Agriculture Machines

[Begogian]

Now you may be asking why I started this thread because there is already a thread on Agriculture, but I thought I would address an idea of how it should work when implemented into the game. 

 

I was thinking about it and after talking with JC at the meetup I have thought of a great way to implement growing and cultivating crops into DU. One of the problems JC has been talking about when it comes to crops and animals is they have to design them and write the code to have them randomly generate through the planets but there is a way to do the same thing but make it easier on the developers to implement.

 

Imagine a machine that you build out of materials that starts at a 10 x 10 square. When you place down the farming machine it places down a 10 x 10 fence box and starts "growing and cultivating" crops. It doesn't place down the crops, instead it simulates them growing and being harvested, then places them inside the machine's inventory. Then you can build upgrades for speed and efficiency. Place and attach these upgrades to the machine to improve it. One upgrade is a 'harvester' for speed, one is a 'processor' that gets you more crops per "harvest" and more. Then you can build machine upgrades and place them inside the machine that increases the cultivation size. One upgrade is 20 x 20, one is 30 x 30 and so on to a maximum size. There can also be biome specific plants that you can select. Each biome can cultivate certain crops that do certain things in the world. You can go in the machines settings and select the crops you want it to grow. During certain times in the games, certain crops won't grow so you will have to change the crops produced when "seasons" change. 

 

The machine will need to be powered and have a machine that feeds it water, possibly a machine that pulls water out of the air or processes it using some sort of technique that can be discussed below if you want. Crops can be used for biofuel, medicine and so on. 

 

The best way I can try and explain it more, sorry, is by using the harvester and planter from FTB Minecraft. I know, minecraft minecraft, but it is a great example of how it could work.

Harvester: https://ftbwiki.org/Harvester

Planter: https://ftbwiki.org/Planter

 

If you have any questions, more ideas to add on to this, or better ways of doing it then let me know, it is just a cool idea. And I know I ramble so if I didn't explain it right let me know, somethings like this are hard to move from mind to words.

[SimonVolcanov]

In general it's quite a nice idea. Makes me think about indoor farming, farmer skills which would allow you to gain maximum yield from those farms (to prevent farm raids and stuff. I guess people would rather buy from one farmer instead of raiding ten for the same outcome) the necessity of light and soil, the latter maybe even included in the original construction. Also, the biomes thing sounds really good, as it would encourage farmers to spread out across planets, instead of gathering in a single place. 

The use of crops was something I thought about for a while now. Buff foods would make little sense from a logical place, except maybe if you combine food with certain chemicals, a survival aspect is, as far as I know, not planned (correct me if I'm wrong, I have been out for a while) so the only options would be heal items or fuel. 

[Kurock]

For crops and animals, there is no getting away from designing them. Animals will need to be included in the random generation of a planet but field crops will not need to necessarily.

 

A way to get field crop seeds is to search/destroy a patch of misc plants in a biome and have a chance of getting seeds of field crops based on that biome.

 

After the seeds are obtained, the actual growing of the seeds can be done in multiple ways, although abstracted planter elements that grow everything inside the element is the easiest to implement since it does not affect any voxels outside the element. These are ideal for space.

 

First prize would be terrestrial farming which could be quite involved. Here the plant growth is outside the elements used. And each element has a range of effect so it can be used in a static construct to do the same area over and over again or a ship to tend multiple fields. For example:

A tiller element which prepares the soil for planting,

planter element which plants seeds,

optional growth enhancing elements (sprayers/lamps),

Harvester element to take in the plants.

 

This was just quick off the top of my head.

[DarkTemplar]

Maybe different skills allow you to grow different crops, build/maintain a harvester to a higher level and just make you a better farmer. And this is the future, so you will/should be able to genetically modify your crops for different things. Amount of water needed, heat/cold resistance, amount of time in sun needed, time to grow and crop yield, etc. (Assuming those variables will be there to affect crops.)

[Begogian]

First prize would be terrestrial farming which could be quite involved. Here the plant growth is outside the elements used. And each element has a range of effect so it can be used in a static construct to do the same area over and over again or a ship to tend multiple fields. For example:

A tiller element which prepares the soil for planting,

planter element which plants seeds,

optional growth enhancing elements (sprayers/lamps),

Harvester element to take in the plants.

 

This was just quick off the top of my head.

 

So these would be the different components needed to fabricate a single farming unit. Also, I think from the stand point of making the plants easier to install into the game, there can be a generic plant model that shows up within the confounds of the fences but still produces different crops. 

 

Maybe different skills allow you to grow different crops, build/maintain a harvester to a higher level and just make you a better farmer. And this is the future, so you will/should be able to genetically modify your crops for different things. Amount of water needed, heat/cold resistance, amount of time in sun needed, time to grow and crop yield, etc. (Assuming those variables will be there to affect crops.)

 

That's what I was thinking too. It would be interesting to see a skill branch all about crops and genetically modifying crops for different uses

[Anaximander]

I did lay down my agriculture suggestion at the other thread, but here goes nothing .


