Farming question

[Jackie Paper]

I just got back into 7 days to die again and was trying to plant some seeds. I remember being able to til the ground and just plant the seeds in the dirt. Well I can't seem to do that now. I used to play on ps4 and this was alpha 17 or so I believe, so I know a lot has changed. Do I need to plant everything in plots?? I'd rather just be able to place dirt and plant in rows.

[Renzo]

yea, take 1 point in the farming skill to reduce farm plot materials by 30% and double yields

[CatPerson]

Yeah, farm blocks only. Edit: harvesting plants no longer leaves the plant to grow again. You have a chance to get a seed instead.

You can dig up the ground one deep, place farm blocks in that, and create a large area that looks like solid dirt (no box lines except very outer edges of whole area). Then use sheet shape (or fencing, or whatever other flatish you want) to cover over the ugly block-to-dirt edging in some fashion. That's about the best you can do.

[Ruffio]

Farming as it is, is silly at best. If you play mutliplayer with friends even more so. At times you spend more than half the harvest just to make more seeds to plant again. Even if you max out farm skills. Then again, hardly any time needed for growth, it just end up tedious chore.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Farming as it is, is silly at best. If you play mutliplayer with friends even more so. At times you spend more than half the harvest just to make more seeds to plant again. Even if you max out farm skills. Then again, hardly any time needed for growth, it just end up tedious chore.

You're doing something wrong then.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Farming as it is, is silly at best. If you play mutliplayer with friends even more so. At times you spend more than half the harvest just to make more seeds to plant again. Even if you max out farm skills. Then again, hardly any time needed for growth, it just end up tedious chore.

You're doing something wrong then.

What wrong would that be? The game mechanics is what it is.

[Jackie Paper]

Thanks everyone!

[Gex]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

You're doing something wrong then.

What wrong would that be? The game mechanics is what it is.

I think he may mean that if your farming, you pretty much need living off the land level 3, and have a minimum of 6-10 per plant type to maximize your chance of getting seeds and netting a profit in food/seed ratio to keep your existing planting squares filled.

Now farming is a tedious chore, but farming is actually a lot of hard work in real life that saying it's tedious just doesn't even begin to fully describe how tedious it really is.

I would plan to build a big garden, and only harvest as needed to keep a surplus stock.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by Black Gecko:

Originally posted by Ruffio:

What wrong would that be? The game mechanics is what it is.

I think he may mean that if your farming, you pretty much need living off the land level 3, and have a minimum of 6-10 per plant type to maximize your chance of getting seeds and netting a profit in food/seed ratio to keep your existing planting squares filled.

Now farming is a tedious chore, but farming is actually a lot of hard work in real life that saying it's tedious just doesn't even begin to fully describe how tedious it really is.

I would plan to build a big garden, and only harvest as needed to keep a surplus stock.

My last Potatoe harvest was 20 plants, and it yielded 4 seeds... Goal with every harvest is to be able to replant all. Regardless, food is not a issue in the game, it get thrown at you all over the place. Farming become obsolete.... unless you a homebody that doesn't want to go out explore and do missions etc.

[CatPerson]

I think the idea is over the very long run over *many* harvest cycles (and maxed farm skill) it evens out or you make "profit", but in the short term or single-cycle, one can feel very put out when you get, like the poster above said, 4 seeds from harvesting 20 plants.

In A21 I've also encountered bad ratios like that re: seeds + cost of crafting seeds (so you can keep planting same number of plants) more often then not, but I have not tried to harvest 250 times and keep track of all the numbers. etc.

[...👑 JOST AMMAN 👑...]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by Black Gecko:

I think he may mean that if your farming, you pretty much need living off the land level 3, and have a minimum of 6-10 per plant type to maximize your chance of getting seeds and netting a profit in food/seed ratio to keep your existing planting squares filled.

Now farming is a tedious chore, but farming is actually a lot of hard work in real life that saying it's tedious just doesn't even begin to fully describe how tedious it really is.

I would plan to build a big garden, and only harvest as needed to keep a surplus stock.

My last Potatoe harvest was 20 plants, and it yielded 4 seeds... Goal with every harvest is to be able to replant all. Regardless, food is not a issue in the game, it get thrown at you all over the place. Farming become obsolete.... unless you a homebody that doesn't want to go out explore and do missions etc.

You said you maxed the farming skill, that means that you can convert yield into seeds also at a better rate (or get more yeld per plant, can't remember), so the formula should include the chance of getting back a seed, but also subracting the yield you need to convert to seeds to compensate and have again a full planted field.

The trick is that you MUST always re-plant ALL farm plots, however your luck goes.

That way you can compensate bad luck with the next yield, but instead, if you keep more crops for cooking and leave some farm plots empty, then you'll starting having diminishing returns.

[CatPerson]

Mathematical odds do not always equal good RNG. You can have many "bad luck" cycles in a row, leaving you negative in terms of "decent amount of leftovers I can cook".

Of course, at some point you'll probably have lots of food stacked up in your crates from all sources, and even several "loss" cycles won't put your food supply in danger. But it's frustrating until you reach that point, which depending on RNG could be mid-game, or could be ... well, a long time away.

That all said - A21 does seem to increased loot-found seeds a lot, especially corn. I haven't had too much trouble with food and just plant what I find. I am not a stay at home player tho.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by ⚜ JOST AMMAN ⚜:

Originally posted by Ruffio:

My last Potatoe harvest was 20 plants, and it yielded 4 seeds... Goal with every harvest is to be able to replant all. Regardless, food is not a issue in the game, it get thrown at you all over the place. Farming become obsolete.... unless you a homebody that doesn't want to go out explore and do missions etc.

You said you maxed the farming skill, that means that you can convert yield into seeds also at a better rate (or get more yeld per plant, can't remember), so the formula should include the chance of getting back a seed, but also subracting the yield you need to convert to seeds to compensate and have again a full planted field.

The trick is that you MUST always re-plant ALL farm plots, however your luck goes.

That way you can compensate bad luck with the next yield, but instead, if you keep more crops for cooking and leave some farm plots empty, then you'll starting having diminishing returns.

I said above goal is always to replant. So if you get left with a yield after replant that make the Irish potatoe famine seem like a feast, so be it. Imho the resources needed to create a seed is to much. You shouldn't need to use the entire harvest of one plant to create a new seed with maxed skills.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by CatPerson:

Mathematical odds do not always equal good RNG. You can have many "bad luck" cycles in a row, leaving you negative in terms of "decent amount of leftovers I can cook".

Of course, at some point you'll probably have lots of food stacked up in your crates from all sources, and even several "loss" cycles won't put your food supply in danger. But it's frustrating until you reach that point, which depending on RNG could be mid-game, or could be ... well, a long time away.

That all said - A21 does seem to increased loot-found seeds a lot, especially corn. I haven't had too much trouble with food and just plant what I find. I am not a stay at home player tho.

Farming is most annoying when you play multiplayer with friends. A location can have plenty of resources for one player, but if you now 5-6 and have to share what you find it become something else.