21st July - Farming Farmables!

Discussion in 'Dev Blog' started by mollygos, Jul 21, 2015.

  1. Greatblackshark

    Greatblackshark Cosmic Narwhal

    Farming will just be an optional path to making pixels like building and renting homes, you are quite within your right to get your pixels from doing some bounty hunting/exploration or whatever then going to a space KFC to pick up a bucket of space chicken if you decide that you want to eat something without growing it yourself.
     
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  2. BroScale

    BroScale Subatomic Cosmonaut

    well its a GOOD idea... buttt...

    plants grow immediately as you water them? so much for farming... plants needs water, sun, love.. AND TIME!
    second is that the wooden watering can should be used 2 handed.. i know its minor but it just seems less weird
    also i think like a tiny "watering" animation is far better than a single drop jumping out the watering can

    what do you guys think?
     
  3. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    Um... no. It's just that some crops have such fast growth times that it seems immediate.
     
  4. Godbot

    Godbot Big Damn Hero

    Okay, so we already have modular random monster generation. What if we did that for plants? We already have unique items that can store their own variables, like filled capture pods, and signs, so we could make unique plants that produce their own unique seeds, too. I guess you could crossbreed seeds by leaving tilled and watered space between two of your plants, or something? Then they'd have a chance of producing another plant with a random combination of their traits. Some could be rarer than others, and sometimes you'd get unusual colors, or something, so you could keep crossbreeding plants to try and get the traits you want. And crops with rarer traits could go for more pixels when you sell them to merchants!

    I'd imagine we'd need to tweak the cooking system, though, so we could cook with RNG crops. Maybe each crop has traits, and each recipe has certain traits that need to go into it? Like, maybe plants with fruit make "sweet" or "juicy" ingredients. You could make bread out of anything that has the "grain" trait. And using RNG ingredients could mess with the properties of the stuff you cook, too. Like, maybe rarer traits give bonus healing, or duration, or bonus status effects.

    We could put so much work into this! It'd be great.
     
  5. LunaCee

    LunaCee Void-Bound Voyager

    Argh... at current this will utterly break my on-ship miniature farm in the back pair of holds and my usual habit of bird-proof covered greenhouses on planet.

    Needs automatic watering as an option before it hits live period. Even if it comes down to filling up a water tank object that the system draws from. I have nothing against providing resources to get resources, but I set things up for convenience first. The only thing I really use it for is early game health recovery (which is why the green houses are covered and bird-proof to conserve resources while making my recovery items) and for late game buffs from advanced recipes where I need a dozen different things to make the products (which is why I keep the back pair of holds on-ship making those particular items).
     
    firekirby135 likes this.
  6. M_Sipher

    M_Sipher Oxygen Tank

    Oh no! A glimpse at something slightly different! Quick, assume there will never ever be any changes or aspects they haven't shown us yet and assume the worst! Complain! Complaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!!!!!!!
     
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  7. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    Check the thread for the 22nd blog post before thinking this is not possible.
     
  8. DragonsForce

    DragonsForce Weight of the Sky

    Now you are exaggurating... Ok, some people are simply complaining, but most of us are pointing out problems with the current system and giving ideas on how to make it better. That is why we have this thread...
     
    Pingeh likes this.
  9. M_Sipher

    M_Sipher Oxygen Tank

    And I'm pointing out -again- that we don't know everything about this system yet, and that no system in this game has ever stayed exactly as it was at first go.

    So maybe folks can ease up on the WHY YOU RUIN GAME a little bit.
     
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  10. firekirby135

    firekirby135 Big Damn Hero


    I agree, let's do that. Adding depth to the farming mechanics will prevent those of us who WANT to progress through farming less bored. More involved farming mechanics means more fun for us farmers, especially if new mechanics are added each tier like they are in the current combat progression. If you don't like the depth they're adding to farming, then don't farm. It's not like you're expected to farm to progress anyways.


    I would hope so. Though automated systems would be nice, more involvement means less idle time for farmers. I just hope they improve the watering can a bit first, perhaps by making it a continuous sprinkle rather than a large, single globule of water.


