I might be wrong, but from my observations, crops do not appear to grow in your absence; which is understandable. Minecraft did much the same thing to an even more extreme degree (crops didn't grow if there wasn't a person within a relatively small radius) If it's not already in the works, a simple solution for this would be to save a timestamp with the planet file when the last visitor on it leaves, indicating when the planet (Or block of pixels) was last visited and effectively shelved in terms of processor time. When visited again it looks at how much time has elapsed, and advances crops by the appropriate amount of growth giving the appearance of them having grown in your absence. This'd encourage players to set up permanent bases of operation with farms on them for supplies, since they can be confident that when they return their crops will be ready for them. Crops could even have longer growth cycles in this case to compensate for their improved reliability, and the system extended to include tree saplings (Which should have a longer growth cycle than crops). As it stands the present situation discourages players travelling off-world (Somewhat ironic for a game about exploration) as crops will only grow when they are on that planet
I wanted to post the same thing. (I didn't know where to post) I think the same about the stop of growth on "idle" planets. It really annoys me as I spend more time outside my home planet, than on it. It is not a problem when I try to grow Sugarcane, Rice, Tomato, Banana, Wheat, cause i can try to stay about 10 minutes on planet. But when i need to grow my own Ocumelon, Neonmelon, Chilli, Avesmingo (or different crops that take really really much time) the problem appears It would be really nice if players could plant their seeds and fly the universe, visit different planets for a few hours and then return and see all the crops ready to harvest. The time should not stop on planet after leaving it. I hope, someone will see the topic and that this issue will be fixed in the future
