Farming and Rebuilding

[Catamus]

I think that we should have some sort of farming system… like perhaps burrying fruit in the ground er something could provide you with more fruit… also there should be some sort of way to create and manage your own colony… just a couple of ideas…

[Binky]

Farming would make the game too easy/unbalanced currently, you could just sit back away from the cities and grow everything you need. However, I think there are plans for a limited sort of farming system.

Managing your own colony sounds like a different game completely however…

[Alpha]

I agree with that farming should be there, but it should take a large amount of time to get the plants grown, this way its not too easy and it would take more planning, if you think it makes the game to easy its simply something you do not have to do, and colony is the wrong word for it but i do think making a group where you can have people guarding your home base and also able to get them armed to the teeth while managing their needs or giving them the ability to access food laying around the area, this adds a new feature that adds a ton of realism, that’s what real humans do in these situations being a lone wolf in a zombie world is always certain death,management should be just grouping and commands like stay here and guard or whatever. maybe the ability to ration food to certain rates, 1-5 food items a day, or whatever also if the idea were to be taken seriously you could go into the npcs issues like a need for certain drugs and having certain skills so a preference on weapons and ammo, giving them the ability to make runs for food and drink or ammo, and having independent choices, own morals and stuff, these are all things that come with a group in an apocalyptic world

[Drakasin]

IIRC the devs said that while using the current engine colonies/settlements/whatever are impossible to add due to how the engine handles things outside of the character’s view. IIRC the devs said that the game would have to be largely rewritten for it to be possible or something.

[Asra]

If planting crops is possible and done I’d want it to at least take 13 in-game days or so for the plants to grow. Then you’d have to make growing impossible during the Winter too.

[Zach42]

I’m not a programmer, but it doesn’t seem like it would be too hard to add a respawning feature for fruits and vegetables that “grow” in the fields on the farms. Just incorporating that much would add a great incentive to set up shop on a farm for a good food supply

[AseaHeru]

besides, what do you do when all the citys are looted? or when you have no ammo to go looting with.

[uzername]

Mutated poppy flowers appeared in Cataclysm due to my farming mod experiments. I tried to make them able to grow and spread over the fields.
Here’s my concept of farming mod algorithm:

Let's imagine we have a plant which has 3 stages of growing (for instance)
Define a terrain objects for each of those stages:
       t_plant_initstage, //the player has just planted the seed
       t_plant_1stage,
       t_plant_2stage,
       t_plant_3stage,
       t_plant_final  //the plant is ready for harvesting
When the night falls:
       Replace terrain for this plant:
            { t_plant_initstage ----is_replaced_by----> t_plant_1stage; end}
            { t_plant_1stage ----is_replaced_by----> t_plant_2stage; end}
            { t_plant_2stage ----is_replaced_by----> t_plant_3stage; end}
            { t_plant_3stage ----is_replaced_by----> t_plant_final; end}

The problem here is that it might be difficult to handle the nightfall event.

[KA101]

Difficult or not, I’d like explicit feedback on sunrise/set. Those of us with CBM:Solar & High/Full Night Vision kinda need more than the shrinking FoV to tell when it’s OK to go inside.

[Tripsky]

an idea regarding crops …

how about due to acid rain a large percentage of crops grow withered, like on farms. therefor harvest glass from town and make a greenhouse to ensure healthy growth. a big output in infrastructure to keep a steady source of food available.

[AseaHeru]

I like both of those ideas.

[JasonCD]

With a Calender more or less in place, why not just tie as much realism as possible into it? Set the crops up so that only certain ones can be planted at certain times of the year. Have it so that they need to be tended and the soil they grow in possibly fertilized. And, of course, make the growth time for certain crops rather lengthy. It’s one thing to get a tomato after two weeks, but a tree for oranges or apples should take at least a season if not more.

In addition, a rain barrel would be quite nice to have with any sort of farming/wilderness survival system. When it’s just common rain you get so many liters per in game minutes, but if it turns acidic the batch is automatically spoiled and unusable by the player.

[Flare]

besides, what do you do when all the citys are looted? or when you have no ammo to go looting with.

Make bows and go hunting. Or make a flamethrower or coil gun and use an infinite and near infinite supply of ammunition respectively.
Other than that, if you manage to clear all the towns of everything, would you really want to keep playing? I mean, it must take a couple of real life months or even years to clear all the cities of everything usable.

In any case, there are some very fast growing crops out there, like radishes (less than 1 month), most leafy green vegetables, bean sprouts take very little time if you just plop them in water though you won’t get any usable seeds from them this way. Some species of mushrooms also grow quite quickly as well. And lets not forget some species of mold too if you’re willing to eat them.

[AseaHeru]

exactly. we need farming.