Efficient crop farming.

[The Inept European]

Farming's as honest as honest work gets.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1740657331

See this Guide for views on what to farm, when, depending on your needs and intentions. I am mainly looking at Survival games, but also for when you choose to raise cash crops (in normal or Survival games), rather than taking the much easier route of "farming" water for caps.

Guide includes:

Farming for personal food (Survival)

Best foods if you are concerned about radiation you consume

Best crops for player character food value produced per Settler

Most productive cash crops.

Most effective food crops for local consumption.

Best crops to be transported to be sold elsewhere, or transported to be eaten elsewhere

Best crops for Settler food

Adhesive production

Crop-based soup production

Effects of vendor price rounding

Effects of food effect rounding


[SEE the Guide for more information]

Most of this thread is just the history of the research and discussion behind putting this Guide together.

[red255]

interesting.

Most people raise Corn, Tatos, and mutfruit for adhesive.

of those 3 the corn is the best weight to caps ratio for cash. whereas the mutfruit is the best for settlements that have issues placing things on the ground, hard to find more space to place plants in a good field.

and the tatos you can get over at abernathy farm so you can easily start farming tatos. also other places have significant numbers of tatos you can get early.

but tatos are very heavy.

For FOOD on survival, we could just eat whatever and use the sunlight to heal rads with 10 ENdurance. probably easy enough to find rad away.

or make a food stand and buy some food. cooking various animal meat isn't a big deal.

if we were going to farm food, most people collect bottles and make dirty water from a stream, and make soup which heals water and food at the same time.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

You love to overthink things. Extra glue is important in the beginning. But then oil becomes the limiting factor. Then fiber optics etc. You can't grow these so you need money to buy them.
When I get enough settlers, I just plant 6 food units of each crop plus a little extra razorgrain because of survival. Except potatoes and melons. Because Abernathy has those covered. Then I increase if my settlers ever outgrow that much food.

[danconnors]

I have found that the best veggie to carry for survival purposes is mutfruit. It has the lowest radiation for the food value it contains, and it is as light as corn. One settler can handle 6 mutfruit trees, but they are supposed to provide as much food as two corns or two tatoes. And the trees look better than corn or tatoe bushes. I never make soups, because it takes up too much mass in the survival back pack. For the same reason the only meat I usually carry is 3 Rad deer steaks. For those times when I'm pushing my weight limit, but just can't leave that weapon, armor behind.

I've tried selling crops and adhesives before, but water is much easier to produce, and requires no settlers. I was disappointed to learn that adhesives bring such a low price--lower than the component parts. I know when you have to buy adhesives, early in the game, they cost an arm and a leg. If I have a bunch in stock I may sell it if I get short of caps. It's too bad you can't find out from Curie the type of mutfruit she uses to make her new improved stimpac. That would probably be a crop worth planting.

[The Inept European]

Yes it's crazy that the sale price of vegetable starch, when you make it, not only doesn't reflect its value and its scarcity, it doesn't even come close to the cost of its components.

The temptation to water farm is very strong, but I've resisted and just farm cash crops now, not water. I have enough water for my own needs but I don't sell it, nor do I sell things derived from it. Those are all personal use.

Being a cash crop farmer is a lot more balanced because it takes much more investment to sustain a crop farm. Not least, the investment in feeding and sheltering the work force, defending them and keeping them happy.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

You love to overthink things.

Yes true. 😀

Originally posted by Out Of Bubblegum:

Extra glue is important in the beginning. But then oil becomes the limiting factor. Then fiber optics etc. You can't grow these so you need money to buy them.

It's a good point. I would say, the first limiting factors remain limiting factors, but new limiting factors arise as well as the game progresses, which as you say can't be farmed directly - hence the importance of cash crops.

The way my playstyle has developed, I sell almost no loot. Why? Because I arm and equip settlers, and often upgrade their gear at the workbench, and generally expand settlement size and number throughout the game, there is very little loot I am not going to need eventually. I keep it because, even with high CHA you make a massive loss whenever you sell something and buy the same or similar thing back later. It's way more effective just to hold onto it until you need it. This goes for weapons, armour, junk, most food.

So the only loot I sell really is pre-war food (except very early in Survival) because the rad levels are too high, and very low end weapons and armour, or armour that I hate the look of on my Settlers. And of course the items that are basically cash - Pre-War Money, smokes, etc, which I just treat as part of my cap stash.

I hoard everything else pretty much. Given that, I need other sources of caps than "foraging". To me it makes sense to get caps from a sustainable source that is an actual surplus I don't need, and isn't losing me a big loss on each transaction. It just helps my immersion. Efficiency isn't the be-all goal but it does help me progress (within my various constraints, ie hoarding!) while feeling that there's a rational activity going on. So I like it, it works for me.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by danconnors:

I have found that the best veggie to carry for survival purposes is mutfruit. It has the lowest radiation for the food value it contains, and it is as light as corn.
...
I never make soups, because it takes up too much mass in the survival back pack. For the same reason the only meat I usually carry is 3 Rad deer steaks. For those times when I'm pushing my weight limit, but just can't leave that weapon, armor behind.

I totally agree, and for exactly the same reasons.

I try to eat the low density food when I'm close to base, so it's not wasted, and use the high density food - accepting some rads as a trade off - when I'm in the field.

