A6.0 Feedback: FARMING

Discussion in 'FAQ & Feedback' started by Hummel-o-War, Jun 6, 2017.

  1. Atola

    Atola Commander

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    How about a better way of changing the location of a core? Having to worry about plant die out because i want to move the core stinks.
    Or maybe just give em a min. timer before they die.
     
    #21
  2. Menos

    Menos Commander

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    I think it would be a lot more realistic if plants take much longer till they die. In reality plants can take weeks to die, and even in horrible conditions it takes at least a day.

    I killed enough flowes when I wass upposed to watch them, I know that business. ;)
     
    #22
  3. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    At this point, I'm resigned to not modifying designs after I've planted in them (which usually isn't a problem, as I do all my building in creative and spawn in finished blueprints in survival).

    It'd be nice if attempting to place an extra core simply moved it from the old location to the new location.
     
    #23
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  4. TheTinyMan

    TheTinyMan Ensign

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    I will say that personally I found it really unintuitive that the farm on Akua was non-functional as a farm. I suspect that it's because of hot and cold waves, but my plants kept dying in the starting grow plots even with the light going - but they didn't always die immediately.

    Eventually I Googled the problem and found that I needed to put them in an airtight room to protect them from the temperature, and since doing that growing has worked great! IIRC the tutorial suggested that it could be open-air on Akua and because of this confusion I avoided farming altogether for weeks of gameplay.

    I think that either the tutorial should be adjusted to explain that this farm probably failed because of the temperature fluctuations (encouraging the player to try to figure out how to avoid temperature fluctuations), or the farm should be updated to encase the grow plot in an airtight room. Or, I suppose, the weather on Akua could be adjusted to no longer destroy crops exposed to the elements.
     
    #24
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  5. Requiemfang

    Requiemfang Commander

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    I'd like to see a step away from how much of an exp farm, farms are currently. It's extremely easy to level up to 25 with just a farm alone. The exp gain from harvesting your own grown plants is to put it simply absurd. I've never reached level 25 so fast in a game before. Farms are just an easy cheap way to get to lvl 25 without work or effort. Especially if you know what plants give the maximum amount of EXP for harvesting them.
     
    #25
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  6. geostar1024

    geostar1024 Rear Admiral

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    Honestly, farms probably shouldn't give any XP for harvesting, since there's nothing hard or novel or time-sensitive about doing it (or give just 3XP, like placing blocks does).
     
    #26
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  7. Requiemfang

    Requiemfang Commander

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    Yeah a little exp or none at all would be a good way to balance such an easy way to gain resources. I like earning my way up to getting levels even though it does sometimes turn into a grind.
     
    #27
  8. Scoob

    Scoob Rear Admiral

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    I think the bigger picture is revising the entire Tech Tree as it stands. I mean, I pick a handful of plants & now I can learn how to craft a ships thruster. Weird lol.

    That aside, lucky early-game acquisitions allowing me to create a fairly large farm early-game, can satisfy most of my levelling needs, which is excessive. So, while the current Tech Tree exists, I agree that experience gain from plant picking should be lowered. Same for wild plants too.

    Scoob.
     
    #28
  9. Atola

    Atola Commander

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    Aye, I think the entire experience thing doesn't make sense. Instead of experience unlocking being able to use entirely new items/things I think experience should allow you to do whatever it is your doing better.
     
    #29
  10. Scoob

    Scoob Rear Admiral

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    Drifting off topic slightly, but I'm with you on this. I.e. If I run a lot, my speed and stamina recovery should improve over time. Equally, I should get more accurate with weapons as I use them. If anything, tech should be researched rather than simply unlocked...I don't know where the devs ultimately plan to go with this.

    On-Topic: Farming in my view needs a little more depth. I.e. should we not have "Water Tanks" holding our bases (or CV's) water supply? This in turn would feed the Food Processor, as well as water any growing plots - the "Grow Light" would be a light and Sprinkler in effect.

    Scoob.
     
    #30
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  11. jagodragon

    jagodragon Ensign

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    First I want to compliment you on the depth that your panting and harvesting has! Great work!

