Farms

[GeeBee]

I have around 16 medium fields linked to one agri-farm and I am struggling to keep up with the food demands for a city of around 1500inhabitants. I have an even split of tractors, harvesters and covered lorries and I am only using the crops for food production. Don't really want to add more fields to the one agri-farm or I will start to see delays in sowing, harvesting and collecting. How many fields do folks typically use as I now have over 30k population across my map. Will I eventually need 100's of fields if I want to be self sufficient in food?

[TheAmishStig]

I'm not sure on how many mediums it'll take...but probably, as they're roughly a quarter the hectares of a Large, which means a quarter of the output every harvest loop (the benefit is that machine-only, they take a lot less time to sow / harvest).

I don't have my research in front of me so I have to do this from memory, but I think when it's "machines only", crops production averages out to right about half a ton per hectare per day...so for example (if that math is right, and not WAY off base as I haven't touched it in about 2 months) a Fabric factory [which IIRC is 10T/shift or 30T/day] needs about 60 hectares of field to support it, plus some cushion for transport logistics.

Workers accelerate that process greatly...every 30-ish workers per field [the exact number depends on the specific machines you're using, check its work-speed rating] grants a speed boost equivalent to having another machine working the field, and accelerates the loop considerably.

[GeeBee]

Didn't realise you could combine machines and workers. Useful information and apologies for the pun!

[TheAmishStig]

Hopefully the information on output / field area is correct...as mentioned, it's been about 2 months since I poked any of that with a stick.

How it animates workers + machines on a single field is pretty cool to watch, too...the workers' contribution runs in reverse (starting where the tractor stops), so that they and the tractor meet in the middle. The first time I saw it I was wondering if I had gophers or something...crops were disappearing at the back of the field, with me not realizing right away that the field was within walking distance of the train station I'd built for a nearby distillery.

[MG83]

it is possible to add 16 big around 50 medium fields to single aggro farm. 4 4 4 or 3 5 4 setup can be proceeded. someone made a good examination for that in the forum. use search function

[Piktas Keksas]

I do have about same population, a bit bigger mabe. And I do have about 100 medium fealds, about 10 agrofarms, 10 fealds for each. It is about enough.

[TheAmishStig]

Circling back to this because I did the math last night. In terms of land area [and in turn output per harvest]:

1 Large Field = 3 Medium Fields or 12 Small Fields
1 Medium Field = 4 Small Fields

[GeeBee]

Thanks!

[sergetechone]

Hum ... Interesting, I was going to make a tread about it. Employee + Machines ... Can someone tell me how this work. I setup like this picture here, working just fine, 6 buses service that bus stop, the food factory is staff properly, and I got 4 medium field, 4 tractor, 4 compine and 4 cover truck. Fields is working fine, did not request any employees even the farm did not request employees... did not see any body walking there, I even set up a bus line to the fields, and no body was getting off, and the buses was running empty, so I shut down the bus line, only the food factory bus line was open and the farm, two field and the factory was in range of the bus stop. So I am a bit lost here on how the farm need employee - 4 medium field at 150 employee each = 600 employees and NO ONE show up for work. I even add a booze factory, employees show up ... I dont get that ? BTW, a gas station is close by ... with 2 power sub station.


https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1858676534

How can you set up a farm with multi fields, more than 4 ? Even my first set up was with 2 field and 4 tractors, only one tractor show up at a field, two was standing there doing nothing, and when I construct the rest of the 2 fields ( 4 in total ) all the tractors was working.

And I notice ... it is SLOW to get any corns !!!

[TheAmishStig]

I'd be happy to!

Employees + Machines: Each Machine has a "speed rating"...for example, one of the Sowing tractors has a rating of 33. When that tractor is working, the game adds 33 to the number of workers on the field...so 33 workers + that tractor will work twice as fast as just the tractor by itself. This is also true for construction sites; machines speed up construction compared to doing it workers-only.

