[A16] Rainbeau's Fertile Fields

[dburgdorf]

A pretty major update:

- I eliminated terrains that were functionally identical to vanilla terrains. For example, previously, when you fertilized soil, you got "fertilized soil," which was just rich soil with a different name. Now, you get rich soil. It keeps things simpler.

- Renamed the architect tab from "fertile fields" to "terraform."

- It's now possible to create shallow water and sand tiles. It's also possible to break up smooth stone into "rocky soil," which puts you on a path to creating farmland from your stone instead of just covering it with topsoil.

- The fertility of tilled soil has been boosted from 160% to 180%.

- Compost bins can now be built in bulk over an area, not just in a line.

- Tilled soil no longer features random scattered rocks.

- It's now possible to plant agave, astragalus, grass, and both pincushion and saguaro cacti.

[NeonElf]

I have a save game that fails to load due to map errors. I had a caravan out in the world in transit, which might be it. I have a previous auto save, so it's not too bad but I thought I'd let you know. Is there anything I can post to help you figure out what's going on?

[dburgdorf]

I have a save game that fails to load due to map errors....

I tried to make sure load errors wouldn't happen; def files for the terrain types I eliminated actually still exist, but just aren't used for anything new and now have display names matching the vanilla tiles they duplicated.

In other words, I was really hoping to avoid "Your update broke my saved game" messages.

Unless....

S**t.

I didn't think of this before, but did you happen to have any terraforming work in progress at the moment of the save? That could explain the map error.

[NeonElf]

It's possible I might have been tilling some fields. Not sure, but I really think the caravan in transit has something to do with it since I had to go back to an auto save before the caravan formed.

[Tammabanana]

Update:

- Added compost barrels as an alternative to compost bins. They require power, but convert 10 compost at a time to fertilizer instead of just one. They're also reusable.

I'm loving this mod. I have a brainstorming-ish suggestion, since I've been reading up on IRL composting lately: it often works best with big piles of compost, so it can heat up nicely inside, and works better if you can stir/turn it occasionally, and apparently farmers often set up one whopping big pile of compost to rot for a year, and it'll be ready for the fields the next year. Whereupon they start a second whopping huge compost pile rotting for the next year's fields, and so on.

So I guess another thing I'd like to see is a big compost bin - maybe 2x2 or 3x3 or 4x1 or something - that holds like 100+ compost, but takes a year to break down into fertilizer. Something that would produce enough fertilizer all at once to do a whole field in one go at the beginning of the planting season.

Another thing I've read is "sheet composting" - where the farmer digs a field, chucks in all sorts of compost and stirs it up, and then lets it sit and compost in place for a couple of months. Anything you try to plant in it before it's done would die off from the high levels of whatsit, but once it's done you have a fertilized field. Haven't thought much about how that might be implemented or whether it may be kind of redundant to existing functions, though.

[dburgdorf]

Bugfix update:

- Revised agave to make it less of a superplant. (Growing time doubled and yield halved, giving it a yield per day now only sightly better than other plants, and it also requires more work than other plants both to sow and to harvest, though not as much work to harvest as in vanilla.)

- Hopefully fixed the issue with saves breaking after the previous update. If you actually still have any saved games that wouldn't load, try again and let me know if they work now.

[dburgdorf]

Another (pretty significant) update:

- Dirt piles are now obtained by digging up soil, which converts the soil (depending upon how much dirt you get) either to gravel or to rocky soil.

- Deep water tiles can now be converted to breakwaters, using a lot of dirt and a lot of effort. Breakwater tiles can be converted to shallow water tiles, just as can marsh tiles.

- Adjusted dirt/fertilizer requirements for a few terrain alterations.

- Compost bins now have a chance to return the wood used to create them, once they're done converting compost to fertilizer.

- Renamed "advanced terrain reclamation" to "terraforming."

- Eliminated the old "infinite dirt" soil pits (but made sure this time that the change wouldn't break any saves).

- Gave up on trying to fix broken saves from last week's update. Sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

[gendalf]

Did you add the marshy soil, the green one, with 46% movement speed - it's useful for trap placing.

It's now possible to plant agave, astragalus, grass, and both pincushion and saguaro cacti.

Maybe separate the plants from terraforming into a separate mod.
Is it compatible with gardening mod now?

The fertility of tilled soil has been boosted from 160% to 180%.

why, what's the fertility of hydroponics basin? I can't find it anywhere.

[dburgdorf]

Did you add the marshy soil, the green one, with 46% movement speed - it's useful for trap placing.

"Fertile Fields" allows you to create both marsh and marshy soil tiles.

Maybe separate the plants from terraforming into a separate mod. Is it compatible with gardening mod now?

Creating a separate mod for the plants is probably not a bad idea. As to compatibility, there shouldn't be any problems. Both mods modify grass, so whichever loads last will "win," but nothing will break, and the changes should be pretty much the same either way.

why, what's the fertility of hydroponics basin? I can't find it anywhere.

Hydroponics basin has a fertility of 230%. I increased tilled soil fertility to 180% because the jump from 140% to 160% just didn't seem quite enough, especially since most of the other "improve your soil" mods out there allow you to get to 200% or even higher.

[Flimflamshabam]

You should see if you can't borrow the darker rich soil texture from the "Where's the rich soil?" mod, I've merged it into my running copy of fertile fields, wasn't too hard even for dumb old me but it'd be great as a default feature.

[dburgdorf]

Update time again:

- Removed plant cultivation into a separate mod, "Wild Cultivation."

- Deep water is now called impassable water, and breakwater, which is no longer impassable, is now deep water.

- It's now possible to create impassable water on the map, though I still think it's a terribly overpowered ability.

- Rocky soil is renamed rocky dirt, which better reflects the fact that it isn't really soil yet, but needs to be improved.

- Map generation has been modified so that all three water depths are generated on new maps, as is rocky dirt.

- The colors of the three water tiles have been adjusted, as has the color of rich soil, which now stands out better from regular soil.

- Dirt, compost and fertilizer now have higher (and much more reasonable) market values.

- Architect menu icons for terraforming options now explain more clearly and consistenty what they do.

- Added language localization file support.

[gendalf]

Sadly not compatible with saves with late January version of the mod.

[dburgdorf]

Sadly not compatible with saves with late January version of the mod.

Unfortunately, the Feb 4 update unintentionally broke earlier saves, and since I have a bad habit of not keeping older copies of the mod myself, I wasn't able to figure out and correct what caused the incompatibility.

That said, though, if you (or anyone else) actually still have a copy of the older version and could get it to me, I'd probably be able to track down and fix the problem.

[gendalf]

dburgdorf, 01/29/2017 version:

Code Select Expand

filedropper.com/rainbeausfertilefields_2

[dburgdorf]

Thanks, gendalf! I'll see now what I can do tonight about "unbreaking" older saves.