[Mod] crops [crops] - (Farming|Food|Cooking)

[sofar]

I'm probably going to stick with this for a while. It's got a lot more color depth and spread, and looks a lot better than the first texture set. I did pull the lower tomato down, but left the top one up high as I intended the top stem to have it hanging from, which it does now...

[Don]

The tomatoes look nice.
I like how real you are making the plants.
Awesome work

[philipbenr]

Keep it up sofar, it is looking nice, and this might very well over-ride all the other farming mods that I have tried.

[sofar]

Keep it up sofar, it is looking nice, and this might very well over-ride all the other farming mods that I have tried.

Thanks. Please let me know what you'd like to see added - I'm basically looking for ideas.

[Nathan.S]

Cucumbers, cabbage, peppers would all sound nice, what about a ground crop though, like potatoes or something that grows in the ground? No idea how that would be pulled off, but would be interesting to see done.

[prestidigitator]

...what about a ground crop though, like potatoes or something that grows in the ground? No idea how that would be pulled off, but would be interesting to see done.

That sounds cool. I think what I'd do is replace the soil under the plant with like a, "dirt_and_potatoes," node once it reaches a particular level of maturity. When dug, that node would drop both dirt and the food item. An ABM could rot away the, "dirt_and_potatoes," node back to soil eventually if the plant is removed.

[sofar]

...what about a ground crop though, like potatoes or something that grows in the ground? No idea how that would be pulled off, but would be interesting to see done.

That sounds cool. I think what I'd do is replace the soil under the plant with like a, "dirt_and_potatoes," node once it reaches a particular level of maturity. When dug, that node would drop both dirt and the food item. An ABM could rot away the, "dirt_and_potatoes," node back to soil eventually if the plant is removed.

Why not have the farmer:

1. cut off the "greens" and discard them
2. dig out the potatoes of the dirt

This is in line with the 2-step harvesting of most of the other plants I've made thus far. At step 2 the mod would replace the potato dirt with dirt without leaving a hole - a hole in the ground wouldn't make much sense, and it's not needed - it's fairly simple to implement.

example of how it would look:

[sofar]

Cucumbers, cabbage, peppers would all sound nice, what about a ground crop though, like potatoes or something that grows in the ground? No idea how that would be pulled off, but would be interesting to see done.

I really like the idea of cabbages. They are a really basic food and really mundane, around since forever (dark ages) and grown in lots of areas. Very appealing to add them.

Cucumbers and peppers are a bit exotic, plus I have no idea how to draw them to give them a distinct look that stands out.

I was working on beanpole beans a bit:

1. combine 4 sticks to make a beanpole
2. plant beanpole on soil - creates 2-block high beanpole A-frame
3. punch bean seeds on beanpole
4. wait for bean plant to grown up to top of 2-pole beanpole
5. dig beanpole beans to harvest beans
6. beanpole bean is now wilted
7. dig again to get 3-4 sticks

So this would be a more high-effort crop. I'll likely make it yield a bit more food value per harvest. The added benefit of requiring a regular supply of sticks forces players to do something else than harvesting crops, as it needs wood.

[prestidigitator]

Why not have the farmer:

1. cut off the "greens" and discard them
2. dig out the potatoes of the dirt

Yeah, that's basically what I meant. If you dig the plant (the greens), then EVENTUALLY the potatoes could decay into soil, but in the meantime you could dig (harvest) them. I suppose the mature plant should delete itself if the roots are dug while leaving the plant in place too.

This is in line with the 2-step harvesting of most of the other plants I've made thus far. At step 2 the mod would replace the potato dirt with dirt without leaving a hole - a hole in the ground wouldn't make much sense, and it's not needed - it's fairly simple to implement.

Yeah, that could work too. I was thinking the player would get the dirt in inventory with the potato, but it'd be less annoying to leave the dirt and not make the player replace it I guess. Besides, I don't know if you use soil (as in farming), but if so: that doesn't go in inventory, and you could replace the potato dirt with soil instead of normal dirt and leave it ready for planting again.

[sofar]

Potatoes are coming along nicely. This is a quick draft but I'm really happy how this came out in barely 1-2 hours of work and testing.

The plants themselves don't drop anything. Only if the plant matures can you dig potatoes from the soil. If you can reach the soil from the side you can save yourself one dig by digging the soil as that will remove the plant from the top, but otherwise you need to dig twice: once to remove the plant, once to dig out the potatoes.

You get 3-5 potatoes. Each potato gives one (set of) "potato eyes" which are the clones that can grow back to potatoes.

The plant itself is purposedly drawn "low" and not as a full block as that's how the plant grows without support, mostly close to the ground.

Be careful not to dig the plant when there's flowers! You have to wait until the soil below shows potatoes. It's fairly easy to see the difference, though.

But, I still need to add some cooking recipes for potatoes, though.

[twoelk]

This mod is really coming along nicely.

