Complexify soil and crops

[Chibiabos]

Different plants prefer different soil conditions.  I propose fissioning 'soil fertility' into 'soil nutrients' and 'soil moisture.'

Its my understanding (someone correct me if I'm wrong) that the ideal terrain for rice is actually marshes/marshy soil, it needs a lot of soil moisture.  Corn does better (I understand) in drier soil.  I believe (again, not sure, any real life agronomists to fact-check my poor understanding?) potatoes are hardier versus cold weather (they are tubers and the important part grows underground) so could maybe be a crop that works well in cooler climates and less prone to being destroyed by cold.

I know there a lot of suggestions have been made for making water into a resource for colonist use (drinking/thirst, showers, cooking and brewing, irrigating crops), and certainly my suggestion to make soil moisture as a factor is another argument for this.

Soil moisture could and should fluctuate, of course -- rain adds moisture, and a drought (long period without rain, could maybe be an event that's hidden until its already been a quadrum or so since a rainfall) could starve the soil of moisture and be harmful to moisture-sensitive crops.  Irrigation systems could alleviate this, but maybe particularly long droughts could cause rivers to dry out and irrigation systems to resultingly fail (maybe, as an emergency measure, energy-hungry moisture condensers could be built that condense moisture out of the air into potable water).

[patoka]

eventhough your title kinda scared me i like most of the ideas you had
unfortunately it doesnt look like water is ever going to be added in any kind usable form to the game.(aside from being able to be dried out or not being able to walk on it)

that said, i like the ideas you had. maybe the rice thing is going a bit too far, as they are already a solid plant to grow next to corn on the best soil to have a constant veggie production (eventhough corn gives you more, rice only gives you insignificantly less but ensures you have enough at all times with tribal starts and therefore without fridges)

i like the idea you had about potatoes being able to survive the cold better. i agree, they shouldnt die as fast as other plants. i mean, the stats already say it that potatoes dont care as much about their surroundings, but up until now only the soil quality has been added.

i never really looked into it but aside from the veggies all other plants should also be affected by soil type, more, than they do until now. maybe certain trees can grow better in soil, others maybe in dry soil, others again will only grow decently if planted in the good soil (mangroves could grow in marches and shallow rivers maybe?)

psychoid plants might require normal soil while smoke leaf plant likes it dry, maybe add cocoa beans to produce your own chocolate with cocoa beans and milk and a medium long process of making them

but i guess all these suggestions are only annoying if you dont add a function to more easily discern between the soil types on a large scale when you want to make the planting fields.

my last idea would be only interesting if you added water, but for example in desert and extreme deserts you could have underground lakes and seas, which could be used to turn at least some parts of the sand into gravel or even soil by use of irrigation just the same way as you already can remove marches. fertile soil could also be generated if you add poop to it every once in a while, but yeah, that would take some time to implement