What is the point of round bales?

[white_knight_leo]

For the record, this comes from someone new to FS, starting with this game.

I'm a bit unclear as to what the point of round bales are in the vanilla game. They have the same volume as square bales, there isn't a vanilla selfloading trailer for them, the two available balers require you to stop your tractor perioidically as it doesn't continue to load baling material while the old bale is being ejected, and none of the things that use bales need them to be round. They aren't even easier to stack.

Mods correct a lot of this - but no one has ported the auto-unload mod I found for FS17 to this game as of yet, and even with an automatic unload the baler is still significantly slower than the square baler. Obviously the square baler is a bit more expensive, but the advantage is that you don't have to slow down your tractor *at all* while using it.

As for silage bales, there is obviously a combo baler/wrapper in the vanilla game that doesn't exist for square bales. But again, you have to stop your tractor and wait for the bale to be unloaded before the wrapping process starts, and the wrap takes significantly longer than the unloading - and the wrapped bale has to be manually ejected. Mods could fix this as well, but the modded square bale wrapper has already solved the issue by speeding up the wrapping process.

Am I just missing something?

[margalus]

There are round bales in real life.

[Knottypine]

There is a round bale trailer on the official modhub (Ursus T127), if that helps. Can't really say what the major difference is TBH. However, IRL I see more round bales than square bales.

[white_knight_leo]

Yes, I get that. I'm asking about the gameplay.

Most of the other things in game have at least some balance to them. Even the less powerful tractors have a handling advantage in tight spaces. But there's no reason I can see why anyone would go for round bales over square bales beyond the simple realism of them existing.

[white_knight_leo]

Originally posted by Knottypine:

There is a round bale trailer on the official modhub (Ursus T127), if that helps. Can't really say what the major difference is TBH. However, IRL I see more round bales than square bales.

Sure, and I'm told that's been ported from FS17. Again, though, the gameplay scale is tipped pretty heavily towards square bales - I think the square bale selfloading trailer even holds more bales.

Not sure about IRL - I've mostly dealt with horses, and I've never had to deal with round bales. There aren't any hay farms near me.

[Leppylep]

to get set up, round bailing is alot cheaper, as you make more money you can upgrade to the square bales

[JPSGT40]

The Warzee straw throwers all use round bales.

[wlfheart]

IRL round bales requires less handling time. I have found in game its easier to ration in the mixer with square bales.

[mypixelshurt]

Just a different gameplay mechanic and the balers are a tad cheaper, so if you are strapped for cash and have to make bales. But I have chased enough round bales around to last a lifetime so I always go square.

[zzexx]

IRL the round bales are way heavier than the square, hence bigger. from that aspect i can see the round bales being a pita. But thats not the case since they are both the same amount. My relatives own a cow farm, mostly use round bales, very big round bales lol. the straw bales they tend to leave in feild and use as needed, thier hay bales go in the barn.

As to the game, round bales are useless time wasters, unless they make them 8k L. with or without autoload mods. I found it faster doing silage to use square even though there is in essence one more step to it. Dont even get started on certain modders who think one can fit 42 round bales on a trailer that seems only capable of holding 36 square ones .......or the ravenport map maker that didnt consider said trailer mods and unloading issues at the barn ....

Lovin the game though, just needs some vinyards and apple, peach etc trees


ZZW

[white_knight_leo]

Originally posted by zzexx:

IRL the round bales are way heavier than the square, hence bigger. from that aspect i can see the round bales being a pita. But thats not the case since they are both the same amount. My relatives own a cow farm, mostly use round bales, very big round bales lol. the straw bales they tend to leave in feild and use as needed, thier hay bales go in the barn.

As to the game, round bales are useless time wasters, unless they make them 8k L. with or without autoload mods. I found it faster doing silage to use square even though there is in essence one more step to it. Dont even get started on certain modders who think one can fit 42 round bales on a trailer that seems only capable of holding 36 square ones .......or the ravenport map maker that didnt consider said trailer mods and unloading issues at the barn ....

Lovin the game though, just needs some vinyards and apple, peach etc trees


ZZW

I actually went and did some research on bale sizes and found roughly what you described - the round ones range in weight all the way up to 1 ton, far bigger than the biggest square bales.

As for the game, the vanilla round bales even actually roll - and considering the hills most fields are situated on, that can actually be a problem. I've actually lost track of silage bales that rolled off cliffs in Ravenport.

Making them bigger was my proposed fix - make them, say, 4 times the size of square bales, and then the additional hassle will be at least potentially worth it.

[Usedfireball]

I can tell a lot changed when I made the jump all the way from FS13 to FS19... Round bales in 13 were about 2K bigger in volume than squares, and the only ones that fit in the straw blower you needed to straw the cow barn.
The Ursus DLC added a small round bale ~3500 and those could be wrapped for silage...
Later I found a round baler/wrapper combo mod that made the full 6K rounds, and a mover/stacker that made it all better.
Didn't have a mod that worked to wrap squares so they only got used for dry hay or some straw if it went into a TMR.

This time around I see once again no stacking round bale mover, at least one of the round balers is a wrapper combo however. Making the volumes the same was a step in the wrong direction though.

So far haven't done anything other than bale straw, no animals and no BG plant operations yet.

In real life rounds are very common, squares mostly used by a big outfit (dairy, custom baler operation) that needs them to stack nice or haul long distances. Those big square balers are about double the price of a round baler, and a lot more moving parts.
In this part of the world usually see a round bale mover that can self load and haul 8+ 6X5 rounds, never seen a square bale mover like that though.
Anyone serious about doing silage bales and in line wrapping is going to be doing rounds, can to squares but they don't wrap well.

[MF6260]

Originally posted by zzexx:

IRL the round bales are way heavier than the square, hence bigger. from that aspect i can see the round bales being a pita. But thats not the case since they are both the same amount. My relatives own a cow farm, mostly use round bales, very big round bales lol. the straw bales they tend to leave in feild and use as needed, thier hay bales go in the barn.

As to the game, round bales are useless time wasters, unless they make them 8k L. with or without autoload mods. I found it faster doing silage to use square even though there is in essence one more step to it. Dont even get started on certain modders who think one can fit 42 round bales on a trailer that seems only capable of holding 36 square ones .......or the ravenport map maker that didnt consider said trailer mods and unloading issues at the barn ....

Lovin the game though, just needs some vinyards and apple, peach etc trees


ZZW

we run a small deer sheep and beef farm IRL and we have an old international tractor and it lifts our round bales a lot easer than the square bales we do. yes we have had trouble lifting round bales with the international but they were just oat bales that were wet when baled and wrapped but thats the only time the international had problems lifting bales.

[SeaDog]

Money at every aspect from balers to wrappers.

[Miles]

You will need a lot of mods. This one of those game where devs leave it down to modders to finish or add things that should be in and stuff that should have been put in since the last one lol.

[The Big Brzezinski]

I just like 'em because I can empty the round bale loader in a long strip directly under a low-roofed shelter, instead of making a big dumb tower I have to move myself.