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Farming is too tedious. Specifically, planting seeds. I run farms with a hundred or so plant boxes, and it wasn't too bad back when all survivors would help with the planting. (I don't know if the survivors are bugged or working as intended, but that's another issue.)
Without the help of multiple survivors though it's extremely tedious to... open the box, find the right seed, drag it over then close the window. Can this be streamlined where you click on the box, single click the seed and have the window self-close? Just use a hover pop up for seed identification. This would cut the time needed to 25%, be easier on the wrist and the mind.
Or let us put multiples of one type of seed in the box. It can still process one at a time and require a harvest between each process. But we wouldn't have to constantly be feeding the plant boxes.
Or make a seed hopper that will automatically feed seeds to nearby empty planters.
We have to eat so often that farming is a practical part of keeping a character alive and effective. But doing it, as it is now, is just so tedious that this aspect of the game isn't fun. It's literally painful.
| Category Tags | Farming, Recruitable NPCs (Companions) |
| Mode | Both Online & Offline |
| Sentiment | Feature Request |
Having a "seed bag" (or just let us equip the seeds directly) and then point at the planter and click to add that seed to that planter, would have been a faster interface for planting.
I support the need for further evolution of the planting/farming systems.
At this point I think there is a clear pathway forward building on what is there already, using the progression system to introduce higher tier, more efficient or convenient options.
In 0.5, cropping progression is from planter boxes to large numbers of either pteridium pots or gertrude pots (no difference between these beyond aesthetics) in order to cram more plants into a smaller space. Efficiency is achieved through tinkering with tempest cards for permanent rain and herbarium realms for growth rates, or farm cards for multipliers on harvest and seed production.
Firstly, there needs to be a higher-tier planter box.
I suggest something like a "Raised Garden Bed" which is a riff on the existing planter box design with fancier timber. Material components could consist of something like blood, bone, and lumber. This should take four (4) seeds at a time, and produce four plants when it grows.
The planter box design clearly has room for a 2x2 arrangement of the existing crop models without clashing. This would be more convenient than planter boxes or pots, but less space-efficient than many pots, presenting the player with a clear trade-off decision between convenience and space conservation.
Secondly, there should be an end-game variant which is more fae in appearance, and does self-watering. This could consist of a "Wardian Case" requiring material components of glass, brass, blood, and essence. I'd suggest the Wardian case be more convenient than the raised garden bed, but less efficient. Maybe two plants per case, but the case has its own internal light and a constant mist of water. This would allow much more convenient cropping inside bases and in odd realms, but be less efficient than the garden beds for large scale farming in a dedicated realm.
For reference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardian_case
With love,
a nightingale fan and plant nerd
I think Planting is due for a redo, it doesnt really make sense, the amount of manual work required to generate 1 carrot or 1 mushroom or something.. manually filling up watering cans from a river, porting back.. perhaps if you got a stack of 10 or 20 yield.. it might be worthwhile.
Also the Rain Barrels, I thought they were intended to be used as a source of water to make watering gardens easier, it would be a nice 2nd use if nothing else.
If survivors can not just plant seeds but water the plots that would be great.
Maybe the plots can have a similar fuelling system as forges, but just accept water?
You can give your companion Survivor seeds, turn on "Refueling" and set them to "Work Here", and they will plant the seeds for you at all the locations nearby available, until they run out of seeds.
They won't harvest them for you, but if you play a Tempest card, and thus have it rain consistently, the only thing you need to do is give them seeds, and harvest the plants.
You don't need to plant a thing or water a thing, which should help a lot with what you're suffering from.
You can go about fishing or doing a number of other tasks whilst your companion does all your farming for you.
-Kahz
Some sort of tool that lets you avoid having to click on the plant-box and then the seed and then closing the window would be ideal. Some sort of automated seed hopper or queueing of the seeds as the OP suggests would be ideal, as would having Survivors helping with the planting.
Or at the least, some sort of craftable, hand-held seed drill that can be loaded with seeds, aimed at a plant-box and clicked once to plant.
A couple of QoL things that some might not know: Set your container filled with seeds to Build from Storage. Also, while examining the Plant Box or Pot, you can double click a seed to plant it - no need to click and drag.
I do very much agree with seed queueing though - great idea.
Completely agree, I’ve just made a post about multiple companions/automation and having the companions you recruit over time, stay at your base and do tasks/work on what you want them too, that would assist here. I think the game could really do with you being able to have more companions assisting at base while you’re out doing what you need too, even having a party of 2/4 companions with you harvesting and stuff would help tenfold at times