    I disagree. Sure, it may be frustrating for those that can no longer throw seeds into the dirt, completely abandon them, and come back to find a fully grown banana tree. But then, that farming method is something anyone can do with minimal effort, and kinda makes it bland for those of us who want to eventually progress via. farming. Much like the tenant spawner was the first step the devs took towards builder progression, this is the first step the devs have taken towards farmer progression, and quite frankly, I couldn't be happier.
     
    n1t3n, Tamorr, M_Sipher and 1 other person like this.
  11. Dinoabunai

    Dinoabunai Void-Bound Voyager

    Farming 4 LIFE!!! Nice update!
     
  12. Leinad Werecat

    Leinad Werecat Subatomic Cosmonaut

    I think the problems are going to be finding a balance for easy farming/food buffs for the lazy or the people that don't want to "progress" via farming, and making that progress through farming work well and be involved and fun for the folks who want to focuson farming.
     
  13. Mackinz

    Mackinz The Waste of Time

    Hunting and buying crops from merchants for those not interested in farming themselves.
     
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  14. firekirby135

    firekirby135 Big Damn Hero

    I was just about to say. :rofl:
    And not only that, but in multiplayer, it also allows for a more marketable skill. As farming is now, anyone with a stone hoe can grow Avesmangos. But, hopefully, once the scaling for each crop is worked out, farmers will be much more desired in online communities rather than an optional asset.
    This, of course, is especially true should Chucklefish decide to create a megaserver later down the line. :3
     
    Kittails likes this.
  15. Cube The Zombie

    Cube The Zombie Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    I waiting for combine-harvesters and other machinery for mass farming (seed and harvest massively) planting production.
     
  16. Gotcha!

    Gotcha! Pangalactic Porcupine

    Even though I can't fathom the idea of people actually liking changes like this, I'm truly happy for you, really. No sarcasm here.

    But me, when I bought the game I never signed up for a micromanagement farming simulator. I liked the farming the way it was. Uncomplicated and low maintenance. There are more fun things to do in the game than to sit by your crops and water them every 5 minutes. (Or at least, there should be, but the game is still ridiculously unfinished and boring. Whee, the game now got even more boring.)

    I hope that they at least have the decency to create some sort of automatic watering system so that people who dislike walking around with a watering can all day can do more useful things.
     
    Pingeh likes this.
  17. M_Sipher

    M_Sipher Oxygen Tank

    Good thing you don't have to play one then! Like, at all.

    That becomes a problem with making farming a progression path. A progression path with no actual work involved severely unbalances the game.

    Good thing you don't have to! Just come back to them and water then whenever you're home, since the crops won't die without water. Do it when you feel like it. They'll be there waiting for you.

    Or, as has been shown elsewhere, build a watering system using the building tools in this building game.

    Or just buy the food or find it in the wild. There's hardly a shortage of wild-growing foods.

    Considering they've made upgrades to every single "tool" based whatever in the entire game, yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeah, I'm not gonna put a whole lotta money on the "watering can will be the only way to water crops forever and ever" part of the roulette table.
     
    Last edited: Jul 23, 2015
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  18. SPORES

    SPORES Scruffy Nerf-Herder

    If you add a system of irrigation for plant growth.
    That way, add the same system for the trees.
    And let the rain automatically imbues the soil water..
     
  19. Gotcha!

    Gotcha! Pangalactic Porcupine

    Yeah, that's really the solution, huh? Just don't play a game I paid for or play the game and just decide to skip an important and previously enjoyable aspect of the game.
    Sure.

    How is there 'no actual work' in the old system? Last time I played you still needed to set out and find or buy the seeds for all these foodstuffs, then combining things into new recipes and get better food out of it. Nothing gets unbalanced by forcing people to water their plants. It only adds a timesink, a rather pointless unnecessary timesink.

    Can't wait what pointless gimmick they'll come up with next. :party:
     
    Pingeh likes this.
  20. M_Sipher

    M_Sipher Oxygen Tank

    No, I mean you're not playing a micromanagement farming simulator when you're playing Starbound in the first place, what with the lack of necessary sunlight, fertilizing, proper dirt types/depth, pest problems, radiation for those radioactive-planet crops, the fact that crops won't die if unwatered for any length of time...

    And even then, you don't have to concern yourself with farming at all since you can buy/find most any farmable crop.

    Really, there's some misplaced aggression from folks here at what is a minor task to be accomplished at your leisure at worst, especially one that is incredibly likely to have in-game upgradeable technology devoted to it.
     
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