    All the plants that you can make sprouts from actually make sense! the ones you can't seem as though they woud be from bulbs and there for not able to be grown from clippings in most cases. this all makes great sense and the attention to detail is great!

    now the part you new was coming... can you make it possible to transplant them. please keep reading.. in my mind it would work like this. multi tool will pick a number of bulbs (equal to half of the number of clippings you would get with a minimum of 2) for the plant only if you use the multi tool on a plant that is ready to harvest. and just destroy the plant of you use it on one that's not ready to harvest.

    for instance. lets say you are harvesting a plant.
    -ready to harvest
    ---harvest yeild is 4 of what ever
    ---disassemble would yield 2 bulbs/sprouts
    -preharvest
    ---nothing to harvest
    ---disassemble would yield 0 bulbs/sprouts and destroy plant

    I'm not looking to break mechanics. I just like to grow everything I need in my base.

    another thing that would be cool is if i was able to breed animals... however that is some thing that would probably just plain not work with the way the mechanics of the engine work. again.. this is due to my desire to grow all the things i need inside my base....


    edit: typos
     
    #31
    Last edited: Aug 14, 2017
  12. Space Beagle

    Space Beagle Captain

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    We have plenty of water in game, so we should have 'water tanks' in our bases/stations/ships if we want to grow food... any food (and use toilets :)). Water should be spend same as oxygen, by cubes/blocks in use - simple as that.

    'Farming animals' could be also implemented in game - very easily - by cubes/blocks we produce (or buy at special traders ;)) and install.

    Some (new) smaller animals for moving ships will be breed like current plants, literary by single block and if movement animation for animals on CVs is problem it could be just some fancy box that produce 1 meat / 1 milk / 1 egg... after some time.

    Farming bigger animals (something more like mules) in stationary bases on planets or orbits could be made on bigger combined blocks, like we have now with 3x3=9 growing plots under 1 light... then few animated live animals could move & jump around a bit, and that 'unit' could make like 4 row meat and 4 milk, etc. again after some time... that way 'animal farming' would be very useful and humane :)
     
    #32
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  13. Atola

    Atola Commander

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    Farming as it relates to food contributes to the survival aspect of the game very early on, but I'm not having any fun with it after that. It gives quick exp, (but I don't get exactly why).

    Right now the only thing i grow is honey. Its quicker to just eat it than to process other veggies to anything that is safer to eat/gives more food.

    I sometimes have fun making gardens. But i'm getting tired of actually harvesting. Particularly when I'm building something. When i'm away from base on an adventure it feels right to worry about food a bit. If i'm in a base/CV with a garden with perhaps particular plants or quantity of plants growing how about i just go to an automated machine and fill my food bar just like O2. My suit handles the whole thing with an IV or something like that. Perhaps the CV/Base has a "Tank" of slurp that fills over time based on how many plants and various types of plants you have. The plants may only contribute to the tank of slurp if they are fully grown and the conditions are right for growth if they were not.

    If the start is on Omicron the textured plant food is the best quick heal, so i grew that there. On all other starts doesn't the native wildlife provides better?

    Is there something that can be done to either phase out the food bar/food effect as you progress or make it something more than an annoying repeatable task. Especially after max level is reached.

    Pills made from farming that give temporary increase in abilities might be interesting.

    If i could grow something to make bio-fuel it would be great. Harvesting seaweed is quite boring. Chainsawing critters down can be fun. Maybe a better solution is a T2 chainsaw that runs on fuel packs.
     
    #33
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  14. vxsote

    vxsote Commander

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    It used to be that picking a plant gave you one item. And IIRC, that one item took an entire slot in your fridge or food processor. Most recipes required one of each item.

    Then it was changed so that food stacked. We could store more and do more cooking with less inventory management. And it was good.

    More recently, the number of items picked when harvesting went up, but so did the number of items used in recipes. I'm not sure if stack sizes changed at all, but I want to say that they are the same. So the net effect is we have to do the same number of harvests to cook a given number of meals, but storage of the raw food is effectively nerfed.

    The inventory management associated with cooking isn't awful now like it once was, but it seems like either it was a nerf disguised not to seem like a nerf, or that maybe there was a more comprehensive rework to food in mind that was just left half done.

    Also, it seems like every time I want to make gardening plots, I have to harvest more fiber plants than I did the last time I wanted to make gardening plots. I think this is going the wrong direction. I'm not even sure what the point of the fiber is - if I want to grow something IRL, I can just fill a bin with dirt, plant some seeds, and call it a day.
     
