A harvester?

[Gromit]

I looked through the first 3 pages and didnt find any suggestions for this.

So, harvesting crops can take quite a long time depending on the size of them and i was thinking that there could be a harvester which you use like a plow to harvest your crops faster then doing it by hand. Im not sure on what should be required to build it, but i rekon these should be its negative affects:

lose half of the LP you would harvest from hand if you use this.
Have a 10% chance the harvester will destroy the crop when attempted to harvest.

Just what i think, whats your thoughts?

[DatOneGuy]

I don't think it should have a chance of you destroying your crop, however losing LP sounds reasonable.

Something to speed it up would be nice, massive fields can be a pain, I'm really just more for something like being able to mark off a row and you harvest everything along the way.

[Gromit]

Yeah, especially making mass fields of wheat and then having to harvest them...
Maybe it could have a setting (if possible) to drop any seeds under a certain quality you set so you dont get crappy Q seeds?

[DatOneGuy]

Yeah, especially making mass fields of wheat and then having to harvest them...
Maybe it could have a setting (if possible) to drop any seeds under a certain quality you set so you dont get crappy Q seeds?

One could only dream

If there were huge sacks, or perhaps some form of HUGE inventory for just this (Let's say 8x8 inventory, accepts seedbags, and the seeds go right in the seedbag?)

To be honest if it were going straight into your inventory, and let's say you harvested something that was seedbags only (wheat for example ; ignoring straw atm) you'd be able to harvest 90 tiles with it before having a problem, which is pretty good to be honest.

Then again perhaps it can have a refined inventory for it's own purpose or some crazy way of storing things, some downside such as mixing quality together so that it's only good for mass production (let's say it tosses all the seeds together and just gives them the average of all their Qs) would be cool, so that the farmer who takes his time would have better quality over time as opposed to the mass producer.

[Gromit]

I agree, right now with my harvested wheat (i had cubboards upon cubboards filled) i tossed everything under 15 and planted the rest that are over 15 for better quality seeds and straw in the long run. My figure is that it only harvests the seeds but not anything that drops on the ground, that must be done by hand i reckon?

[DatOneGuy]

I agree, right now with my harvested wheat (i had cubboards upon cubboards filled) i tossed everything under 15 and planted the rest that are over 15 for better quality seeds and straw in the long run. My figure is that it only harvests the seeds but not anything that drops on the ground, that must be done by hand i reckon?

From what I understand it's best to not over-think these things, devs rarely (if ever?) take anything exactly how it's put here, however some basic ideas do help in the off case they hadn't thought of something.

So I guess if it happens, we'll have to wait and see how they do it

[Gromit]

Good point, alright, thanks!

[Azkanan]

As opposed to making a new thread for this, I searched, and this thread is the result of that.

Harvesters were horse-pulled, so the big petrol-guzzling Combine Harvesters aren't required. If they were used in the era that this game is based off, however, is another question all together.

Ugh. Image tags don't allow Width tags in them, so, here's the link.

[Repercussionist]

I am against any kind of automatic harvester, whether it be mechanical, horse drawn, queuing, or slave labor... The reason being is that I think it would have a negative impact on trade and it would give an advantage to higher leveled villages. Many developed villages already have high quality crops and when you start making it possible to harvest huge fields with relatively little manpower, you give them more quantity in less time which they could then use to overrun the trade market (some possible results I foresee: people only trade with the village with the highest quality crops/plant items; villages stop trading metal for fibers, or only accept large orders of fibers because it would be easier to harvest their own than deal with trading), seeing as they will always have tons of crops AND the other items associated with them (straw, fibers, flour) or they could mass produce high quality food and could easily make up for fact that tidiness was removed just in that extra quantity by eating, draining stamina, and eating (a process which is limited in the number of times you can do this by the amount of food you have). Also, I think it might encourage macroing to harvest "waste" fields for lp.

[Pyre]

Hmm never heard of an Iron Age combine.