Idea - Beekeeping

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

Hives are an untapped resource for an interesting aspect of village/farming development. In their current incarnation they serve as a useful source of wax and honey, but there’s little control beyond the quality of the crops. Additionally, the process is simple to the point of being thoughtless, build a hive of any quality, slap it down in your fields, and let it go.

There is so much opportunity here that has yet to be exploited, and that’s what this suggestion covers.

Wild Hives
The first step of this update to hives would be the addition of wild hives. Wild hives would have a low aggro level, but could potentially be dangerous. They would fall in threat somewhere between ants and bats (Think ants that will initiate combat sometimes), and provide several valuable resources to the intrepid hive smasher.

Appearance
The Nice Version
Hives would randomly spawn in trees throughout the wild, and would have a light aggro radius around them. The swarms surrounding the hive are not prone to aggro’ing without being provoked, but harvesting flowers, fruits, or chopping trees nearby can aggravate the hive into attacking.

The Not Nice Version
In addition to the above, hives would occasionally spawn when lifting/chopping/inspecting a mirkwood log, or digging up/inspecting a hollow stump. In both these cases the swarms would automatically aggro the enactor.

The Threats
The Swarms
Each hive is protected by a number of swarms, which largely behave like ants, meandering about in the general vicinity of a hive. If the hive is attacked directly, all swarms attack, passing over cliffs and water alike to reach the target. If an individual swarm is attacked, then only that swarm engages the player.

The Damage
“Swollen Stings” is the damage type one receives from hives, and will reduce the targets agility and perception until healed. It is important to note that since this damage can accrue during the battle, it can become a case of a slowly losing fight as the character becomes further and further impaired from agility loss.

The rewards
Hives can be a rich source of food in the form of honey and various bee types.

The Bees
Workers, Drones, Princess, and Queens are all types of bees found in the hive. Workers are just a new food type, while drones are a curio on the same level as soldier ants. Princess Bees are the equivalent of queen ants, and Queens are similar to Empresses in their aspects.

The Comb
Successfully raiding a hive will reward the hearthling with 0-5 combs, which can then be processed into (x) amount of honey and 1 wax nuggets. 5 wax nuggets can be fashioned into a single wax. Quality is determined by their own quality node like most elements within the game.

The Curios
In addition to the Drones, Princess, and Queen, a few other curios can come out of a wild hive, albeit rarely.

Perfect Comb – Can be squeezed for wax and honey, or studied as a curio.
Queen Cup – Can be studied as a curio
Queen Cell – A queen cup with a new queen gestating in it. This serves an additional purpose as well.
Royal Jelly – Is part of the additional purpose listed above, but can also be studied or eaten.

Revamped Beekeeping
Beekeeping in its current incarnation is far too simple and mindless. You build a Skep out of any Q straw, board, and block, and it will serve you the life of your farms with little to no maintenance, just the occasional dip for honey and wax. How droll! New mechanics will be introduced along with this idea that will make beekeeping engaging and interesting, and a vital part of the farming mechanics.

Getting Started
The first thing anyone needs when starting off in apiculture is a bee skep. A basic bee skep will still be the place most people start, and will have the same drawbacks as a clay cauldron. Wax and Honey production will be halved both in speed and quality using a basic bee skep.

Additionally, a bee hive will not immediately start production, requiring at least 24-72 hours from the moment its built for the queen to mature, the hive to be built internally, and wax and honey production to start. It’s at this stage that the hives will finally begin benefiting your crops.

However, the range is limited, roughly half that of present skeps, along with the slowed production mentioned above, and a similar reduction in charges, and extension of recharge times, making them functional, but overall less useful. Additionally, skeps of any type cannot overlap each other, so no getting clever.

As an alternate or addendum to the information provided above, the Q of the Queen has absolutely no effect on the hive whatsoever, and no true apiculture can take place with one. It’s merely a nerfed version of the current state, and a fire-and-forget version of beekeeping.

Hearth Hives
These are the more advanced version of the basic skep. At this point true apiculture can begin to take place. Beehives have traits similar to animals, some of them based on the quality of the hive, some of them based on the qualities of the queen inhabiting it. A queen in a hive of quality less than herself will degrade and perish. So keeping up with your hives is important.

First off, just like with Skeps, hives have to be furnished with a queen cell, but in this case it must be surrounded by royal jelly. The quality of the queen that hatches will be the average of the jellys and the queen cell.

Each of the queens qualities modify the wax and honey qualities and quantities. The inventory of the hive will fill with generated combs, drones, workers, and the occasional curio like queen cups, royal jelly’s and additional queen cells. An occasional perfect comb may be thrown, and combs must be processed (right clicked on a bucket, or right clicked and squeezed (discarding the honey)) to produce wax nuggets and honey.

The quality of the queen and the hive will also determine the number of charges the hive uses, the range, and how quickly they regenerate. (Not represented in the mock-up).

Additionally – Hives will affect trees, increasing the rate at which they respawn fruit, and how quickly they grow to maturity.

Varietal Honeys
Honey takes on the trait of the primary crop or tree it is being used to fertilize, as a result, honey produced by the hive will be of (crop/tree) honey. Each type of honey will have its own FEP, and the qualities of that honey will be the generated by the quality of the plant averaged with the quality of the bees producing it.


This is just a brief overview of the concept and how it can be applied, but it is the opinion of this author that it creates a more dynamic and interesting apiculture experience for farmers.

[shubla]

neat ideas

[Maiden]

They are neat ideas, but they serve to add needless complexity, the game isn't really served by adding it.
You can make an entire game just being about beekeeping, it's that complex a subject, and haven and hearth is not a simulation game, and would not be served by it. Quite frankly, it's a breath of fresh air to have bees how they are now when compared to legacy

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

It doesn't 'add nothing', it adds the ability to improve your beehives, to generate new honeys with new FEP's, to accelerate the growth of trees... Did you even read it all? That last alone should be enough to consider it worth while, considering the value of high Q wood in both legacy and the new system.

[Sever]

The Forestry mod for Minecraft made me develop a deep-seated and well-deserved thermonuclear hatred for bees and their bullshit.

FUCK BEES.

I am not interested in babysitting stinging bastard shits. May they forever sort their own operations as nature intended.

[loftar]

Yeah, we've wanted something like this since the day we first added beehives, so it'll probably happen sooner or later. :)

[shubla]

Yeah, we've wanted something like this since the day we first added beehives, so it'll probably happen sooner or later.

Beehive simulator 2016 confirmed

[Maiden]

It doesn't 'add nothing', it adds the ability to improve your beehives, to generate new honeys with new FEP's, to accelerate the growth of trees... Did you even read it all? That last alone should be enough to consider it worth while, considering the value of high Q wood in both legacy and the new system.

Different types of honey based on what it's speeding up would be nice, yes, but I don't really need the ability to improve my hives, trees are fast as shit on the proper terrain. None of the benefits you have put forward are enough to put up with the pain of bees as you've described.


Not to mention that bees are easy as shit to deal with IRL

[Lunarius_Haberdash]

Yeah, we've wanted something like this since the day we first added beehives, so it'll probably happen sooner or later.

Awesome!

[boreial]

I +1 this idea, well tought out and consistant with the structure of the HnH theme. I would like to see the bee q's also affect the crop outcome q's in some fation say a +1 with bee q's over 20 a +2 @ 30? (just an idea) over all though, yep I like it, adds a bit more dimension to the farming/woodsmanship skill sets.