Farming Milkweed should leave a hardened row

[Arcurus]

Making ropes with farmed milkweed is already very expensive. Leaving hardened rows for domestic planted milkweed would at least save half of the soil.

[DougLefelhocz]

Yeah, this is intentional, because milkweed is a wild-ish plant, and there is no domesticated version.

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Well, the idea here is that there is no such thing as "domesticated" milkweed. It is a wild plant, and thus behaves like one after you plant it. In fact, it is exactly the same object. It will go through the same cycles as regular wild milkweed.

This is a bit like planting trees, most of which do not have domesticated versions.

It is a tough trade-off with early clothing (which would actually cause you to consume less food if you had it).

But it has been this way in the game forever. Milkweed is just one of those precious things.... just like in real life.

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Source: game developer who doesn't farm milkweed, nor take cart out and make lassoes or ropes in baskets.

[Butterbraugh]

The real solution would be to add a domestic alternative to milkweed. How about a plant that was actually cultivated specifically for use in making rope throughout human history. One that is factually cheap and easy to grow in large amounts and provides massive amount of plant fibers when harvested. Hemp.

You could have the wild plant not be useful except the seeds like many domestic plants in game. This method could allow for hardened rows. Or you could require steel tools (knife) in order to harvest from the wild to make it distinct from milkweed for eve camps.

You could receive one hemp stalk per plant grown which would need to be pounded on a flat rock with a stone to make a pile of hemp fibers. (4-6 per plant) that could be combined into strings and ropes.

[Rukhmar]

The real solution would be to add a domestic alternative to milkweed. How about a plant that was actually cultivated specifically for use in making rope throughout human history. One that is factually cheap and easy to grow in large amounts and provides massive amount of plant fibers when harvested. Hemp.

You could have the wild plant not be useful except the seeds like many domestic plants in game. This method could allow for hardened rows. Or you could require steel tools (knife) in order to harvest from the wild to make it distinct from milkweed for eve camps.

You could receive one hemp stalk per plant grown which would need to be pounded on a flat rock with a stone to make a pile of hemp fibers. (4-6 per plant) that could be combined into strings and ropes.

This. But if you don't want to get into the cannabis side of it, you can use another plant that has been used traditionally for fibers as well: Flax. Milkweed as it is, is a huge waste of resources in almost all cases since there is no benefits to planting it over the wild version, just huge costs.