If you consider that a Noodle Soup is also a can of Purified Water, the weight looks less bad. So I carry a few of those into the field as rad-free food+drink. But the supply of those is always limited by circumstances outside your control, supply of Dirty Water from vendors or empty bottles.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by red255:

or make a food stand and buy some food. cooking various animal meat isn't a big deal.

if we were going to farm food, most people collect bottles and make dirty water from a stream, and make soup which heals water and food at the same time.

Food stands and general stores are a big help, but remember that you can't create your own before about L17? But yes they help a lot. As does the Dirty Water-> Soup pathway.

The problem I find is that both of these routes are limited, particularly early on, and in fact Dirty Water/ empty bottles is always limited, or is "feast and famine" - not consistently reliable. So since crop farming is something that you can make predictable I like to also make best use of farming.

[red255]

Originally posted by The Inept European:

empty bottles.

are empty bottles really that big of an issue?

game seems to have tons, I mean various breweries have empty beer bottles, empty nuka cola bottles, empty milk bottles. how many bottles do you need?

I know survival players are a different breed. but getting to level 17 isnt much of an issue. we are building up settlements if we are farming. I generally get a level for each settlement (and more for the earlier ones) until level 20 just setting up my crops, turrets beds and shelter.

[DouglasGrave]

You can sort of "resource farm" by using loot spawns from containers you build, though it's not as intrinsically lore-friendly as a scavenging station, and is somewhat tedious with all the continual re-placing of containers.

I relied on it for the early stages of my Sanctuary-only game, since I wasn't even deliberately leaving the settlement boundary once I arrived (I might have accidentally stepped out once or twice when visiting the root cellar). There wasn't much alternative until I started getting settlers.

[Out Of Bubblegum]

Originally posted by red255:

are empty bottles really that big of an issue?

Not for me. I have way more than I need. But I explore every nook and cranny as I go. And I always head 'home' each night to a settlement to store all the crap I pick up. You need about 6 noodle cups a day. Less if you use the well available in the settlement each morning and night. Then eat a mutt chop or something for the food.
As for the glue, I find so many duct tapes etc, I don't need to make too many on my own. I have almost 200 of each kind of crop now at level 38. But that should be about level 50. I change the survival experience earned for kills from 2x back to 1x.

[danconnors]

For real fun with survival disable your workbenches. Then the only way you can get fresh water is to find empty bottles and find a well you can use. You can't make your own; you also can't make your own beds, recruit settlers, or grow food. No recruitment beacons. You can still cook, but all you can cook is dead animals, or veggies you have stolen, so you start looking desperately for "cram". One can fills you up for minimal rads.

You soon find that empty bottles are not that plentiful, and you begin to wonder why an empty bottle disappears when you fill it and then drink the contents. I once found, I believe, 130 empty beer bottles at Beantown Brewery.

I've had a question since I first got this game back in 2015. Why can't you take a sledgehammer and bust skeletons into individual bones--for oil, you know. There are completely useless entire skeletons lying all over the place. Why can't you use animal bones for oil? Let the animals you kill for food do double duty. Amazing some of the thoughts you have when you decide not to use the workbenches.

[The Inept European]

Yep.

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by DouglasGrave:

You can sort of "resource farm" by using loot spawns from containers you build, though it's not as intrinsically lore-friendly as a scavenging station, and is somewhat tedious with all the continual re-placing of containers.

Interesting idea. I didn't know player created containers would attract random loot. I imagine it would be more frustrating and less effective on Survival when the respawn rate is hugely lower?

[The Inept European]

Originally posted by red255:

Originally posted by The Inept European:

empty bottles.

are empty bottles really that big of an issue?

game seems to have tons, I mean various breweries have empty beer bottles, empty nuka cola bottles, empty milk bottles. how many bottles do you need?

About six a day, plus any for chem use.
Like Dan I find that sometimes you have loads but other times the supply dries up. It's boom and bust. Whereas farming can provide a steady baseline, at whatever size or scale you need.

[spared_life]

Interesting topic. I try to keep my settlements simple. Usually only 4 or 5 producers and thinly sufficient. Which means only enough food and water being produced at any given time to accommodate the next arriving settler. Holds down the attacks and wear and tear on the feet.

The player food preference has become wild mutfruit, Diamond City and Graygarden mutfruit. I sometimes mix a soup with one mutfruit to get 2 food and one water which covers the requirements. Not much of a weight advantage plus purified water is a great med kit.

Most settlements remain unpopulated but I do set them up with a bed, water, and food and in some cases send a group of settlers to work a farm while I am there. Also dismiss my companion to work on food while there.

Most settlers come from other settlements or from momentarily activating the beacon which gives one to two settlers. If I want to move food to an unpopulated settlement I load down a settler from a producing settlement and move him to the unpopulated, recover him later. The same is done backwards using settlers I want to move out of a settlement I am vacating I load them down and move them to the populated settlement.

There are few times I use supply lines. Mostly just to vacate non-move able settlers like at Tenpines, County Crossing, and a couple more or if I populate the airport.

So basically 4 to 5 producers settlements, stashes and temp gardens at others using migrant workers and my companion. Rarely any meats or soups in inventory.