My opinion & observations on the new farming mechanics

[landromat]

3 hours ago, Electroely said:

I've been feeding Werepigs 4 stacks of foliage at a time, which is way faster to get than lightbulbs (since you don't need to travel into the deep parts of the caves when you have 8 fossil fragments and a shadow atrium and since the picking animation is faster). And even then, the manure production from that hasn't been matching up to the demands of those plants very well. The amount of time that takes to collect vs how many plants it grows is really bad compared to compost and growth formula.

I don't think it should be easy to grow that type of plants without self sustain nutrition combination, Like garlic, onion and dragon fruit etc

[Electroely]

33 minutes ago, landromat said:

I don't think it should be easy to grow that type of plants without self sustain nutrition combination, Like garlic, onion and dragon fruit etc

I don't like those self sustaining nutrient combinations because they feel like a really specific way to play the game. And I don't think they should be the only way players would be able to grow large amounts of giant crops. I think players should be able to work for fertilizers and get rewarded for that. If players are supposed to rely on these crop combinations for giant crops, then what's the point of adding compost, growth formula and the compost bin?

[landromat]

3 minutes ago, Electroely said:

I don't like those self sustaining nutrient combinations because they feel like a really specific way to play the game. And I don't think they should be the only way players would be able to grow large amounts of giant crops. I think players should be able to work for fertilizers and get rewarded for that. If players are supposed to rely on these crop combinations for giant crops, then what's the point of adding compost, growth formula and the compost bin?

Devs said they know about problem with fertilizers and will make them more viable

[Myself49]

On 12/6/2020 at 9:21 PM, Electroely said:

I don't like those self sustaining nutrient combinations because they feel like a really specific way to play the game. And I don't think they should be the only way players would be able to grow large amounts of giant crops. I think players should be able to work for fertilizers and get rewarded for that. If players are supposed to rely on these crop combinations for giant crops, then what's the point of adding compost, growth formula and the compost bin?

TBH I kind of actually like the system because you have 3 ways that you can grow good plants. One is by growing self sustaining combination patches, second is by focusing on plants that fill up the nutrients you want for your goal plant and third by farming and using actual fertilizers to get the desired nutrients in a patch. But ye they probably have to buff the fertilizers a bit.

I feel like the first two types should be for people that don't want to dedicate much resources and time for the farms while the second type should be viable for people willing to harvest a lot of fertilizer and should thus be the fastest way to grow a large amount of food. The more resources you use the more and faster plants you should obtain.

[Electroely]

An update to this post:

I've still been farming a ton since this update. With the massive increase to fertilizer values, I've noticed that farming without knowledge of the math behind it easily leads to overfertilizing and wasting huge amounts of fertilizer. Especially since the fertilizer visual jumps from 50% to 100% in only 1 change. I plan on eventually writing a guide explaining how to optimize fertilization of crops.

Seed storage is still a nightmare. Needing a full bundle for every type of crop I consider important has driven me nuts (especially since my world didn't generate a killer beehive biome, which really stings this far into the game). I ended up finishing that mod I mentioned (sorry for the self-promo) and it's made farming a lot more enjoyable for me, since I put a pouch of every type of seed into a Seed Pack-It and now I use it whenever I'm about to start planting crops.

Other than that, I've tried growing tons more giant crops. Since fertilizers are much more effective now, I've bumped up my crop production accordingly. I tried growing over 100 giant carrots at once, and I actually succeeded. I noticed that high-consumption crops still need a lot of fertilizer (which is fine, all things considered) so I started planting different crops together to reduce the nutrient costs. I don't use the auto-nutrient pairings, though, since those often involve crops I don't need. The crops I've been pairing together just reduce their nutrient costs enough to make it more manageable to grow them giant. For example, when I switched to Wurt I farmed dragonfruits and durians together. To restock on Warly seasoning, I farmed peppers and garlic together. I tried different configurations, and I found a couple of options that fit different roles. 4 of each crop per tile is less space efficient but requires less maintenance, while 3 of one and 6 is more space efficient but requires more fertilization. Both configurations are equally efficient fertilizer-wise if done properly (both end up halving the amount of fertilizer needed).

I can easily see farming being the best source of food as a world progresses. The main limiting factor is the number of seeds one has. But once you have a good amount, you can try to farm as many giant crops as you can and if you manage to meet the fertilizer requirements the rewards are great. I've also been enjoying it a lot, especially with the addition of farming music to fill those minutes spent tilling ground, planting seeds and harvesting crops. I'm very glad it plays during dusk and nighttime as well.

And finally, a small screenshot showcase because I'm proud of the amount of crops I grew:
 

Spoiler

Right after the nutrient buff, I made some poop buckets out of the dead bodies of my friends and farmed this many dragonfruits in the second year of the world:

On my own world, I decided I'm gunna solve sanity once and for all... So I did this:

With the seeds I already had, this only took about 5 days to grow and a bunch more days to harvest & cook. Between the carrots and onions, though, quite a lot of fertilizer was used. You can see I'm restocking on growth formula.

And lastly, I wanted to restock on seasoning, and since Summer isn't a durian season, this is what I opted to do:

This setup halved the amount of manure and compost I needed for each plot, so it wasn't particularly difficult to grow. Thankfully, a lot less of a hassle than it would've been without the spoiled fish buff (as practically no one dies on this server). This is 72 giant peppers and 72 giant garlics. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be needing more chili flakes or garlic powder anytime soon.

 

[Parusoid]

@Electroely can you also include in this guide how does stress influence the growth time?

[FairyInABottle]

On 12/3/2020 at 4:20 PM, xhyom said:

Pleasant topic from someone that really tried it out and not just read the changes and said it sucks because it don't fit their gameplay. Thank you

Never miss a chance to be passive aggressive and make a strawman out of anyone who doesn't like it, because only those who didn't try it don't like it. Right? And judging by all the "likes" a lot of people on this forum like to make pointless jabs at people that add nothing to the conversation but pettiness.

[xhyom]

7 hours ago, FairyInABottle said:

Never miss a chance to be passive aggressive and make a strawman out of anyone who doesn't like it, because only those who didn't try it don't like it. Right? And judging by all the "likes" a lot of people on this forum like to make pointless jabs at people that add nothing to the conversation but pettiness.

Ok, thank you.

[Electroely]

7 hours ago, FairyInABottle said:

Never miss a chance to be passive aggressive and make a strawman out of anyone who doesn't like it, because only those who didn't try it don't like it. Right? And judging by all the "likes" a lot of people on this forum like to make pointless jabs at people that add nothing to the conversation but pettiness.

I think there's an issue sometimes where people will only try new content on a test world with console command and base their opinion on that experience, which doesn't accurately reflect the in-game experience since so many game factors are eliminated. I think this was especially prevalent when Winona's Catapults were introduced. Many said they're unbalanced because they could build a large amount of them to kill bosses, but the catapults costing 15 rocks each made getting that many catapults a lot of work in itself.

[lakhnish]

1 hour ago, Electroely said:

I think this was especially prevalent when Winona's Catapults were introduced. Many said they're unbalanced because they could build a large amount of them to kill bosses, but the catapults costing 15 rocks each made getting that many catapults a lot of work in itself.

I'd say this part still holds true though, no? And wasn't the full issue either.

Go mine the rocks in a world, make your catapults, and then you never need Winona again for the catapults <- (the other addition of the issue).