Increase seed floating time

[ttc]

Apparently seeds float in from the edges of the map then fall to the ground and start growing new grass and trees. All my games end up with a ring of vegetation around the outside of the map and a denuded circle of bare earth in the middle. Can the floating time be increased/randomised so that we can get some grass and trees in the middle?

[O Negative]

Replace the word "time" with "rate" in your title, and your message makes a lot more sense

If I'm not mistaken, this would be extremely easy to mod!
Assuming:
<seedEmitMTBDays>3.5</seedEmitMTBDays>
Determines the reproductive rate of plants, where 3.5=days/seed produced, all you'd have to do is lower the number 3.5 to something you'd like.

Your increase in spread rate can be found with the equation: y=3.5/x
Where y is your increase in spread rate, and x is your new number.

For instance, lowering the number to 3 would effectively increase the spread rate of plants by roughly 17%
Changing 3.5 to 2.5 would increase the spread rate by 40%
And, changing 3.5 to 2 would increase the spread rate by 75%
And so on...

Just remember to not make x=0, or the universe will explode



TL;DR - Yes, it should be easy to do

[sadpickle]

I just wish grass could grow spontaneously. There's a billion ways for grass to get removed (temp, fires, animals, fallout, etc) but only one way to get it back. Birds and other animals eat seeds in one spot and poop them out in another, it's how plants in the real world get around. It should be easy to simulate rare, spontaneous grass growth in any uncovered outdoor area.

[Serenity]

Yeah, I don't see how that mechanic is even necessary. In reality, underbrush comes back pretty fast after forest fires. Just have grass grow everywhere after a while (depending on the soil type of course).

[O Negative]

Sadpickle: I think that might require a .dll mod of sorts... Or, Tynan might just have to make it core.

Basically, all that would have to be done is increase the "range" of the seed shot/spread. It's a very simple fix, but I can't say how easy it would be for any one of us to do, necessarily.

[sadpickle]

Yeah, I don't see how that mechanic is even necessary. In reality, underbrush comes back pretty fast after forest fires. Just have grass grow everywhere after a while (depending on the soil type of course).

That's what I'm saying. The grass should grow anywhere there is dirt spontaneously. On the largest map size the seeding mechanism is totally unacceptable, it just looks ridiculous and makes hunting grazers a chore.

I understand in earlier Alphas there was no super-huge maps; the default map size is small enough were seeding works, basically. It's not a mechanic designed for large maps.

[O Negative]

I'm in the middle of testing out a mod I made to solve this problem. Trying to figure out a good ratio for the various "carpet" plants, such as grass/tall grass and dandelions, without it being overwhelming. Once that's done, I'll move on to the trees (did you guys know that a typical tree will only shoot a seed every 18 days, and only within 10 tiles of itself?)

If you guys are interested in what I conjure up, I'll post it here for you guys. If not, I won't lol

It's currently 4:40am for me, though. So I'm going to bed for a few

P.s. Changing the distance a seed can travel was trivial, but only after I used ILSpy to look at the Assembly .dll

[O Negative]

Here: Grass Spread/Natural Afforestation

As to not mess with resource balance, I didn't touch trees. A normal sized map can be wiped completely of all vegetation, and be back to normal (grass-wise) in little over half of a year.

Notes:

• FPS does seem to take a minor hit with the increased frequency of spreading grass/weeds
• Grass and tall grass outgrow trees by a landslide, and feels more realistic without being overwhelmingly fast (for me at least)

And, by the way, no. Having grass spontaneously grow anywhere there is dirt isn't really a good idea. It's actually pretty unrealistic¹, unbalanced², and unoptimized³ for that matter.

¹Sure, roots might grow back the original plant after a fire, but there's no guarantee of that. Plus, what if a player is trying to rid their home area of such plants for whatever reason?
(ie. they're still using wood and want to minimize risk of forest fires becoming house fires)
²What consequences do natural forest fires hold if they do not at least displace the wildlife you're hunting? Lost resources? Hardly. Most people stop using wood after the first few seasons. Plus, the rain stops fires before you've lost too much anyways. Injuries? Meh, every now and again, but it's nothing significant. Forest fires, gone unchecked, leaving 'scars' of barren land are normal. Although, it would be nice if they left some ash behind... 
³Having the game check for empty fertile & dirt cells all of the time for the sake of convenient hunting, in a game designed to challenge players, is a waste of processing power; especially on the larger valley maps which have a TON of dirt cells... Sending a seed every 3.5 days to a random spot is much easier (and looks more natural/has cause)

[ttc]

Thanks so much for the mod. I'm downloading it now to give it a try. When you say the FPS takes a beating, what kind of performance drop are you talking about?

[O Negative]

Thanks so much for the mod. I'm downloading it now to give it a try. When you say the FPS takes a beating, what kind of performance drop are you talking about?

Nothing much, really. While on max-speed and zoomed out all of the way, I just noticed a 1-4 FPS drop every now and again. Most likely due to the sheer amount of seeds flying around at the speed I was at lol. I only put that note there just in case someone is using a sensitive computer which can't handle much stress.

Feel free to let me know how it works out for ya!

[ttc]

This is glorious! For the first time the middle of my map isn't a barren wasteland!

[mumblemumble]

Also, letting seeds go through walls would help...that way walled in areas wont become barren.

[kcirdor]

This is glorious!

https://youtu.be/E7oMBq1vkCM

[O Negative]

This is glorious! For the first time the middle of my map isn't a barren wasteland!

I'm glad it's working out for ya
This whole ordeal actually inspired me to look into feral flora ecology in RimWorld as a whole.
Boy, the RimWorld plants wiki has a lot of things wrong...
I have a whole spreadsheet full of actual grow times, which throws wood/day and food/day values way off lol

But yeah, enjoy!

Also, letting seeds go through walls would help...that way walled in areas wont become barren.

See, I'm trying to figure out this whole seed generation/shooting thing.
There's not really a verb I can modify like the mortar shot, in order to allow the seed to go over walls
By decompiling, I get a pretty decent idea of what's going on but I still have some questions:

• Does a plant have to be mature to emit a seed?
• If not, how mature does it need to be?
• Is the radius a "range" or is it a given value for which the seed always travels?

I'm sure I'll come up with more as I start to look into things more... That's just the nature of it

[Serenity]

Also, letting seeds go through walls would help...that way walled in areas wont become barren.

But sometimes you want to keep grass out. Like out of a greenhouse.