The way that grass grows sucks

Started by zacmcmac, December 08, 2017, 11:07:32 PM

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zacmcmac

The way that grass only spreads from the edges of the map is pretty annoying when you have animals. Every winter all the grass dies of and come spring you have a map of dirt but grass only grows on the edges of the map and slowly spreads inward, meaning you have put your grazing zones on the edge of the map and the grass never even covers the whole map before winter comes again (if your play on a large map).

Suggestion: make it so grass will grow anywhere without having to spread from existing grass.

Vlad0mi3r

Have you got any screen shots or saves showing this?

If you are in a biome where the Temp over winter is enough to kill the grass or plant life off. Look at the steam geysers when spring hits you will see grass sprout up around them.
Mods I would recommend:
Mending, Fertile Fields, Smokeleaf Industries and the Giddy Up series.

The Mod you must have:
https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=40545.msg403503#msg403503

Third_Of_Five

+1

It's especially annoying when the grass and plants cover the whole map during the first summer, but then after the first winter the middle area of the map is basically permanently barren.

Tynan

Tynan Sylvester - @TynanSylvester - Tynan's Blog

patoka

Quote from: Tynan on December 09, 2017, 12:48:58 AM
Yes, I want to address this.

wait this is actually a thing? big boss confirms?
i seriously need to play this game more vigilantly. i have always played with an open map and tons of pets (especially muffalo for caravans and battles) and the grass only ever seemed to grow on the border of the map because the animals come to my base to sleep and the first thing they do when they wake up is to eat some grass, so of course first the grass nearby disappears.
i solved this early game by having all my pets sleep in sleeping spots right at the border of the map because they are more spread out that way and therefore have more food available. downside is it is annoying to walk to them to train them, but i countered that by having easily trainable pets. another one would be them being far away from raids mostly and when they occur the raiders would always kill pets that arent even hostile towards them, so now i made them sleep in my barn where i grow corn next to a geyser under the light of a sun lamp indefinitely. that is enough to house even 70 muffalo over double-cold snaps with a winter right inbetween.

tl;dr: didnt know this was a thing but i could always easily play around it without even realizing what the actual problem was. maybe ou should try harder? but maybe this only works because i play on easy maps and not tundra or desert.
surely you dont need to rebutcher corpses that you already half butchered if you leave the table to smoke a joint real quick?

cultist

It's especially problematic with maps that have a lot of rocks or swamp, as these can completely cut off the center of the map from grass growth once the first winter has passed.

Chibiabos

Maybe have a seasonal event each spring, pollen clouds, causes grass and plants to start growing on random patches of barren soil (but could maybe have a downside of, say, giving colonists bouts of allergy fits that make them temporarily slightly ill).
Proud supporter of Rimworld since α7 (October 2014)!

patoka

Quote from: Chibiabos on December 10, 2017, 05:24:45 PM
Maybe have a seasonal event each spring, pollen clouds, causes grass and plants to start growing on random patches of barren soil (but could maybe have a downside of, say, giving colonists bouts of allergy fits that make them temporarily slightly ill).

interesting. you could have a new uncurable disease called hay-fever which makes a colonist have similar symptoms to a flu when the pollen event hits. interesting as an idea but probably in comparison to its usefulness too difficult to implement for tynan to care? but what do i know, this game has 6 types of head gear but no shoes or gloves.(shameless self-plug: https://ludeon.com/forums/index.php?topic=37550.0)
surely you dont need to rebutcher corpses that you already half butchered if you leave the table to smoke a joint real quick?

Chibiabos

I like the idea of making a QoL improvement even more interesting.  Tynan's known about the grass re-seeding problem for awhile (I know I reported it several alphas ago, some maps became unplayable after winter or toxic fallout would eradicate grass in the core, but terrain wouldn't allow grass to re-propagate from the borders to the interior).  I made my suggestion thinking maybe if it were incorporated into a system that also made gameplay more interesting/challenging, that might help mitigate reasons for not implementing a fix.
Proud supporter of Rimworld since α7 (October 2014)!

frenchiveruti

This issue is specially annoying when you build "fire blockers" on the map to avoid massive fires around the map.
Even more, if you have a base that it's enclosed between a mountain and a player made wall, on the first toxic fallout or winter say goodbye to the grass for good.
Anyways Tynan has already addressed that this issue will be solved. (Maybe with MOAR RNG!  ?) 
Maybe animal filth from vegetarian animals have a chance to "plant" some grass? I mean that wouldn't be so crazy.

Shotgunfrenzy

Tynan, to be honest I was trying to make a mod that added a grass that could grow in the snow and if all temperature defs for plats were in xml not c# then I would have been able to do it today but sadly I can't,but yeah this one mod may have almost sorted this whole issue out for the colder biomes

ison

Okay, thanks everyone. The plant reproduction algorithm has been reworked for the next release.

frenchiveruti

Quote from: ison on December 13, 2017, 02:07:16 PM
Okay, thanks everyone. The plant reproduction algorithm has been reworked for the next release.
Yay!

kaptain_kavern

Yay!

I will gladly discontinuing my "fast-growing grass" mod :-D




Keep up the good work guys!

patoka

Quote from: ison on December 13, 2017, 02:07:16 PM
Okay, thanks everyone. The plant reproduction algorithm has been reworked for the next release.

hell to the yeah
surely you dont need to rebutcher corpses that you already half butchered if you leave the table to smoke a joint real quick?