What kills anima grass?

[ichifish]

Thanks in advance for the help. Here's my problem:

So I have a single tribal who's been meditating for years (literally) with the quixotic hope of growing just enough anima grass to gain a single level. He's a high-skilled colonist, so he has lots of other duties, but he gets 2-4 hours of mediation a day. He's caravanned twice, and given that the region is mostly mountainous desert it's no surprise that the grass withers on his long trips (at least I assume that's what happens, but see below).

He returned from a 10-day trip about 15 game days ago and the grass was down to 13 from its peak of 17. This seemed like a sharp decrease compared to other playthroughs, but I've never kept such a close eye on the grass progress. I set him to meditate, growing the grass back up to 15 or 16 after about 8-10 days. Then I checked it a couple of days afterwards and it was down to 13 again. This is with at least a couple hours of daily meditation. There hadn't been any raids or other threats except for a regular 1-day eclipse.

This is what I think I know about anima grass:
1. It's not affected by the soil type. In any case the grass zone is split between soil and rocky story, and there's plenty of soil for the grass to grow on.

2. It's not affected by weather and in any case it's quite mild in the tile, ranging from 15-28 usually, with no toxic fallout yet.

3. Psyfocus gain is affected by structures, but not the grass. I have six total interfering structures quite a distance away (four walls and two doors).

4. Anima grass is not eaten by animals. In any case there's lots of other things to eat in the vicinity and the only wild animal was a single iguana that wasn't around for long. I'm not using Alpha Animals (the mod with the anima-grass eating creature) or any other animal-related mods except Animal Logic.

5. Planting around the tree will kill the grass, but I don't have any grow zones within a four-tile radius. I didn't accidentally put a growing zone over it or place a frame anything on it.

6. Lack of light can cause the grass to die, but this takes a long time and should be counteracted by meditation.

Mods:
I have a mostly vanilla game except for the regular UI mods and the following that *might* have an effect on zones/growth:
VGP Vegetable garden
Regrowth Core
Regrowth Wasteland
Cleaning Zones (the area was in a cleaning zone)
Invisible meditation spots (removes the green hex for meditation spots)
Terraform Rimworld (I haven't researched the tech yet, so haven't used it)
Seeds, Please (the mod requires you to have seeds to plant crops)


With the exception of Seeds and Terraform I've used these mods in previous playthroughs, and as far as I know those mods wouldn't affect growth. The progress bar increments when the pawn mediates, so I don't think Invisible Med. Spots is the culprit (and I've been using it since Royalty came out). I don't have any world/climate changing mods or mods related to psycasts.

Any ideas?

[Astasia]

I'm pretty sure Anima grass has a lifespan of 60 days, then it dies. So you need to get all 20 up within 60 days.

[Diarmuhnd]

I thought it was a lifespan thingy also. I never looked to see if there was a mod to make that grass immortal. I did like using the mod that reduced that restricted build range.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Astasia:

I'm pretty sure Anima grass has a lifespan of 60 days, then it dies. So you need to get all 20 up within 60 days.

Thanks, that explains it. I've been through periods when the pawn was meditating a lot, so that would explain why there were big die offs. Unfortunately that presages more withering to come...

[Jigain]

More pawns will help. A second pawn will literally double your anima grass growth (assuming they meditate as much as your first pawn).

[gimmethegepgun]

Or just have them meditate more. Whenever I get a quest that makes me babysit someone who doesn't do anything, from a tribal faction, I tell them to go meditate all day. Over the duration of their stay they typically create enough grass for more than one psylink all on their own.

[ichifish]

Originally posted by Jigain:

More pawns will help. A second pawn will literally double your anima grass growth (assuming they meditate as much as your first pawn).

Yes, thank you, I can math. In three years the only tribal I got worth recruiting died of the flu because I was out of medicine (using seeds please and didn’t have healroot yet).

[ichifish]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Or just have them meditate more. Whenever I get a quest that makes me babysit someone who doesn't do anything, from a tribal faction, I tell them to go meditate all day. Over the duration of their stay they typically create enough grass for more than one psylink all on their own.

Yes I’ve been hoping for tribal refugees, but no luck yet. I only have six colonists and the lone tribal has a lot of other skills that are in demand, so I haven’t been able to meditate much (desert on losing is fun). I am going to curtail his trading missions (I’m using seeds, please, so the only way to grow crops is to have the seeds for them and I still haven’t found any psychoid or cotton seeds), even though he’s the only one with a decent (7) social.