming, crops grow in stages. However, what is new is the addition of special stages, this is what i mean when i mention "buffs" previously. These special stages are unlocked based on the growing medium/artificial lighting etc. When better growing medium is provided, and/or artificial lighting is powered/provided, the plant can grow into additional stages, which will give a much higher yield when harvested.
Regarding seeds, yield and harvest.
There will be methods of harvesting crops in their plant form as well, this will allow replanting of them to create large purely-decorative farms, as per possible now, but without the hindrance of the massive amount of timers running. Players will be rewarded with high yield when using more complex methods to maintain their farm. In return, seeds are no longer a guaranteed item, rather comes at a very very low chance (<3-5%), because there is no longer a need to have a lot of crops to produce a lot of produce. Exploring is another method of getting them, but since mapgen is still under uncertainly, I won't touch on this yet.
Different forms of farming
The methods I have stated above are the general methods of farming normal crops, there are special crops that are farmed differently, the methods of which I haven't fully decided yet, but will be built onto the existing framework I described above.
- Normal: Wheat, Cotton, Potato, Flowers (These crops are within 1-2 height and grow using normal systems as stated above).
- Pond: Lotus, Moonflower, Papyrus (These crops requires a different water-ish medium to grow, but otherwise function mostly the same as normal)
- Vines: (These crops require trellis frames to grow on, but otherwise function the same as normal)
- Mushrooms: (These crops require darkness to grow instead of light, there will be special forms of artificial lights to grow them, as well as ones that are necessary to grow specific breeds, glowing etc)
- Cactus: Cactus will require a very special framework that is built on top of the existing one; I intend to extend cactus' purpose as fuel, and building upon it further, particularly, the ability to produce and/or refine better fuel from cactus - I haven't fully decided on this yet, but it will be something special.
- Crystal: A potential expensive addition, my recent additions saw uses of mese as fuel, this is potentially a way to make renewable mese, albeit at low amounts and high operating costs. Potentially an expensive growing medium + artificial light with high fuel consumption.
theraven262
lumberjackgames
This idea is concerned with flowers, farming and an expansion of flora decorative nodes. In that regard, it's a continuation of #15 but also an expansion, in particular, providing more decorative flora and blocks.
This concept is very early in its planning stages, and I'm putting this out to gather more ideas. While I have a general idea of how approaches should be taken, nothing here is concrete yet.
Horticulture focus on farming on a small scale as compared to agriculture and is concerned with small-scale food crops, medicinal plants and ornamental plants.
The primary difference is that horticulture provides more attention and care to the plants grown rather than mass intensive & large-scale crop production. With that in mind, this change converts the farming mod into one that focuses more on quality than quantity, little amount crops will produce high yield when given the right conditions. In that aspect, the adoption of this idea allows the following benefits;
In particular, I'm interested in the following areas of horticulture to adapt and implement.
Crops to implement: Herb in mt context means granting temporary effects.
(* = difficulty)
Limitation of large-scale farming through difficulty in requirements. Making setting up farm something much more than just tilting the dirt.
Code implementation