Farming update

The only thing we know about the farming update is that it will not be like other farming mechanics in games like Minecraft, and that it will be more in the style of boundless. That said, they could make it akin to forging where plants will be grown using certain materials and, depending on your skill and how well you used mats, it will produce a plant of appropriate yield. You could then take that plant and it would produce for you according to your skill in growing it. That’s just one possibility

They’re build projects I don’t want to share with others the concept of. It isn’t a matter of me thinking someone will copy me, I just don’t want people knowing what those plans are until I actually go about making pre-fabs in MagicaVoxel and having the materials and plots to make them in the actual game.

The more robust the different things someone can do with Farming the better. It just literately benefits everyone. Right now the ways people gather materials and craft things is bland and boring. Needs to be spiced up a little bit. I do like @Blackmage2015 's idea of cutting with lasers, pouring molten metal into molds, and so on. But such an overhaul would require a lot of recoding on the developer’s end to rework those things and introduce new items and blocks. Would be worth it though and make the game look and feel more full.

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More ideas for farming:

Biome-specific plants so one farm can’t just have/do it all.

Plant-specific optimal requirements. Darkness for mushrooms; even gleam would affect this. Some plants need partial shade or they die. Also, you can craft sun-blocks for underground farms… or possibly just use gleam.

High-end plants that require a specific deadly atmosphere… blast, chill etc.

Just throwing these out while I’m at work.

What I don’t want is everybody having the exact same 4x4 cookie cutter McFarm making the exact same stuff.

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Kroll those are some good ideas. People would have to plan out where they want to put the main farm and link everything together with portals.

I just hope we aren’t getting farming for just the yams. That’s going to be boring. I do hope that there’s going to be a significant increase in food items along with recipes. Perhaps this means soil blocks will only drop seeds for the items. Who knows.

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My two cents. I think farming should be completely new. All new items, plants, and animals. Perhaps we can take already existing items like sweet beans, spicy, and bitter, and mix them in a mixer to produce new types of seeds. Mixing them with other items gives different results and colors. Then you plant and water. Specific soil is good or maybe location as mentioned. I love the idea of rarity. Maybe randomized to an extent. Then you have something someone else may not produce in a 1000 tries. That would be something you could sell and make coin. Decorative plants and flowers would be nice as well as plants for new foods and supplies.
As far as mounts go, it would be nice to have a ranch for them. I don’t want to ride wildstock (wild bulls) but, boundless’ own version of horses instead. Maybe a six legged creature with horns protruding from it’s jaws and a spikey tail. Bred with extra stamina or speed, etc. Maybe even it’s own mini skill tree. Farming could include the animals own unique food. We could make saddles, bridles, and armor for it ofcourse. (Armor for us would be nice) Lots of ideas but I don’t like typing. Oh, yes we need water.

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I think it’s an interesting question whether or not farming will involve entirely new gatherables. I can see the argument for not messing with supply and demand of existing resources, but on the other hand, if we add all of these new ingredients, what would they be used for exactly? Would there be new food recipes too, and would they be worth using over teaching or persistence? I’m just having a hard time picturing it…

Yes, water please!!! My build was constructed with the thought that we would be able to place water. So until that happens, I just have to imagine that the water is there, and have had to hold off on some of my landscaping plans that include waterfalls, ponds, etc. As far as farming, I would love to be able to create new exotic plants, requiring different “fertilizers” or ingredients in the forge. Actual farming takes a lot of effort, environmental conditions, and tending. I would love to be able to have a plant shop with exotics for decorative purposes or foods.

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I think it depends what it is. I like the idea of adding flowers, which could be used for decorative recipes.

Or maybe it could be for a more reliable source of drops, like planting a sort of maple tree and putting a sap tap on it. Which would be glorious bc I hate collecting sap.

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Agreed I can personally except that a overhaul of the current system would take a bit of time. But this game needs it. I agree at the start more content to fill the game was grand but now that content needs to be spiced up. Give us the farming update then spice up some of the current systems in the game. Like I mentioned above.

Minecraft gave us a crafting table and as trivial and small as that was it required you to physical make what you wanted. Boundless has potential to do more just hope they make it happen.

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New ingredients or items could be teaching brew or energizing brew. Food that allows a person to jump higher and farther. No fall damage food or brew. Charging brew, can charge and hit an animal with a quick burst of speed to do damage. Questionable, but a food or brew that allows you to temporarily pass through blocks. Think of comic book characters. Any abilities they have could potentially be added. Plant based armor. Mix bark or whatever with some metals or gems and create armor for your character. Throw it in the forge and put caustic protection and kinetic resistance on it and your set. Endless possibilities.

For what it’s worth, I’d suggest that framing not introduce artificial constraints (like only new or special plants or animals can be farmed). If something grows in the ground, it should be able to be planted. +1 for new plants, but existing plants/flowers grow when planted so should be able to be farmed.

Anywhere you see an artificial constraint introduced, it’s highly likely that it will need to be “fixed” later - and once we come up with justifications for unnatural or artificial constructs, change for the better becomes all the more difficult.

There are great “natural” constraints in this thread - soil types, climate and stocking density for example. You can imaging someone creating battery farmed wild stock - they would be small, unhappy/aggressive. and likely not drop much of value.

I’d like to suggest a biggie in farming - what plants and animals give and take from their farming environment. Requires a lot more thought, but would add a layer of reality to boundless farming.

