Plowed tiles not reverting with crops on them

[Atherman]

As a farmer of a variety of different crops, I can easily say the most incredibly annoying thing I face daily is the tiles of plowed ground beneath my crops turning back to normal grass. When I go to replant my crops, random tiles need to be re-plowed, making the 'Harvest one tile replant that tile" immensely difficult. It wouldn't be so bad if I had a hoe or some means of not using half my stamina bar to plow that tile, since an actual plow isn't an option when it is surrounded by other crops.

My suggestion, don't let plowed tiles of ground revert into normal ground while a plant is growing in it. Either that or incorporate a hoe that I could use to sort out those random tiles.

[DatOneGuy]

Sure it would benefit, but I personally like the way it is now. You're best off using seedbags and replanting your whole area after anyway... as you want the highest level amongst your whole crops, not just from that one crop that happened to be in that spot.

[burgingham]

First datoneguy is right, there is absolutely no point in harvesting one tile, replanting one tile. This way you will never improve your quality.

Second, if your idea was ever implemented you could just remove the reversion of tiles completely from the game, since you always have crops planted except for the few minutes between harvesting and replanting. Since the devs want decay and reversion in their game this is not a good idea at all.

[Atherman]

Personally I find replanting the highest quality out of the three seeds you receive to be much quicker and more effective than doing the whole field at once. If I get a batch of three seeds that are all low, I'll hold off, but doing them three at a time has resulted in my field gaining quality faster than I've gained skill. I think having plowed tiles revert when left alone is realistic, but when a tile reverts while wheat is planted on it and then a generic grass tile plant grows UNDER your wheat tile, that doesn't make too much sense.

I think you'll find, with very limited inventory space, my way of farming to be a lot less time consuming. And with the invention of a hoe (Hell, we have scythes) or the more realistic non-random plowed tile reversion under your plants factor, it will be all the much better.

[DatOneGuy]

Personally I find replanting the highest quality out of the three seeds you receive to be much quicker and more effective than doing the whole field at once. If I get a batch of three seeds that are all low, I'll hold off, but doing them three at a time has resulted in my field gaining quality faster than I've gained skill. I think having plowed tiles revert when left alone is realistic, but when a tile reverts while wheat is planted on it and then a generic grass tile plant grows UNDER your wheat tile, that doesn't make too much sense.

I think you'll find, with very limited inventory space, my way of farming to be a lot less time consuming. And with the invention of a hoe (Hell, we have scythes) or the more realistic non-random plowed tile reversion under your plants factor, it will be all the much better.

It's the opposite of realistic actually. Over the course of the two days your crops are growing, 6 days have passed ingame and crops have fully grown (in real life takes a lot longer for comparison). Over the course of this time, your crop has pushed up, moved everything you just plowed out of place (the dirt doesn't just decided "Hey I'll stay in place while these crops push right on through me every few centimeters").

This isn't even taking account for weathering which is part of decay.

Inventory space should not be a problem, which is why your way is more time consuming.
Holding an inventory of seedbags (assuming backpack and no merchant's robe) is 72 crops (3 per seedbag).

You can then sort these out by quality using 3 cupboards (Assuming you're sorting all 216 seeds it will take around that much. You can use 3 cupboards for up to around 450 seeds, I've done it before. Within 5 minutes you'll be fully sorted, faster with practice.

Laying them down with shiftclicking after a good metal plowing is unbelievably fast. Within 30 minutes I can fully harvest, sort, replant, and make wheat flour from 7 squares of 5x5 wheat. I also only replant anything that's in the top 5~7quality, so it's very nice to have it in order. Shift+Ctrl+Mousewheel does wonders.

The only part I'll agree doesn't make sense is the reverting to 'grass', it should revert to 'dirt' something like a mudflat, however I'm not going to suggest a special tile just for reverting plowed fields to when I'm sure there's a lot more that needs to be done and isn't just "Well that bothers me... logically..."

[theTrav]

Haven't any of you had to fight to keep grass out of your garden beds before? I think it makes COMPLETE sense for grass to grow on plowed ground...

Do seedbags work reasonably well with the shift + mousewheel dealy yet? Last I checked they were still a bit annoying so I'm still just using a chest and a backpack without any seed bags...


Also, you can use a plow without damaging your existing crops. It's just the tile underneath them that is changed

[ImpalerWrG]

I think adding a hoe would be useful, especially if plows are made to require a draft-animal at some point which would be a lot more realistic (plows are always pulled never pushed). I think we still want to require re-plowing as that is normally required every harvest with real farming. But it should be more consistent, real plowing isn't in little random spots like this. How about having two states of plowed, 'fresh' and 'fallow' (fresh just looks darker), only fresh can be planted in and decays to fallow in about an hour, fallow is then subject to random decay back to 'native' terrain but is very easy to plow back to fresh, a wood plow would go through it at metal plow speed. This would make plowing a normal and manageable part of every planting cycle not just a one time event, but it would be hard to 'break the sod' to make new fields.

[springyb]

It wouldn't be so bad if I had a hoe or some means of not using half my stamina bar to plow that tile, since an actual plow isn't an option when it is surrounded by other crops.

You can use a plow through crops without destroying them.

[DatOneGuy]

Haven't any of you had to fight to keep grass out of your garden beds before? I think it makes COMPLETE sense for grass to grow on plowed ground...

Do seedbags work reasonably well with the shift + mousewheel dealy yet? Last I checked they were still a bit annoying so I'm still just using a chest and a backpack without any seed bags...


Also, you can use a plow without damaging your existing crops. It's just the tile underneath them that is changed

Eh, I wouldn't say ideally, but it works pretty nicely. The problem is that the UI is a little behind what actually happens, so you can actually empty out half your cupboard and fill 9 seedbags before the UI knows you're on the second one. If you know what you're doing and can actually time out how long you have to mousewheel (very simple to get used to) you can do it all, walk away while the client still thinks it's doing work and it'll be done.

[Atherman]

You all seem to have put a lot of thought into your posts and your farming techniques. That's something I like to see. I've already learned quite a few things from reading your responses which is always beneficial. I personally still don't believe a tile should return to normal compacted un-plowed ground when there is still a plant growing on it. I think it would be safe to assume in your personal garden the soil is a lot easier to move around than the ground on your lawn a couple feet away. I would also love a hoe so that I wouldn't have to re-plow my entire field for the 2 or 3 tiles that reverted. I'll give your method a try DatOneGuy but honestly I'd love to continue my own way, more time consuming or not.