Hi, New here. Found the game while searching, games like harvest moon and this looks even better Anyway this may have already been posted but how about things like tractors or automated watering pipes that you can lay down like a you lay down a fence. They would require some maintenance and stuff but would make farming much quicker and large scale to allow you to focus on other elements of the game. However I would suggest that it takes a lot of work to get them, because I don't want to make the farming part just something you have to do quickly and then go kill some monsters. I would want the farming part to still require some care and attention. So a very large fields of crops thanks to a tractor would be cool, but I'd still need to pay proper attention to my animals to get high quality. I've blabbed on a bit. You get the idea.
Welcome to the forums. I think that machinery is a great idea, and is one of the coolest parts of farming.
First thing first: Welcome! Second thing: i agree with your idea, since farming is hard and you do it in large quantity, i would love to have automated machinery to make the farm/harvest easier!
As long as the machinery itself is complex and fun to set up and/or build. If it's just "gather x resources and plop down the machine", eeeeh... kind of lame I think :/ For example, the very least one could do is have the player build machine parts, then assemble them in the right order in order to make the machine. Or perhaps set a specific spot (or series of spots for larger machines) and apply the parts in order to that plot, so you can watch the machine take place as you build it. The more involved it is the more it feels like you're being rewarded for effort rather than just grinding to the next tier.
I wasn't really going for automation. I was thinking you'd still have to drive the tractor. Carefully lay out the piping and add water and set them off and maintain them. It would just allow you to do things on a larger scale (if you wanted). To expand a bit on the tractor it could have different attatchments like ploughs, seed sowing and harvesting. It's still farming just in the modern age lol. And like I said, I'd want it to be difficult to get to this stage. As for the building of the say, the tractor. I think it's a nice idea but I don't think anything very complex would really add to the game, especially because of the kind of animation being used (2D) and it would be hard for the maker to incorperate a lot into the game before there was too much to do. Just mi opinion though
yes, like RobAnybody said, and as the title reads, we would like to have machinery not automation. Rather than using a hand hoe to break up individual squares of ground, I'd like to have a plow pulled by an ox/horse, then upgrade to a steam plow, then a tractor. I'd want to control all of these, but they'd allow me to make a larger more efficient farm. They would also provide some equipment progresssion. Harvest moon had something similar with the upgraded tools that plowed, harvested, and watered more squares as you leveled up.
Some aspect of machinery too me at least is electricity. If you have lamp posts you would maybe have to wire that up to the system in which you could decide what kind of power source you would power it with (green electricity is more costly but gives you some sort of green buff). Well there are more things than just tractors that would automise maybe you could build a truck for yourself so you can deliver your goods to the big city where you get better paid.
i think you can harvest better by just getting better gear. you dont need a tractor for that. i like the idea of using your horse to pull something...but our hoe would be enough. maybe we can get stumps or big stones away with our horse/ox
I always thought it rather silly in Harvest Moon that I could charge up my hoe to till large portions of ground...I think something like a plow would be really neat, and simple.
I was never a big fan of heavy machinery, but I know what you mean -- I for one would be pretty cool with a sprinkler system (some HM games also have that, and in the newest one there is one field which has a geyser to water). I feel like it should be limited, too. I think something like having your horse help you plow is a great idea. Complicated machinery that is fun to make sounds cool as it gives you something to work towards.. maybe not a tractor though. Would there really be that big of a space? As far as harvesting goes, perhaps something to help make that more efficient for certain crops. It would be cool to have mass production crops, like wheat, but then perhaps crops that have high damage from the machinery (this way it has limitations). I guess I can't really add much, but as long as it doesn't make things too easy and isn't a make-or-break mechanic, sure. I'd like it best if it were more lo-fi like building a plow for your horse I like the idea of using lamp posts as power supplies though! I'm getting Simcity vibes~
Oh snap. Ideas coming on! Pipes: Wood, Copper, Iron, Steel. Wood: 2pc. planks/1 pipe. Pros/Cons: -inexpensive, easy to use -can get Wood Flakes in water, which take away 1/8th crop value -leak a lot -require Old Pump to use Copper: 2pc. copper tubes/1 pipe. Pros/Cons: -easy to use -can get Rust Particles in water, which take away 16th crop value -require Old Pump to use Iron: 2pc. iron tubes/1 pipe. Pros/Cons: -don't break easily -can get Rust Particles in water -require Valves and Good Pump to use Steel: 2pc. steel tubes/1 pipe. Pros/Cons: -require Valves and Advanced Pump to use -almost never rust or break I'll edit more in later. Too tired.
I don't like the idea of getting pipes to do the dirty work when i comes to watering i mean in these kind of games you will have to decide where to put your time. If you would add for example water pipes these would pretty much cover the watering process and i think it is pretty important that you feel that you have produced the crops not some system that cares for them 24/7. And when it comes to the electricity i think you would have to wire it once and maybe under storms wiring can break both for you and for the villagers making life harder until you fix the problem(in which case helping the villagers would improve your relations). Im maybe dreaming high but if it is anytime to add changes to the game it is now
Well, they explained it in HM by making the tools "magic" because the upgrades were done by little fairys. (at least in the GBC version I played) I still didn't really like it though. I wonder what Concerned Ape is thinking about this. In the trailer there is no trace of any upgrades, yet. I think for field crops like grain, beans, and cotton, a harvester machine that harvested 2-3 blocks wide would be really cool. Now, as to whether our farms will be big enough to NEED such efficiency...I don't know. For "garden" vegetables I think handpicking is fine because IRL there isn't really a good way to automate tomato picking (for example).
A lot of people are saying no to the tractor as if it's some kind of giant thing that will make farming take seconds when I tried to clearly say that I meant it would still require effort to look after the plants and and plough the fields it would just help you get bigger harvests. In terms of size I only meat a little one like some of the very first tractors. As for the pipes automating all the watering, again that wasn't the idea. I very much enjoy the farming part. You would still have to turn the water on and off, maybe refill the water tank once a week. If the pipe breaks somewhere and you don't fix it, no water for some or all of your crops. Maybe even fixing a pipe would take time so that you'd be forced to hand water your crops which if you had enough could be a lot of work and spend take the while day, or you could choose to sacrifice some crops if you are busy that day. Sound more appealing to people now? Or not lol?
If the tractor would be rewarded in some kind of challenge (maybe an old farmer decides to give it to you after you help him) it would mean more instead of players rushing it early to max the farm. The tractor would also maybe bring some kind of challenge like if it rains you would have it rust and brake down until you build a shed for it and fix it, you could also color it and maybe trim the motor a bit if there would be an mechanic in town. I am dreaming big now but i personally think tractors would be a cool addition.
Well, in some harvest moon games you could have either pets or the harvest sprites water your crops. This wouldn't be too much different. If there was something to make it like it wasn't completely automatic, would it be better? Like say you needed to turn the water on or off, or manually refill the reservoir? Or if you had to occasionally replace pipes that were broken?
