Settlers and farming

[Valderhide]

I can't seem to get my settlers to farm the crops i want them to farm. I assign a settler to farm a crop lick corn, they take one corn and than assign themselves to other crops when there are still corn left to be farm. Why is this happening?

[Super-XIX]

There is probably a method to the madness, but hell if I know what it is. Assign enough settlers to farm all your crops and it won't really matter.

[Aries the Grinning]

Sadly it's rather stupid (and you'd find out it will really go bork when you get planters (not vanilla)

A farmer will simply start adding crops to his workload, but they can pick any crop across the entire settlement. To make 6 food he could farm 1 muttfruit, 2 corn, 2 tato, 2 carrot, etc. untill filled.
To absolutely get them working on the crop you want plant them as the settlers come in (so 6 food's worth for the farmer).
But still the game seems to like to rotate the workers occasionally (happens to me a lot when settlements get big). Then you might get situations where two workers both pick a .5 crop so their production would cap at 5.5. Leaving a 1 plant not worked on. Sadly ATM I think there's no fix for this, other than restarting anew everytime.

If you're working at Abernathy BTW I found the plot on the right (standing against the workbench, looking at the field) is often bugged out and can never be assigned. If your crops are there try and move them first to see if that fixes it

[lpnlizard27]

the trick is not to build a bunch of food and then assign it.
You need to build enough to produce 6 units, whatever crop it may be, then assign one settler to fill up that 6 units. Then take the next settler you want for farming and build them 6 units of crops, then assign it. Then just repeat, This way they will work exactly what you planted.

[Blue Mouse]

I always get a handful of any planted crops deposited into the workbench, and they always seem to be ready to harvest whenever I visit my settlements.

[Bored Peon]

Word of warning, settlers eat tatos BEFORE eating any other food. Then on top of that they will eat any tatos in your supply lines before switching foods.

[Atma]

Originally posted by lpnlizard27:

the trick is not to build a bunch of food and then assign it.
You need to build enough to produce 6 units, whatever crop it may be, then assign one settler to fill up that 6 units. Then take the next settler you want for farming and build them 6 units of crops, then assign it. Then just repeat, This way they will work exactly what you planted.

This is pretty much what I do. It does work for the most part.

However, sometimes new settlers will come in and assign themselves to the SAME crops that another settler was assigned to, causing the original farmer to become unassigned and stand around like a fool.

I've noticed this happening most w/ named settlers like Sheffield, but I've had it happen w/ randoms who just came to the settlement as well.

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by gpizzel135:

I can't seem to get my settlers to farm the crops i want them to farm.

The easiest way to manage it is to plant everything in rows of six.

Then assign a settler to a particular row.

Because one settler will work 6 plants.

You don't need to worry about which ones they work because the game is stupid. It would be an endless battle if you try to get picky about which plants they work. Don't waste any more time on this game than is necessary.

[Atma]

Originally posted by katzenkrimis:

Originally posted by gpizzel135:

I can't seem to get my settlers to farm the crops i want them to farm.

The easiest way to manage it is to plant everything in rows of six.

Then assign a settler to a particular row.

Because one settler will work 6 plants.

They will work 6 food, not 6 plants. The only crop that counts as 1 food is Mutfruit, everything else is only 0.5.

[Bored Peon]

Originally posted by Atma:

However, sometimes new settlers will come in and assign themselves to the SAME crops that another settler was assigned to, causing the original farmer to become unassigned and stand around like a fool.

I've noticed this happening most w/ named settlers like Sheffield, but I've had it happen w/ randoms who just came to the settlement as well.

Are you running 1.3 as well? I never had this happen in 1.2, that I can remember anyways.

[Atma]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Atma:

However, sometimes new settlers will come in and assign themselves to the SAME crops that another settler was assigned to, causing the original farmer to become unassigned and stand around like a fool.

I've noticed this happening most w/ named settlers like Sheffield, but I've had it happen w/ randoms who just came to the settlement as well.

Are you running 1.3 as well? I never had this happen in 1.2, that I can remember anyways.

This has happened since the game launched. Others have also confirmed this behavior in other threads.

I haven't been playing as much since 1.3 came out, though, so I haven't noticed it happening in the beta patch.

That's not to say that it's been fixed; just that I haven't personally observed it recently.

[Aries the Grinning]

Originally posted by Bored Peon:

Originally posted by Atma:

However, sometimes new settlers will come in and assign themselves to the SAME crops that another settler was assigned to, causing the original farmer to become unassigned and stand around like a fool.

I've noticed this happening most w/ named settlers like Sheffield, but I've had it happen w/ randoms who just came to the settlement as well.

Are you running 1.3 as well? I never had this happen in 1.2, that I can remember anyways.

Seen this happen many times, mostly seems to happen to the OG settlers for me (that moustache dude from tenpines is such a known 'slacker' in my book).
So I"m not sure it's only limited to named ones.
Guess it's this phenomenon, the new worker assinging wrongly which skewers whole productions. Had Abernathy up to 240 food once, and the following 3 farmers messed it up by causing pandemonium with all the planters I had put down. A lot capped at 5.5 for me.
40 farmers, 240 food, 43, 232 ;/

[Valderhide]

So by the sounds of it cant setup a "plantation" for all my Vegetable starch needs than

[Atma]

Originally posted by gpizzel135:

So by the sounds of it cant setup a "plantation" for all my Vegetable starch needs than

Sure you can, you just won't have total control over WHO is farming WHAT specifically.

But if you assign enough farmers for the crops you've put down, the crops will still be farmed and you'll still be able to make as much veggie starch as you want.

[Aries the Grinning]

Actually one work around would be to have every settlement be a singular plant plantation...
But like Peon stated, you'd have to pick the taters yourself cause I think one programmer liked a certain Anime too much xD If settlers can only pick out of one option to assing to (1 or 0.5) the assigning technically should never go wrong (they can't make mistakes0

[Ruin]

Originally posted by Atma:

Originally posted by gpizzel135:

So by the sounds of it cant setup a "plantation" for all my Vegetable starch needs than

Sure you can, you just won't have total control over WHO is farming WHAT specifically.

But if you assign enough farmers for the crops you've put down, the crops will still be farmed and you'll still be able to make as much veggie starch as you want.

Yep, it will work fine... At the end of the day which settler, is farming what crop, makes no difference... As long as all of your crops are being harvested (and new settlers will be assigned automatically to any that are not being farmed anyway) it really doesn't make any difference, the yields will be the same..