My suggestion revolves around certain things :

1) Fertile Grounds : You can't just prop up agriculture anywhere, and not any ground is equally fertile. This would emulate the EVE Online mentality of "less safety = more productivity". So, inside the Arkships' Safezones? The yeild is slow, but the productivity rate is of-put by the sheer number of immediate access. Some "herbs" can't be placed within the Arkship's Safezone. Sorry aspiring Druglords, Arkship says no-no. You wanna be a thug? You better live in the thug-lands. The further one is from the Arkship, the better (and faster) the yield is on crops.  As an added bonus, you can't have the plants be in constant lack of sunlight. 

2) GMO Food : Instead of upgrading harvesters, we simply have genetics in the game. You start with harvesting a certain plant, then researching it, then researching it even more to produce a better variant of it, like a better variant of it, then you use this "Blueprint Copy" (ala EVE Online) and plant seeds on the ground, which will produce them Brocollis of Doom. This guarantees that there are Seed Producers, and Farmers. Those two jobs, are not the same. One is producing sseds that only farmers buy, the other produces first sector products, like vegetables, similar to people in EVE producing Blueprint Copies for ship modules, while others buy said Blueprint Copies to keep their industry going.

3) Farmville Universe Online : like the "fuel for shields" idea, you got somethign like that but in reverse. You water a plant, and it gets a cooldown on it. The plant can be watered a set amount of times before its ripe for harvesting, some plants take more waterings per day to be produced at their maximum yield, some plants take less. It's what Genetic Modification is for, to make said better plants happen. After a certain amount of time, you choose to harvest the plants and go sell thme in the farmer's market or w/e.

So, with this model, a planet, far from a safezone, can produce a high count of a crop, but in exchange, you trade safety. Why? Cause if you were to produce 10 times as fast as a person inside a safezone would, with the added bonus of having little to no protection doing so as you can't keep all your crops within a permanent safety bubble, as Protection Bubbles and shields COST fuel (you need to upset the production somehow). It's a trade-off.

And let's be honest, dedicated farmers will be the ones to make mad banks out of this kind of gameplay, or people woh RP a lo and/or people running small communities in-game. Like JC said on the GDC Q&A, some places have easy access to food for cheap, others have not, so its value rises.

Just add the Good Ol' EVE mechanism of expiration dates, and while hunger won't be a legit worry, food going bad will be, as well as military bunkers requiring Cold Storage Units to slow down that expiration day dramatically.

These are my two cents on the matter

P.S. : this does not cover my idea of food processing. That's Cooking and it's a totally differnet beast to tackle

[Darkarma]

I did lay down my agriculture suggestion at the other thread, but here goes nothing .

 

 

My suggestion revolves around certain things :

 

1) Fertile Grounds : You can't just prop up agriculture anywhere, and not any ground is equally fertile. This would emulate the EVE Online mentality of "less safety = more productivity". So, inside the Arkships' Safezones? The yeild is slow, but the productivity rate is of-put by the sheer number of immediate access. Some "herbs" can't be placed within the Arkship's Safezone. Sorry aspiring Druglords, Arkship says no-no. You wanna be a thug? You better live in the thug-lands. The further one is from the Arkship, the better (and faster) the yield is on crops.  As an added bonus, you can't have the plants be in constant lack of sunlight. 

 

2) GMO Food : Instead of upgrading harvesters, we simply have genetics in the game. You start with harvesting a certain plant, then researching it, then researching it even more to produce a better variant of it, like a better variant of it, then you use this "Blueprint Copy" (ala EVE Online) and plant seeds on the ground, which will produce them Brocollis of Doom. This guarantees that there are Seed Producers, and Farmers. Those two jobs, are not the same. One is producing sseds that only farmers buy, the other produces first sector products, like vegetables, similar to people in EVE producing Blueprint Copies for ship modules, while others buy said Blueprint Copies to keep their industry going.

 

3) Farmville Universe Online : like the "fuel for shields" idea, you got somethign like that but in reverse. You water a plant, and it gets a cooldown on it. The plant can be watered a set amount of times before its ripe for harvesting, some plants take more waterings per day to be produced at their maximum yield, some plants take less. It's what Genetic Modification is for, to make said better plants happen. After a certain amount of time, you choose to harvest the plants and go sell thme in the farmer's market or w/e.

 

So, with this model, a planet, far from a safezone, can produce a high count of a crop, but in exchange, you trade safety. Why? Cause if you were to produce 10 times as fast as a person inside a safezone would, with the added bonus of having little to no protection doing so as you can't keep all your crops within a permanent safety bubble, as Protection Bubbles and shields COST fuel (you need to upset the production somehow). It's a trade-off.

 

And let's be honest, dedicated farmers will be the ones to make mad banks out of this kind of gameplay, or people woh RP a lo and/or people running small communities in-game. Like JC said on the GDC Q&A, some places have easy access to food for cheap, others have not, so its value rises.

 

Just add the Good Ol' EVE mechanism of expiration dates, and while hunger won't be a legit worry, food going bad will be, as well as military bunkers requiring Cold Storage Units to slow down that expiration day dramatically.

 

These are my two cents on the matter

 

P.S. : this does not cover my idea of food processing. That's Cooking and it's a totally differnet beast to tackle

This definitely needs to be done

[DarkHorizon]

Just a passing thought, but I cant wait to see how urban farming turns out in this game. 

[Anaximander]

Just a passing thought, but I cant wait to see how urban farming turns out in this game. 

You mean like rooftop greenhouses?

[DarkHorizon]

You mean like rooftop greenhouses?

 

In a sense, yes.