Farming, possible with a limited schedule on a 24/7 server?

[Wulf]

I've tried farming a few times now, and every single time I've had to log off before harvesting anything and the crops have been gone when I get back on.

How long do things take to grow and how long do they take to disappear? How often do they need tending to keep from disappearing, if not optimal growth?

If I play mostly in the evening after I get my kids to bed am I likely to ever see crops grow to fruition without staying up till 4 AM?

Could I spend 5 minutes planting them when I get home from work and have them still be viable when I get on with more time later in the evening or would they need hourly tending in between?

[Arch]

Crop growth is a server setting in the launcher, being able to make it happen from a couple of minutes to days, there's 5 pre-ripe stages (seeds, sprouting, growing, halfway, almost ripee) and then two ripe stages

If you're open to using mods there's ones that will stop crops from ever turning to weeds which would achieve your goal the easiest. Alternatively you could change the crop growth rate to be a little slower, giving you time to harvest them while ripe.

[bob_2059]

How long do things take to grow and how long do they take to disappear?

This is a server configuration option.
Default setting on Wurm Unlimited is fields grow 1 stage every 2 or 4 hours (I forget which) for some reason. But to act similar to Wurm Online it needs to be in the 15-24 hour range.

A higher value would probably work better for you, as you only have to tend the fields once daily and you'd have to ignore them for several RL days before they turned to weeds.

[Wulf]

Thanks for the quick response.

Ideally I'd like to work around it without changing server settings, if that's at all possible. "Fixing" it for myself would mean making it at least thrice as effective for anybody else that does have the time.

Am I right in assuming that the only thing that matters is the state of things at the hourly "tick"? If the tick occurs while there are weeds, is there any leeway? Does it pause for a few ticks while there are weeds, or does a weed-tick destroy the crop?

I suppose I'm asking, what is the bare minimum amount of time somebody could put in to get a usable crop using the default settings?

[Wulf]

Originally posted by bob_2059:

How long do things take to grow and how long do they take to disappear?

A higher value would probably work better for you, as you only have to tend the fields once daily and you'd have to ignore them for several RL days before they turned to weeds.

That's not a bad idea. Slow crops are better than no crops.

I'll play around with that if I can't figure out anything else.

If I'm logging on nightly at roughly the same time, would something like 14 hours be appropriate? Just so I don't miss 2 ticks in a row? Or would it have to be more in the 24 hour range?

[bob_2059]

I suppose I'm asking, what is the bare minimum amount of time somebody could put in to get a usable crop using the default settings?

I don't think the default is remotely viable. I just looked it up, and it's 1 hour. You have to tend them every RL hour until they're ripe. Heck, you plant a field, go sleep for the night, wake up, log in- and they're all weeds. Even the most devoted Wurm player needs to sleep sometime!

If you only ran the server while you were playing the game, I could see it working because in that case the fields wouldn't be growing when you weren't playing. But on a 24/7 server, that's a different scenario.

Field growth ticks are not based on when a field is planted. A tick occurs every x hours that the server is running. If the value is set to 1, every hour of uptime (use the /uptime command) a tick occurs. If you plant a field moments before a tick, it grows.

Am I right in assuming that the only thing that matters is the state of things at the hourly "tick"? If the tick occurs while there are weeds, is there any leeway? Does it pause for a few ticks while there are weeds, or does a weed-tick destroy the crop?

A crop can turn to weeds if a growth tick occurs when it's already ripe. There is a random chance of a ripe crop turning to weeds- it is not guaranteed to occur, but if several ticks occur it is very likely.
After a crop is planted, it has to grow five times (five growth ticks) to become ripe.

Edit: retrograde says there's two ripe stages- perhaps it has to grow twice after being ripe in order to turn to weeds

[Wulf]

Alright, so I'm definitely going to increase that value. Does 8 hours sound more reasonable? Feel free to say a random number that it should be, I'll trust you.

Do you know of any other values that should be tweaked from their defaults? You're right that 1 hour made farming completely useless, I'm amazed that they'd set that as the default. What other ridiculous values are floating around in that config?

Retrograde, any comment on why 1 hour became a default thing?