For example, if you monoculture exotic yams in one field over and over, the yield will drop each season. Perhaps growing grass and running wild stock every other season would replenish the soil.

This should mean farming may need to introduce the concept of soil quality. :slight_smile: maybe this is going too far.

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What if you craft and then place seed-blocks? That block will now yield a specific crop every X hours but only if all the growth conditions are met.

Conditions could be location based like must be in dry biome, must be in water, must be on T3+.

Conditions could also be spatial puzzles. One crop only grows if it’s in 1x3 tall stalks. Another wants to be adjacent to 9 peaty soil to grow. Yet another needs 2 ice and 7 sand adjacent.

Finally you harvest with a new tool like a hoe or a scythe. This way there is a sink in the system in tool durability instead of something more tedious like consumable seeds we have to constantly sow, or consumable water we must constantly gather.

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How about…

Oortilizer (Fertilizer) = oort dust + specified ingredient, made in the mixer.

New Tools = iron bucket & possibly a spade.

If there is no farm machine, ingredients must be combined, then applied to a growth that is within a beaconed area.

T6+ worlds would have shallow pools of plasma liquid that can be collected using iron buckets. When mixed with oort dust & a specified ingredient, you would make Oortilizer.

To grow Forge Berries:

  1. (3) Oort dust. 2. (1) Plasma. 3. (1) Wildstock eye. 4. (1) Cuttletrunk or Spitter trophy. 5. (1) oortilizer. Cook for 4 hours.
    Yeild = A Random Forge Ingredient.

To grow an Oort Flower:

  1. (3) element shards. 2. (3) petals. 3. (6) Viscous Blood. Cook for 2 hours.
    Yeild = An Oort Flower.

Oort flowers would be put into the grinder/processor to make Oort Dust.
Oort dust can be compacted into Oort shards.
Oort dust can be used to make Oortilizer for new items.

Grow lotto plants:

  1. (3) metal ore. 2. (1) elemental fusion. 3. (1) plasma. 4. (1) oortilizer.
    Yeild = lotto plant. Harvest/collect it to receive random coin.

Grow clothing plants:

  1. (6) cloth. 2. (3) oortilizer. 3. (3) foliage [this will determine the color of clothing]. 4. (1) plasma.
    Yeild = one clothing item.

Grow rope vine:

  1. (1) cloth. 2. (1) oortilizer. 3. (3) timber.
    Yeild = (3) oort rope vine that can be used in the refinery to make ladders, animal leashes, possibly a slingshot, etc.

Farming could also be used to grow special landscaping decor such as trees, vines, etc.

Yes, this is convoluted…I’ve thought about it a lot, lol.

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Yes you have! Very well thought out, but I would suggest not limiting an item to a t6 world. Lots of lowbies and casuals are looking forward to farming and this would cripple them.
Unless I’m missing something and this won’t effect farming at all, but would be more of a result from farming yields?

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What if we had breeding of both plants and animals. For instance, breed calmer spotters that could be culled for resources. Or beefier plants that are more potent than their kin. Maybe like use one farmed plant to replace 2 wild ones. Just throwing in more variables here

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I wonder, if making it biome-specific, would it be possible to get around this by bringing in certain soils, or blocks like growth, ice or moulde?
Maybe we can make greenhouses to simulate certain biomes. Ppl on ice planets might need that!

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I think some items should be difficult to obtain. Since the liquid (plasma) would be a basic ingredient, perhaps it should be found in almost all tiers as you suggested. Maybe darkmatter or one of the other new items we’ll be getting soon will be somewhat difficult to obtain & could be used in farming to make some end-game items.

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Whatever is decided, I hope we can grow whatever plants already exist. I would like to have to use an existing machine to prepare soil (maybe dirt and foliage for compost), place this prepared soil and the take a plant and use a machine to convert it to seeds which are planted. The wait x amount of time to harvest the plants. If it requires visiting the fields every day to sow or do something to each block, then it becomes a lot of grind and I would find that boring and uninteresting just like mining.

I think animal husbandry would be interesting, but not sure how to prevent griefing without a lot of changes to when you can kill a mob.

I am not concerned about p,Ayers being able to do anything. They already can do I am not concerned that farming might offer another alternative way to gather. I do hope if they add new crops that they are not added to existing recipes. Unless they are an optional ingredient that increases yield or something significant, then I would be ok with it.

That would make sense too, biome specific plants could be grown in greenhouses if it’s not a match.

I don’t think we need to worry about redundant effects, there’s no shortage of ideas that work within the framework of Boundless :slight_smile:

Water-breathing / breath duration
Walk-on-water
Lava-proof
“I-think-it’s-day” (akin to newbie daylight)
Remove death penalty
Cosmetic aura brews
Glimmer flower (emits light in native gleam color)

…Or even specific things, like
Bomb augment, only breaks leaf blocks
Drink Me: Shrink to 1 block height
Hopper hooch, hoppers are passive toward you

Lots of whimsy, a dash of purpose…with that kind of route there’s many recipes and fun items that could be added. For better or for worse I suppose, wrt. the way the crafting menus are set up.

I’m not actually suggesting all these things be put in, I just mean to say there’s lots of things that could be done and I’m on the side that’s hoping that farming adds new things for us to play with rather than just adding different ways to obtain old things. :smile:

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