How many farmers do you use?

[Velkaa]

Right now I've got 12 people set to farming, and 12 max size farms (Cactus hemp and wheatstraw). I feel like 12 people is WAY overkill. How many people do you guys set to farm?

[VinnyTheSavage]

i only have like 4 farms and they are all different crops i just usually sell grog to buy food so only like 3

[Doom Donut]

i have 4 farmers working 16 cactus farms for chewsticks.it's way more than i can use and i have a city as big as any other npc city.i par them of 2 farmers to every 8 farms and make them work the farms one way and the other farmer the other way.

so if my farms have numbers farmer 1 works farms 1-4 then a job to hall water then farms 5-8,then farmer 2 works farms 8-5 then hall water to other water tank then farms 4-1.

and one cook to every 2 farmers.

im probly overkilling a bit too.

seems to keep it at a nice pace for me.

[NexAngelus *X*]

ya i only have an outpost... and my skills are pretty low so pro has a bad effect from it. but i have 2 XL catus farms and have 4 ppl to gang bang the farms. they fail clear each prettyfast when they pop up :) to me faster they clear faster they start growing again. but i have not actually tested that just a feels :)

[dq_177]

If you are hydroponics farming what crop is optimal for purposes of feeding your massive horde?

[johntarmac]

This guide might be useful for some..

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1256821266

Personally I just do it by 'eye' so to speak, start with a farm and a farmer and keep adding/upgrading the farms. When the farmer starts to fall behind I assign another. Seems to keep it in balance fairly well.

[Potato Head]

Depends on my party size. At 32 I have 4 farmers and usually end up with a surplus. At around 16-18 I had around 2, mostly one to deal with hemp whilst the other does food stuff.

[yippeekiay]

1 decent farmer per 8 full farms, keeps him working pretty much constantly. If I have spare people I also have them assigned in opposite order as Doom Donut does, with additional low priority jobs added if they have spare time.

If your guys are standing around too much give them an additional/different job. If you're running out of food, build more farms for them to work. Bear in mind, the better their skills, the quicker they work & the less failures.

[johntarmac]

Originally posted by yippeekiay:

Bear in mind, the better their skills, the quicker they work & the less failures.

As a note to this I always put the next prospective farmer I plan to assign on grain silo duty for a while to increase their farming skill a bit first.

[ZiffyHead]

Usually 3 farmers are plenty to run 2 fields of each type and 3-4 extras on top of that.

Of course that is once they are competent farmers.

Early on it would take many more to do the same.

[RandomDude]

I've got three farmers ATM and I don't think I'll use more.

[Velkaa]

Haha I figured that 12 was a bit too much but damn nobody even has close to that! Whoops, lol!

For someone like me who's obsessed with efficiency, the farm system is tough to min/max around.

[Bored Peon]

Should be 4 or 6 farmers (I forget which) is the max that can work on a farm come harvest time. Anything past that becomes useless.

The more skilled your farmers are the faster they harvest. Once your farmers break in a cycle then 4 is all you shoudl need. A cycle being the time crops reach harvest time, when you first build them all they all come to harvest time at the same time. Then once you go through a few cycles those harvest times become staggered.

Originally posted by yippeekiay:

Bear in mind, the better their skills, the quicker they work & the less failures.

Crop failure is due to fertility of the area, not a farmer failing their skill. The planted amount is always the same. Meaning if you have 50% fertility there there is a 50% chance the crop will fail when harvest. While an area wiht 100%+ fertility will always suceed no matter the skill of the farmer.

[RandomDude]

4 is the max workers per field. I've limited myself to 6 none-combatants who are serfs. 2 for crafting armour/weapons, 1 cook and 3 farmers. They share other mining/crafting tasks between them too. This allows me 2 full squads who do nothing other than FIGHT!

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by RandomDude:

4 is the max workers per field.

Yeah I thought it was 4 farmers.

I know I used 6 in the past. I think it was because when you have 4 highly skilled farmers on a high fertility crop you fill the resource bin really fast so it kinda rotates 1-2 of them running to storage while the other 1-2 standing there fill in harvesting while the other do a storage run. This is because you can easily fill the bin 3-4 times.

On 60% or lower it is 4 because you are only going to fill the bin 1-3 times at most.

[Itharus]

Originally posted by johntarmac:

Originally posted by yippeekiay:

Bear in mind, the better their skills, the quicker they work & the less failures.

As a note to this I always put the next prospective farmer I plan to assign on grain silo duty for a while to increase their farming skill a bit first.

^^^ very important, that.