While experimenting with your crops I was wondering how to farm more effective ingame and it accured to me there is a nice real life system that could make this mod challenging complicated. Ever heard of Companion planting? There are extensive tables for this and asking a dedicated gardener who is really into this will guarantee an endless subject.
Maybe something like the Three Sisters of northern america would offer a nice starting point. Of course the possabilities are near endless as this little list may show. Not to forget the mesoamerican Milpa system.

[sofar]

This mod is really coming along nicely.

While experimenting with your crops I was wondering how to farm more effective ingame and it accured to me there is a nice real life system that could make this mod challenging complicated. Ever heard of Companion planting? There are extensive tables for this and asking a dedicated gardener who is really into this will guarantee an endless subject.
Maybe something like the Three Sisters of northern america would offer a nice starting point. Of course the possabilities are near endless as this little list may show. Not to forget the mesoamerican Milpa system.

I'm well aware of companion planting - I haven't applied it in real life yet but I may in the future.

Beans are next on my list. Squash and cabbage I'd like to do as well, so it would be fairly easy to implement a three sisters type of augmented grow rate: All I'd have to do is create a new ABM with higher growth rate that triggers when companion crops are nearby. Since the ABM system already has all the needed parts to do that, this is really simple.

[sofar]

I'm working on beanpole/green beans right now. These green climbing vine beans grow on 2-block high beanpoles that need to be crafted (from sticks). This is a plant you can't actually walk through, giving it a bit of a space challenge (you can't plant a 3x3 square for instance as you won't be able to harvest the middle block.

Screenshots coming soon when I finish textures.

[sofar]

Green Beans.

These green beans are unnaturally green, but there's so many of them that grow on a vine! Sadly, these beans don't grow beans unsupported, so you stick some sticks together to make a beanpole, something like this way:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

empty empty empty
stick empty stick
stick empty stick

There, that should help the viney bean plant to grow to 2 meters high. It has remarkable purple flowers, that pop all over the plant just before the beans grow.

Sadly, once the beans are picked, this plant turns into an unusable mess that makes it hard for the next plant to grow on the beanpole, so you salvage the beanpole's sticks after harvesting in order to make more beanpoles again. It's a bit of work, but worth it, these beans are delicious!

[Don]

You are on a roll sofar. Nice work

[Krock]

Can't say more than just..

Continue this great project!

[afflatus]

Great work Sofar.

I might integrate some of your ideas, but I won't be using the whole mod as my game is based in medieval Europe and I use 32x textures. Someone else mentioned Africa - it would be nice to see farming that supports flora from continents other than the Americas via add-on modpacks.

[sofar]

Great work Sofar.

I might integrate some of your ideas, but I won't be using the whole mod as my game is based in medieval Europe and I use 32x textures. Someone else mentioned Africa - it would be nice to see farming that supports flora from continents other than the Americas via add-on modpacks.

So the default game is 16x16, therefore mods should be 16x16 textures by default as well, obviously. Having mods use 32x32 textures makes absolutely no sense (and looks terribly out of place).

It should be easy to make 32x32 textures and include them in your texture pack, though.

As for medieval europe, yeah, if you try to be historically accurate, you'd have to remove the tomatoes, corn, potato (unless 1600s at least) and melons. You can use the green beans, though. You'd also have to remove the cotton from the default game.

[TenPlus1]

Sofar: would it be ok if I use your beanpole crop in my Farming Redo mod ?

[Sokomine]

As for medieval europe, yeah, if you try to be historically accurate, you'd have to remove the tomatoes, corn, potato (unless 1600s at least) and melons. You can use the green beans, though. You'd also have to remove the cotton from the default game.

Yes, that's a problem. My medieval villages will eventually get traders which will sell these fruits - although that's historically wrong. Guess we have to focus less on historical correctness there and just add those plants which have good textures.

The mod looks very nice. Please also add "farming" to its title so that it may be found when searching for mods of that kind! Please tell me once it's finished so that I might add it to the villages and their build chest. Hope your nodes do follow some naming convention (some mods are very...creative...in that regard :-/).

[sofar]

Sofar: would it be ok if I use your beanpole crop in my Farming Redo mod ?

Yes, as long as you comply with the appropriate licenses, but they're fairly convenient and each crop is a separate file you can literally copy on it's own and keep intact.

[sofar]

Yes, that's a problem. My medieval villages will eventually get traders which will sell these fruits - although that's historically wrong. Guess we have to focus less on historical correctness there and just add those plants which have good textures.

The mod looks very nice. Please also add "farming" to its title so that it may be found when searching for mods of that kind! Please tell me once it's finished so that I might add it to the villages and their build chest. Hope your nodes do follow some naming convention (some mods are very...creative...in that regard :-/).

I added the extra keywords - good suggestion.

I like the idea of villagers/traders offering seeds, that's a great way to introduce new crops to your worlds.

As for naming, I try to be sensible, but please elaborate, until now I've just called my nodes "crops:corn" and the likes. I will also be adding groups where appropriate which hopefully makes integration with other mods a lot easier (group:eatable, group:food_bowl etc.).

