Crop growth with default time and season off

[Xenomorph]

Anyone has an idea how long stuff like carrots, taters and cabbage take to grow? Some 2-3 weeks later, they were still only seedlings. I changed the time to some 10% of max, got distracted for a minute, they were ready to harvest in one morning and dead in the afternoon. Didn't babysit to see if they even became seed bearing.

[yayie]

I tried that but gave up after having similar experience. I think the whole farming thing is currently impractical and broken.

• Watering plants gives error.
  
• Growth time is too long in default settings and difficult to balance the time span in sandbox. Perhaps the tooltip in sandbox are not clear enough. I just want the growth time similar to b41 and I have no clue which number should I add.
  
• I don't think there's a seed bearing in b42, it was changed to "blooming phase". In blooming phase you can only get 1 seed after harvest.
  
• Sometimes, the crop visual is bugged, it doesn't represent the actual phases. You need to hover your mouse on it just to make sure.

[Armagenesis]

Press J. Click on the known recipe list. Go all the way to the right.

[DrLamp]

Cereal crops like wheat, rye, flax takes 240 days on default settings. I think most other crops are around 120. Not sure. Farming is completely unsustainable on default settings.

Growing enough food to sustain yourself is untenable. You also only get one seed per harvest so you can never expand a farm without loot respawn turned on. So you will never find enough seeds to start a farm large enough to sustain yourself before locations start hitting the already looted timer. Additionally, even if you could find the seeds and took the time to start a farm large enough, preservation becomes a serious issue. Jarred food only lasts (IIRC) one month with no refrigeration in game. In reality properly jarred food should last years. Currently the game would require you to jar the food AND refrigerate. That would require a HUGE number of refrigerators, massive amounts of fuel to keep them running not to mention a steady access to large amounts of salt and vinegar to keep the jarring process running.

The solution is simple. Make crops require 1/4-1/5 the current grow time (depending on the crop), and crops giving you more seeds than you started with if they are picked at the appropriate time. One of these the player can control, the other requires mods, or developer intervention.

[Xenomorph]

I've ran a quick experiment on our beloved cabbages.
Farming speed to 100 and farming abundance to 10, both maximum, 1 tile, 24 hunger, 180 calories per cabbage.

Phase 1 - 1 hour
Phase 2 - 5 hours
Phase 3 - 1 hour
Phase 4 - 2 hours
Phase 5 - 5 hours
Phase 6 - 12 hours
Phase 7 - 1 hour

27 hours to grow
16 cabbages, 1 seed

Farming speed to 80

80 speed

Phase 1 - 17 hour
Phase 2 - 1 hour
Phase 3 - 1 hour
Phase 4 - 4 hour
Phase 5 - 8 hour
Phase 6 - 8 hour
Phase 7 - 1 hour

40 hours
15 cabbages, 1 seed


What do both have in common? They took ONE HOUR to go from blooming to rotten. One ♥♥♥♥♥ hour exactly.

That's not a bug, that's just silly. It's like forgetting to use soap during shower.

[DrLamp]

It's not meant to run that fast. That's why you're running into that issue.

Edit: Crops are only updated (as far as I know) once per in-game hour. So you're hitting that limit and it's making the numbers weird-er.

[MV75]

Ok, set farming speed to 5. I tried 10, too quick, 5 is perfect. Turn off seasons as I don't like being locked out of a game mechanic for 5 months in game and the limitation of being able to only plant certain things. Most players won't be able to fully use this mechanic as you need to wait about 8 months in game to be able to plant what you can't at the start. Sure it's fine if you want the "proper" farming run, it's great option for people to be able to set limits and non limits as they want their game to be.

Yes, blooming is where you have a chance to get a seed, you'll get full yield though. There are crops where you don't need seeds. You can just use a potato for example. Not cooked! I even was able to plant a stale potato. Crops that are "buried" should be able to do this. I know sweet potatoes can too. I have yet to try carrots.

I was able to plant a foraged lemongrass. Yes, you can plant the plant and when harvested it's a grass, it goes back to seedling stage, you just harvest the leaves. Tomatoes get destroyed, they should go back to young stage imo as you just pluck the fruit. Tip: Fast agriculture xp, have a slamma jamming field of lemongrass. What to do with it all? Put it in animal troughs and watch the food amount increase or just throw it all in composters.

Right click every single fruit and vegetable to see if you can "collect the seeds" from them. Even rotten ones.

Also have a furrow and have everything on you and see what the sow options lets you do.

Explore, try stuff. :)

[Xenomorph]

Originally posted by MV75:

Ok, set farming speed to 5. I tried 10, too quick, 5 is perfect. Turn off seasons as I don't like being locked out of a game mechanic for 5 months in game and the limitation of being able to only plant certain things. Most players won't be able to fully use this mechanic as you need to wait about 8 months in game to be able to plant what you can't at the start. Sure it's fine if you want the "proper" farming run, it's great option for people to be able to set limits and non limits as they want their game to be.

Yes, blooming is where you have a chance to get a seed, you'll get full yield though. There are crops where you don't need seeds. You can just use a potato for example. Not cooked! I even was able to plant a stale potato. Crops that are "buried" should be able to do this. I know sweet potatoes can too. I have yet to try carrots.

I was able to plant a foraged lemongrass. Yes, you can plant the plant and when harvested it's a grass, it goes back to seedling stage, you just harvest the leaves. Tomatoes get destroyed, they should go back to young stage imo as you just pluck the fruit. Tip: Fast agriculture xp, have a slamma jamming field of lemongrass. What to do with it all? Put it in animal troughs and watch the food amount increase or just throw it all in composters.

Right click every single fruit and vegetable to see if you can "collect the seeds" from them. Even rotten ones.

Also have a furrow and have everything on you and see what the sow options lets you do.

Explore, try stuff. :)

This and DrLamp's comment bring everything together. I just went a bit too high thinking growth times would be linear all the way to speed 100. Good tips about planting straight veggies like taters, didn't think about that. May be feasible to eat a good stew every day, after all 🙂

[Gootsu]

If most players don't live past the month why do they implement crops that requires 240 days to harvest? it makes 0 sense and what is that about only giving back 1 seed? how much veggies do you actually get after harvest? in real life 1 tomato will give you many seeds

Actually from those crops that in game it takes 240 days to grow in real life only rye takes a similar amount of time, the rest doesn't even take half of that time, so this looks like just place holders values with no balance at all.

[TheManiac]

I think the only thing broken is the seasons, since they are over before the plant reaches it´s mature state. And to those complaining that you only get one seed back: One seed ist exactly the ammount you neet to re-grow the harvested crops. Before B42, you needed several seeds for one plot. Now you only need one (at least for the crops i tested) So waiting for blooming phase to harvest equals sustainability. And just like in real life, having ONE plot of potatoes will not suffice to get you through winter ;)

[Gootsu]

that is not true, on the b41 if you wait until the last stage and have the correct values of water you actually got all of the seeds you used +50% more so it was not only sustainable but expandable like in real life.

Even if you turn off the seasons if the plant takes 240 days to grow it still makes 0 sense, most players would never live long enough to see the harvest time.

In real life 1 tomato has about 150-300 seeds inside, each seed can become a plant that will give about 10-20 tomato, so this 'realistic' way of giving 1 seed per plant makes 0 sense.

[Xenomorph]

Farming speed 10 and abundance to max has been working out fine for me, but had to get the mod for crops not rotting at stage 8. It's enough time to go out exploring for a few days, then come back to take care of the farm and animals. Abundance gives more veggies and seeds, so it's actually usable as a sustainable food source
🙂