One part of farming that makes no sense

[Perfect_Score]

You place a farm down and farmers spend a very long time tilling the land and preparing it, so why are farms at max weed level and full of rocks when they are first available to the player?

Farms should start free of weeds and rocks.

[Resonance]

What gets me is how you can remove all the rocks and weeds and then remove the field and build another in the same spot and it pops up with full weeds and stone again.

[IngeJones]

And how it takes up to 3 years to prepare with a full complement of workers

[Darkbirt]

You’re lucky, if you can do it in 3 years.
Some of my fields needed 50 years to reach 100% fertility, but yeah, it started at around 5% fertility, basically no fertility at all.
Under the 15% it starts really slow, first you need a couple of years, just for weed removal.

[Voidtraveler]

@Darkbirt

You’re lucky, if you can do it in 3 years.
Some of my fields needed 50 years to reach 100% fertility, but yeah, it started at around 5% fertility, basically no fertility at all.
Under the 15% it starts really slow, first you need a couple of years, just for weed removal.

I suggest using Barns to accelerate this.

[BigRedd]

Yeah setting the grazing to lands that need more fertility is a pretty cool mechanic IMO

[Darkbirt]

I’ve tried it, but the cows became sick because of the low fertility (something about bad grass land.)

[still_standing]

In real life you deal with weeds and rocks all the time. Nature is very uncaring to us humans.

[Jonnycakes]

I’m actually pretty impressed with the realism of the farming in this game so far. Crop fields in real life start out rocky af (had to clear several acres of hay field when I was younger), and the weeds are the reason they’re not 100% fertile.
And yeah cows grazing and pooping in the fields is a good thing.

But also yeah, rocks don’t magically reappear. I’m sure the devs are aware of that.

[medea_fleecestealer]

Well, Crate Entertainment’s founder, did say his real life experiences helped influence the game.

Intro to Farm Fails

Over the past few years, since I bought a house, I’ve tried my hand at growing food, from vegetable, to fruit trees, to chickens, with varying levels of success. The experiences I’ve had were influential to some degree, in the design of farming in Farthest Frontier, so I thought it might be fitting and fun to share some of the fail. Of course, Farthest Frontier is supposed to be fun and not overly frustrating, so the degree to which it mirrors my actual experience is limited. It did help me gen…

Weed Level

Weeds are one of the main challenges I’ve struggled with in growing my own crops and so, I felt like I had to find a way to represent this in the game. I’ve never had as much trouble with them in other places I’ve lived and I think it is because the previous owners of this property let the garden go for years and it had turned into a field choked with weeds. In that time, millions of seeds must have been produced and fallen to the ground, lurking there as scions of evil, waiting for the day some…

[IngeJones]

Yeah but not for 3 years at a time before you can plant anything

[Pejot]

It’s not that You can’t plant anything when there’s weed or rocks on the field. It just reduces the crop yield like in real life.

[KeySmasher]

So how do rocks restock on farms but not out in the map? Field maintenance should add to your stone inventory for this work that is being done. These weeds you’re pulling can be added to the waste inventory for composting.

[still_standing]

Rocks do come back, surprisingly they make there way up from under ground, those sneaky things.

[still_standing]

The difference is size.

[Jaradis]

@IngeJones

Yeah but not for 3 years at a time before you can plant anything

I had an ivy/vine growing in my flower garden at my old house that every year I’d spend the spring ripping it all out putting down paper/dirt/mulch trying to get rid of it and by mid-summer, it would be everywhere again.

[Alastric]

I am still a mere humble innocent novice in this world, and I have been finding that working the field and planting clover greatly increases the fertility … then, planting beans and peas helps …

I have to admit that I would love to see the stones removed from the soil gradually appearing as dry stane dykes as borders round the fields …

And, yes, it would be very nice if one could set a clover field as being part of the place for cattle to graze …

[Dave_McD]

I’m not sure if its just me or not but no matter how much sand I have in storage I’ve never seen the sand level move a single pixel to go up to the slider in any of my farms. I’ve got like 16 farmers for 7 fields. These farmers think they’re Anakin Skywalker and hate sand apparantly.

[lyagushkha]

I would say this is about right for rural farming by hand.

Plowing a field if a lot of work, and it does not remove every single stone from the field. Also, in two months from turning the soil the field will be covered in weeds again. That’s why it’s not in prestine condition after finishing. Low fertility is a thing with some types of soils, especially with first-time farm and no fertilizers.

So, both rocks and weeds will be there, indefinitelly. Maybe less weeds for start, but not zero.

[IngeJones]

@Alastric

And, yes, it would be very nice if one could set a clover field as being part of the place for cattle to graze …

I think I’ve solved this one. Cows need an uninterrupted square of a certain size to set as grazing. My fields were too small and the cows’ area didn’t want to overflow them. So I made a 10x10 field and planted with clover and the cows graze on that without problems.