    #34
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  15. demolish50

    demolish50 Commander

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    I don't know about anyone else but I sure could use some miracle grow so my plants grow faster when I need them to.
     
    #35
  16. vxsote

    vxsote Commander

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    What demo is actually trying to say: "I sure could use some miracle grow to make up for when I accidentally depressurize the station in a 300°C orbit with my multi-tool and incinerate all the plants."
     
    #36
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  17. Darkscis

    Darkscis Captain

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    I very much agree with this. There comes a point just past early game (hell, on some planets 5 minutes after you land) where food just isn't a concern at all. On Akua and Omicron especially there is just so much natural food around it would be pretty darn impossible to run out. For other planets, once you get a handful of grow plots you are set and the survival aspect of requiring food dissolves into an annoyingly repetitive task of constantly having to eat food (especially with the 1-2s delay between being able to eat them). It would be great if you could somehow transition out of this - whether it be through some sort of "auto-feeder" device you can place in your BA/HV/SV/CV or a module you insert into your suit or something.

    Hell even just a simple "you automatically eat whatever is closest to the top left in your inventory once you get down to 250" would be better than nothing. Then you just need to make sure you have a stack of cans in your inventory or something.

    The alternative, would be to go in the opposite direction and make gathering and preparing food a much harder/longer process but reduce the rate your hunger bar goes down and increase the amount that food restores. For example, lets say it takes 7 full day/night cycles for your plants to mature but you only need to eat 2 meals a day to fill your food bar(or 3 for those healthy folks unlike me :D). This has multiple benefits;
    a) you only need to harvest your plants once per game week, instead of every 30 minutes real time
    b) you only need to make (and stick in the fridge) meals once per game week
    c) you only need to eat twice, maybe thrice, a day (strenuous activity like sprinting still consumes your food bar faster - you might need an extra meal if doing a lot of running that day!)

    If you implemented the above, eating would feel a lot less like an annoying chore that has no meaning beyond the first few minutes of any new game. You actually feel like you are eating the correct amount instead of eating more than an AFL team combined every 5 minutes and preparing food is less of a repetitive chore every 30 minutes and more a once per week type deal. Flow on effects would be people actually making large planet based greenhouses so that they can prepare 2-3-4 in game weeks worth of food to pack onto their CV's and eliminate the need for CV grow plots. BA's become useful as supply depots and CV's can become more specialised.

    Couple the above with decorative blocks like dining tables automatically consuming a meal from your fridge storage when you interact with it and you can have a Galley on your CV where all your food is stored, but dining tables spread around the ship where you can auto eat from. You don't need to keep food in your inventory which will spoil, you don't need to travel all the way to your fridges - open them - remove some food - shift right click - wait 2s - shift right click - travel back to the bridge etc. The only time you would need to actually carry and manually consume food would be planning extended outings away from your fridges - at which point I think it should remain very much as is because that is something you should be planning for in a survival game.
     
    #37
    Last edited: Aug 24, 2017
  18. Ivellios

    Ivellios Commander

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    I don't know if they changed it, but not eating cooked food carried a risk to get food poisoning. In earlier play throughs, I got food poisoning practically every other day until I assembled a Food Processor. Sometimes more often than that.

    I got so sick of food poisoning, that I had started having a strict salami diet until I got around to build said Food Processor.

    Planted crops didn't have the risk of wild plants, but you still had a risk.

    If it was food, wasn't cooked, and didn't have "Cures Food Poisoning," there was always a chance after you ate, you were losing health till you cured it, or it wore off, after using many bandages to heal yourself. If you just ran out willy-nilly to eat without proper preparation, odds were, you'd be respawning, and your food run was in vain.
     
    #38
  19. SilvRav

    SilvRav Moderator

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    in an atmosphere rich environment with ok temps and o2.

    In a harsh environment with below 0 temps and no o2 plants will die instantly if their is a hull breach (instant freeze)
     
    #39
  20. Atola

    Atola Commander

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    Nothing has changed. I eat cans from drops and raw food. How i deal with it is I leave a few stomach pills in the lower right corner of my SV/HV fridge. If i'm out and about i use small medkits. Used to be that i'd leave a few seaweed snacks in the same spot on my base fridge (doesn't ever get turned off) but now bases and CVs have even cheaper options to deal with food poising. But old habits die hard and If i run across a few a still stick em there.
     
    #40
    Last edited: Sep 11, 2017

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