[sofar]

Sokomine asked me "when is this done" in somewhat different words. Here's what I'm expecting right now:

- I'll add cabbage (or some type of greens) a bit later. With 5 crops now I've reached the point that I think I need to focus on edibles, and so

- I'll be adding a few cooking recipes first

- And then next I will be looking at game balance/game play a bit:

* the light level needed to grow plants will be variable

* the ABM interval/chance will become variable

* there will be some way to configure these for the server, maybe through a "difficulty" setting (e.g. "easy", "medium", "hard"

* Pilcrow suggested experimenting with watering / hydration. Some plants will need extra watering, some plants will need less watering. In easy mode the effects will not be noticable, as most plants will grow normally and yield enough food. In medium mode there would be low yield if you don't take care of plants, and in hard mode you'd starve without working your fields. Crops can not just dry out, but also get overwatered (which causes rot).

It'll be somewhat difficult to actually show plant stress in the game. I'm thinking of using particles to display dryness (weaving/smoke type shapes) and/or water dripping (puddles) for overwatering plants.

That's what is on the list right now. Feel free to suggest additions, such as recipe's or gameplay mechanics.

[Sokomine]

I like the idea of villagers/traders offering seeds, that's a great way to introduce new crops to your worlds.

Yes, that's one of the reasons the traders in the original random_buildings mod existed. The new ones will also happily sell seeds and fruits. Getting seeds was a big problem with the original farming_plus, as hitting dirt with a hoe was not the most convincing way of getting them. Now plants spawn in the world - which looks quite well.

As for naming, I try to be sensible, but please elaborate, until now I've just called my nodes "crops:corn" and the likes. I will also be adding
groups where appropriate which hopefully makes integration with other mods a lot easier (group:eatable, group:food_bowl etc.).

Farms for mg_villages are in general equipped with cotton plants. Those are part of the default game. When farming_plus is installed (or another farming mod), the cotton plats get replaced by other nodes. Depending on the name schem used, that may be more or less tricky. Some tree types (which also get replaced) do not seem to follow any naming convention at all (sometimes they have a _ between treename and leaves/trunk, sometimes an extra wood gets inserted into the name etc.). Just wanted to make sure that this mod will be easy to handle in that regard :-)

[sofar]

@Sokomine - You'll want to add these nodes for now:

crops:corn (made from crops:corn_cob)
crops:melon_seed (made from crops:melon_slice)
crops:green_bean_seed (made from crops:green_bean)
crops:potato_eyes (made from crops:potato)
crops:tomato_seed (made from crops:tomato)

[afflatus]

So the default game is 16x16, therefore mods should be 16x16 textures by default as well, obviously. Having mods use 32x32 textures makes absolutely no sense (and looks terribly out of place).

It should be easy to make 32x32 textures and include them in your texture pack, though.

Sure I was thinking that way round. When I have time I will backport my mediaeval European veg.

[sofar]

I've been out for a few days to a conference, and my main development system's power supply gave the ghost, so no updates in a few days.

Once I get it back up and running I will push some cooking recipes and work on the difficulty scaling.

[sofar]

I've been out for a few days to a conference, and my main development system's power supply gave the ghost, so no updates in a few days.

Once I get it back up and running I will push some cooking recipes and work on the difficulty scaling.

Cooking recipe for "vegetable stew" is in, you'll have to craft a clay bowl first (and bake it in a furnace). Then you can create an uncooked stew with the raw vegetables, which then has to cook as well. Restores lots of hearts. The bowl is returned after eating, of course.

I didn't make it hard for the user by returning a "dirty bowl" that has to be washed... ;)



There's also a default config file now that you can use to tune the growth rate, basically.

Enjoy.

[sofar]

I've started working on code to support plant health:

- plants will have a "humidity" level, influenced by watering (a watering can), surrounding (nearby water) , and light level (dehumidifies)
- plants can get "soaked" (too wet) or "withered" (too dry), which progressively causes damage. Initially it stifles plant growth and if enough damage is done to the plant, it will bear less or no harvest.
- each plant will have different factors - potatoes can handle wet and dry soil better, tomatoes will need lots of water and are unlikely to get soaked. Beans don't like to get soaked but can't handle droughts well either. You get the idea.
- There will be visual clues when a plant is under duress: Particles will be visible to show that the plant is too dry or too wet.
- A watering can tool allows you to pick up water and add water to a plant. It may be necessary to add water several times to a plant, some plants will only need one application of water. The watering can will hold 10 or so watering units.
- I'm thinking of adding a hydrometer tool that can be used to determine the watering level of a plant. Using the hydrometer on a plant would display the watering level in the charge bar indicator of the tool.
- Also possible in this scheme are: bug infestations, diseases. I guess I also need to make bug spray.

All of this will scale easy-normal-difficult, where "easy" means it doesn't really affect game play, normal means it requires attention, occasionally causing large crop losses, and "difficult" means you will suffer total crop loss unless you really take care of the plants.

Thoughts? I intend to share some code/images later this weekend, but due to the impact on the code I may need a week or so to properly make this scale code-wise.

[Hybrid Dog]

Could you make plants get destroyed if the player walks on them?