Growing Grass

[Fierce_Deity]

Add in a specific seed for grass. This grass would have the ability to be planted on plowed land like other crops, but it will have a different way to increase in quality.
This grass will be treated like a crop, but it will really be just for harvesting grass. For hay. So we can stop feeding animals that eat grass carrots and beets.
You can harvest large swathes of it at a time with the scythe, its ready to harvest every two or three days, and should have a recipe to build it into a hay bale/bundle. Or really big stockpiles that can go into carts.
If the bale route is taken, it could be rolled by the player at crawl speed, and provide food to animals with a smaller radius than a through.

I was thinking that this grass would be something you plant once, and never pull it up. A little like how trelli work, but the grass will have a unique way of increasing quality. This way you can harvest the grass when its ready as a food source for animals. Grass's quality would need to be increased by compost, or manure if that is added. There would have to be a time cap on how often this can be done. With this system, you will still have to work to increase the quality of your grass, but you won't have to deal with replanting it, or ripping it out for the new quality seeds. The amount the grass can increase in quality which each fertilizing should be capped at 1-3 depending on the quality of the fertilizing material vs. the grass's current quality.

As for harvesting seeds, I dunno, just let the grass drop some seeds upon harvest. I was thinking initially that it could have two stages where grass could be harvested, but the second one could also provide seeds. Seeds will always be the quality of the current grass, not higher in quality. People don't grow grass by ripping it out every time they mow it or harvest it for hay. They fertilize it to keep it fertile and growing quickly.
Grass seeds would only be for the purpose of planting more grass or feeding to chickens.
Note: For this idea, the grass will only grow like a crop if its planted on tilled ground. Its seeds could still be used to spread normal grass like other seeds today.



If seasons are ever added, making grass grow 3x as slow in winter would be a nice addition. This would encourage stocking up on bales of hay for animals, and encourage trade for those who didn't store enough to get through the cold season.

[Granger]

Some additional ideas on this:

• Call it meadow to differentiate from grass
• Give it more stages (10 or so)
• Enable domesticated animals to directly feed from the tiles (like grass now)
• Feeding from meadow will reduce the stage
• Feeding from stage 1 picks one from the adjacent tiles (not recursive) instead, turn this to dirt if selected tile isn't eligible
• Modify growth speed according to the local water table (which would give dowsing another aspect)
• Enable us to raise growth rate for stages <4 by watering (area mechanic as planting from a bucket, just with water)
• Fertilizer increases the chances of quality raise on growth tick
• Enable us bring in fertilizer (compost, guano), applying same as with water
• Animals poop on current tile (dosn't need graphics) when they feed, same effect as manually applying fertilizer but less yield
• Let us harvest hay from stage 6 onward (yielding more at higher stages), reducing the tile to a low stage (like 2)
• On growth tick (which should happen even at last stage) with stage > 8 give chance to spread to adjacent dirt / empty plowed tile
• Give seeds additionally at stage 10
• Chance to average quality with one adjacent meadow tile on growth tick (to alleviate quality hotspots)

[Onep]

Graaaaaassssss

[Ilha3]

What do the players who began play in the winter. And they do not have neighbors who have a diet? Swim to the other end of the geographical map for animal feed?

If there is no guarantee that the food will be sold for an adequate price, the animals can be buried once and not have to worry.

[MrPunchers]

What do the players who began play in the winter. And they do not have neighbors who have a diet? Swim to the other end of the geographical map for animal feed?

If there is no guarantee that the food will be sold for an adequate price, the animals can be buried once and not have to worry.

Where did seasons even come up. There is no seasons.

[Ilha3]

What do the players who began play in the winter. And they do not have neighbors who have a diet? Swim to the other end of the geographical map for animal feed?

If there is no guarantee that the food will be sold for an adequate price, the animals can be buried once and not have to worry.

Where did seasons even come up. There is no seasons.

quote

If seasons are ever added, making grass grow 3x as slow in winter would be a nice addition. This would encourage stocking up on bales of hay for animals, and encourage trade for those who didn't store enough to get through the cold season.

[Granger]

If seasons are ever added
This is the key part, imho, Seasons and weather are far away.

But: Additional ways to feed livestock would be welcome now.

[iamahh]

would be nice to move group of animals around like an RTS game, maybe using a sheppard staff, or even a dog

[Fierce_Deity]

Some additional ideas on this:

• Call it meadow to differentiate from grass
• Give it more stages (10 or so)
• Enable domesticated animals to directly feed from the tiles (like grass now)
• Feeding from meadow will reduce the stage
• Feeding from stage 1 picks one from the adjacent tiles (not recursive) instead, turn this to dirt if selected tile isn't eligible
• Modify growth speed according to the local water table (which would give dowsing another aspect)
• Enable us to raise growth rate for stages <4 by watering (area mechanic as planting from a bucket, just with water)
• Fertilizer increases the chances of quality raise on growth tick
• Enable us bring in fertilizer (compost, guano), applying same as with water
• Animals poop on current tile (dosn't need graphics) when they feed, same effect as manually applying fertilizer but less yield
• Let us harvest hay from stage 6 onward (yielding more at higher stages), reducing the tile to a low stage (like 2)
• On growth tick (which should happen even at last stage) with stage > 8 give chance to spread to adjacent dirt / empty plowed tile
• Give seeds additionally at stage 10
• Chance to average quality with one adjacent meadow tile on growth tick (to alleviate quality hotspots)

I like most of this, but it feels like its over complicating it. Lots of stages sounds good for grass tho, but I'm on the fence as to whether animals should be able to eat it directly.
Also...watering sounds too tedious, and the water table idea is shoddy. Lets just leave water out of this, like with the rest of the crops. Just needs a mechanic to manually increase quality so that it does not have to be improved with generations like normal crops.

[Granger]

I like most of this, but it feels like its over complicating it. Lots of stages sounds good for grass tho, but I'm on the fence as to whether animals should be able to eat it directly.

Grazing is the classic and proven way of feeding lifestock, before some sick fucks decided it was a good idea to head toward abominations (NSFV).

Also...watering sounds too tedious, and the water table idea is shoddy.

Your reasoning for this, please?
FYI: Taking the water table into account is not ment to change the growth speed by some orders of magnitude, only slightly to give a pleasant visual effect and should you really want maximum production you would have to plan ahead a bit (location, location, location: a moist meadow leads to faster growth of juicy stuff to graze). Manual watering also isn't required at all, but could be used to speed up creating a meadow from scratch (by planting some tiles and water them so they more quickly come to the stage where they'll have a chance to spread on their own or can be harvested for seeds.) or restoration to a healthy stage level after overpopulation or harvesting hay (without needing to move away the cattle or supplying food in troughs to keep the meadow from being eaten down even more).

Just needs a mechanic to manually increase quality so that it does not have to be improved with generations like normal crops.

That's in there: add fertilizer to raise the chance of q increase or - if you're lazy - add animals ontop of it so they add the fertilizer for you.