Plant Harvesting and Orchards

Started by O Negative, May 25, 2018, 05:56:28 PM

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O Negative

I know 1.0 is probably near release. However, I wanted to make a small suggestion regarding plants and farming.

As it stands now, plants can be cut or harvested from. If a plant is cut, it is destroyed and any defined products are dropped (ie. Wood). If a plant is harvested, it is usually destroyed and products are still dropped; however, some plants such as wild berry bushes drop products (berries) and aren't destroyed. Instead, they are reverted to a lower growth percentage.

If you try to mod a fruit-bearing tree into the game, you end up with a tree that produces fruit AND wood every time it is harvested. PLUS, it is reverted to a smaller, less-grown version of itself.

I'd like to suggest an option for plants to be fruit-bearing and also maintain whatever growth they have when harvested. Similar to how some animals have milk which can be harvested, but don't get younger when milked...

This would allow for orchards as a long-term option for farming. Orchards would add to gameplay in that they don't require re-planting for each harvest, handle temperature events better, and can be cut for wood if needed, but yeild less food per acre per season.

Just an idea. Any other thoughts on the subject are welcome.

Serenity

Banished had a pretty neat system for orchards like that. They took a few seasons to grow until they gave fruit. And if they were infested by insects you had to cut them down, which hurt because of the growth time.

Aerial

You might check out how the vegetable garden mod works in terms of being able to harvest fruit from fruit trees without chopping them down.  If you do chop the tree down, you get both wood and fruit but if you harvest you get fruit only.

The trees do revert to their "young" state when harvested just like berry bushes do, but since you wouldn't want to chop the fruit trees down anyway (better to let them keep producing fruit) I'm not sure why it would be a problem.

O Negative

The problem with the growth % reverting after harvesting lies in the fact that the wood from the tree is basically lost because you've harvested the fruit. A fully grown tree which yields 30 wood might only yield 10 or none at all after the fruit is harvested. To be honest, it's not a deal breaker if the trees revert to their young age when harvested. The whole harvesting fruit without also harvesting the wood at the same time is the thing I was most interested in.

Call me Arty

 I fully support the idea of having a mother plant that fruit can be havested from without destroying the original plant.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!

cultist

#5
What's the alternative to reverting to a lower growth cycle? If the tree stays at 100% growth after harvesting the fruit, wouldn't it just be harvestable again immediately?

While I agree it doesn't make sense when you think about it, I ike VG's current solution because it's consistent with how other plants behave in the game. Fruit trees behave like their vanilla counter-part - berry bushes - in that they need time to regrow but aren't destroyed when you harvest.

Call me Arty

 If human pawns can get a full night's sleep and still get hungry, I'm sure it isn't beyond the realm of possibility to have a tree and it's fruit grow independently.
Why are you focusing on having a personal life rather than updating a mod that you're not paid to work on?

If there's a mistake in my post, please message me so I can fix it!