There are a couple cases where the game will want at least 1 worker before it'll add in the machines...I want to say the big tower crane was one of them, but for the life of me I can't remember offhand. Thankfully, farms aren't one of them; they'll happily hum along with 0 workers and a tractor.

You can't have multiple machines on one field, unfortunately...they only have one slot for mechanisms [unlike bigger construction sites, which can have five or more]

How are your bus lines set up, may I ask? They should walk to the field from any bus stop in range, unless the total travel time is too long [after 5 hours of game time...roughly 5 minutes at normal speed...workers that haven't reached a job site teleport home and count as unemployed for the day].

The other thing is that workers won't "change buses", getting off at a stop and waiting for a different bus to pick them up...it would have to go from wherever you're picking them up directly to that little in-road stop by the fields [workers don't care about the actual farm building]. The other thing you could do is build a house within walking distance [that's what I normally do for small farms], that way you don't have to worry about buses for anything but taking them to town to fill their needs.

When there are workers in the field the game won't show them (maybe on the info pane, I don't remember) but if you know what the sowing / harvesting animations look like, when there are workers in the field they'll start in the back and work towards the front, while the machine starts in the front and works towards the back. It's pretty surreal to watch, the first time I saw it during a harvest I thought I had gophers, or that fields 'expired' after a set time, or something like that...the combine was trucking along, and crops were disappearing at the far end of the field!

And yes, farming is slow. It works best if you set up a rotation...I normally run between 15 and 24 fields per farm, and when you have a whole bunch of little fields you can run way more than that...so that the machines stay busy sowing / harvesting while waiting for the others to grow.

[sergetechone]

@ The Amish Stig ... " How are your bus lines set up, may I ask ? " ... Well it came from the same stop ( origin ) than the stop at the food factory -- ie same origin. And they both have their own bus line, with the same origin.

" The other thing is that workers won't "change buses", getting off at a stop and waiting for a different bus to pick them up...it would have to go from wherever you're picking them up directly to that little in-road stop by the fields [workers don't care about the actual farm building]. "
That is nice to know info.

" And yes, farming is slow. It works best if you set up a rotation...I normally run between 15 and 24 fields per farm, and when you have a whole bunch of little fields you can run way more than that...so that the machines stay busy sowing / harvesting while waiting for the others to grow. "

Good idea ... I wonder how to set this up, by assigning the tractor/combine to different fields ? Hum ...

And I wonder if a farm can be setup in middle of nowhere, with no employees ? only use vehicules ?

The thing is ... I am not really like the idea of building a town around a farm/farms, so employees can walk, and build services with it.

I got a lot to lean to how to play and setup the industries / towns / services.

[GeeBee]

Originally posted by sergetechone:

@ The Amish Stig ... " How are your bus lines set up, may I ask ? " ... Well it came from the same stop ( origin ) than the stop at the food factory -- ie same origin. And they both have their own bus line, with the same origin.

" The other thing is that workers won't "change buses", getting off at a stop and waiting for a different bus to pick them up...it would have to go from wherever you're picking them up directly to that little in-road stop by the fields [workers don't care about the actual farm building]. "
That is nice to know info.

" And yes, farming is slow. It works best if you set up a rotation...I normally run between 15 and 24 fields per farm, and when you have a whole bunch of little fields you can run way more than that...so that the machines stay busy sowing / harvesting while waiting for the others to grow. "

Good idea ... I wonder how to set this up, by assigning the tractor/combine to different fields ? Hum ...

And I wonder if a farm can be setup in middle of nowhere, with no employees ? only use vehicules ?

The thing is ... I am not really like the idea of building a town around a farm/farms, so employees can walk, and build services with it.

I got a lot to lean to how to play and setup the industries / towns / services.

Hi - you cant actually assign the farm machinery yourself. The Agri-farm does it automatically. You just need to stagger the building of fields so you dont have too many needing the same type of machines at the same time. Tractors for sowing, Harvester for harvesting and trucks for collection of crops. Also you can have farms that are machinery only without any workers needed. you would need to transport the crops to someplace for processing