farming questions

[VA gamer]

Is there currently a difference b/n planting one seed vs. multiple seeds in terms of resource consumption (i.e. should we only plant full bed for best efficiency)?

Is there a difference in resource usage for tomatoes vs. cotton plants?

I'm pretty terrible at getting seeds so don't want to waste any.

[God Bless The Dead]

The less seeds you use the less fert/water the plants will need.

[Zuleica]

There is but I always plant a full bed, you'll just need more water and fertilizer.

If you run out of water or fertilizer the plants won't die, just stop growing...or so I've seen.

Where you don't want to fill all the slots is in the animal housing! Fill them all and go out hunting for half an ingame day and they'll all be dead.

I add one, then when it gets to level 3 add a second. When the first gets to level 7 add a third then when the first gets to 10 I remove it, butcher it and add a new one. Having three still takes daily work, i usually give them water and food once at dawn and once before dusk.

Make sure you get the free range and fertilizer upgrades to the animal housing. Without free range they consume much more. The fertilizer option will give you fertilizer that will take care of your garden needs.

If you run both a garden and a animal house at the same time i highly recommend a water well with the production increase upgrade. This is true especially in hardcore where water from diminished crate loot is critical to your personal survival.

I've seen no difference between cotton and tomatoes. I grow enough cotton for upgraded clothing and a couch and easy chair then never again in that profile.

Honestly though in all three of my profiles I've gotten to the point where I have more protein than I can consume and more berries and apples than I need so I've shut down all gardens and all animal housing.

[VA gamer]

I am hopeful that CG will add some kind of press/strainer to gather seeds. I would rather grow / farm food than rely on those crates - I'm not as good as some others getting crates without getting mauled.

[Zuleica]

Originally posted by VA gamer:

I am hopeful that CG will add some kind of press/strainer to gather seeds. I would rather grow / farm food than rely on those crates - I'm not as good as some others getting crates without getting mauled.

I definitely want to see reliance on crates reduced drastically but to get to the point where you can even efficiently grow plants or raise animals you have a HUGE reliance on crates.

I've been meaning to see what it takes to live only off of tomatos and raised chickens. I started and seemed to find that keeping a constant rotation of three chickens easily provides enough protein and if you keep tomatoes going you can have enough for the chickens and yourself. I've not tuned it to see what the optimal number of tomatoe plants are. You definitely need the well though and on hardcore two wells since your water from loot crates is very sparse. However, you'd need the seeds. I have about 200 stockpiled in a normal mode profile and 100 in my hardcore...i feed the excess in to the recycler now :) To be totally off of loot crate seeds though we do need some percentage of seeds from crops.

[VA gamer]

I suppose another idea might be to have wild tomato plants. I grow tomatoes in my garden IRL and I find rogue tomato plants sometimes in other parts of the yard - squirrels and birds steal a few low-lying tomatoes and deposit the seeds elsewhere.

[VA gamer]

Originally posted by Zuleica:

Originally posted by VA gamer:

I am hopeful that CG will add some kind of press/strainer to gather seeds. I would rather grow / farm food than rely on those crates - I'm not as good as some others getting crates without getting mauled.

I definitely want to see reliance on crates reduced drastically but to get to the point where you can even efficiently grow plants or raise animals you have a HUGE reliance on crates.

I've been meaning to see what it takes to live only off of tomatos and raised chickens. I started and seemed to find that keeping a constant rotation of three chickens easily provides enough protein and if you keep tomatoes going you can have enough for the chickens and yourself. I've not tuned it to see what the optimal number of tomatoe plants are. You definitely need the well though and on hardcore two wells since your water from loot crates is very sparse. However, you'd need the seeds. I have about 200 stockpiled in a normal mode profile and 100 in my hardcore...i feed the excess in to the recycler now :) To be totally off of loot crate seeds though we do need some percentage of seeds from crops.

I have a well and upgraded animal shelter. How many tomatoes and/or blueberries would you recommend having before putting a chicken in the shelter?

[John Raeder]

I would fill the shelter then put one chicken in it. If you have one chicken you should be able to supply it with blueberries but having a dozen or so handy would be good. See how much you get from one tomato or apple too (shelter food and water). You find wild tomatos? I think that would be news to CG.

[Zuleica]

Hard to say...I've lost all perspective with all three profiles at fairly advanced stages. That's why I asked CG a while back to add a few more profile slots, so I could start new games, test new things then delete them. I'm not wanted to delete the advanced profiles just yet.