[bob_2059]

If I'm logging on nightly at roughly the same time, would something like 14 hours be appropriate? Just so I don't miss 2 ticks in a row? Or would it have to be more in the 24 hour range?

Every 14 hours gets you "in the range" that Wurm Online uses. I ran at 12 hours for over a year before changing it to 18. Both work well for me but what really matters here is what works for you.
Twelve is pretty easy to figure out when the next tick is coming. You can use the /uptime command, and knowing that a tick occurs whenever the uptime increments by a day or hits 12 hours. Easy math. 24 is easy too. 18 is a little tougher, but not too bad.

14? Not so easy. If /uptime says the server has been running for 11 days 16 hours 35 minutes, when is the next tick coming? :)

[Wulf]

So, at 12 hours I *will* lose crops if that tick doesn't fall in my regular playtime, right?

...Or, no, that should be just perfect. Say tick's at 6 PM.

9 PM - plant crops, growth stage 1
6 AM - growth 2
6 PM - growth 3

9 PM - weed
6 AM -growth 4
6 PM - growth 5

9 PM - weed
6 AM - ripe 1
6 PM - ripe 2

9 PM - harvest and re-plant

Right? Or does that missed weeding between growth 2/3, 4/5, and ripe 1/2 mean I'll be having problems?

Obviously I'll lose crops on days that I don't log on, but at least that's under my control.

[bob_2059]

9 PM - plant crops, growth stage 1

That's more like growth stage 0
Then it has to grow 5x after that until it's ripe

Right? Or does that missed weeding between growth 2/3, 4/5, and ripe 1/2 mean I'll be having problems?

This is really skill dependent. A successful weeding in every stage will yield more than a field that isn't weeded in every stage. So if you miss weeding during a growth stage, it does have a negative impact on yield. Wurmpedia[www.wurmpedia.com] says the minimum yield is two regardless. Your farming skill is a factor, and some crops (*cough* garlic *cough*) are tougher to grow than others.

If the growth ticks occur at the right times, you can weed your fields in every phase only logging once per day. In your example above:

6 AM -growth 4
6 PM - growth 5

If you can time it right, and log in at 5:45PM- weed the fields. Then at 6PM the next growth occurs, and you go and weed them again while still logged in.

9 PM - plant crops, growth stage 0 seeds
6 AM - growth stage 1 sprouting
6 PM - growth stage 2 growing

9 PM - weed
6 AM -growth stage 3 halfway
6 PM - growth stage 4 almost ripe

9 PM - weed
6 AM - growth stage 5 aka ripe ripe
6 PM - ripe 2 ripe
9 PM - harvest and re-plant <-- weed it first

Quick edit, with what the field will say on mouseover or inspection in bold type for each phase. Also, you should weed it before harvesting. Even if it doesn't boost yield (I have no idea if it does) it does give you skill.

[ZanyScum]

I feel like a cheater. I set it 5x10 Minutes.
After two days where I had to be in game for 5 hours and take care of the fields once an hours, I had enough.
I want to be able to start it, have fun for two hours and then start it again 2 weeks later.
So, intervals of 10 minutes seem to be the right thing for me. (CHEATER!)

[Tryst49]

This makes any farming in Wurm a nightmare. For those with a job, family, kids and such, getting online often enough to actually harvest the crops is almost impossible. I tried it for a while and gave up until I had the ability to set up my own LAN server so I could shut it down when I was offline.

There is a mod that some servers use that prevents crops rotting. This allows you to come back at any time to harvest and not have to worry about finding nothing but an empty field or dead crops. Best to have words with the servers admin to see if they use the mod or not. Some servers advertise it on the details in the server list.

[RaidSoft]

Most servers seem to use the mod that prevents crops from rotting, it was always a very frustrating mechanic to deal with anyway, having to change your life to work around growing of crops in a game... That's fine for some people but a bit crazy to expect from everyone (considering how important crops are, can't easily just avoid that feature)

You don't have to farm the crops every time they grow a stage, sure it's nice if you can since it provides a bonus as well as skill but not needed, combine that with no decay of crops and you can just do it whenever you can/want.

[Zombie]

if you set the growth tick to 4.8 it will be 24 hours from plant to harvestable. just have figure out what your tick time is for your server. starting and stoping the server does change the tick time to the time the server is started