TBH, I’d prefer it if optimization depended only on blocks availability to the player rather than finding the right weird chess-like pattern to make it work. Same thing as power-coils, really.
I really like solving the efficiency puzzles, even more fun if there are more drastic balance changes depending on your material choices.
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But it does only depend on block availability.
Players are taking on their own challenge of trying to pack everything into smaller spaces.
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If it did, you’d be able to place blocks underneath those where crops are planted on, and it’d count as proximity.
Instead, and I’ll borrow Mayumichi’s term, you gotta figure out some kind of efficiency puzzle if you want to be optimized.
Given time, you’ll start to see every player going for optimization using the same solution to that efficiency puzzle.
Exactly like how a lot of players are approaching how to place power coils around machines efficiently.
Sure, it might be fun for some to figure out the answer to the puzzle.
But it also kills a lot of options for those who wanna make something that is both optimized and to their own artsy liking.
Like I said, it’s similar to power coils. Look at a suggestion I made a few months ago :
With that, you’d be able to space out your power coils as you desire, you wouldn’t be forced to have them right next to your machines.
As for farming optimization, I’d rather be able to hide those ‘proximity’ blocks underground, but proximity only works in X & Y, not Z.
So my answer to the puzzle as it is will be “f this”. I won’t jeopardize the look of my build for optimization.
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I’ve really enjoyed working everything out over the past few evenings and then optimising it to get the highest crop to plot ratio I can. It’s been really good fun! More crops please! 
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Yep - I totally agree it’s fun.
But I’m just point out that it’s not required for the other players. You can get more equally efficient farms without requiring some complex and clever packing.
But do you actually need to do this? Or am I miss understanding.
Yes - there is a puzzle if you want to squeeze as much yield as possible from a minimum space.
But you can also achieve maximum efficiency by simply giving the crops more room. But if you give them more room you can simply avoid boosting blocks and just plant more.
I guess I see a simple path if you want, and a more complex path if you want - I don’t see how anyone is forced to do the puzzle here.
Also there is no puzzle with power coils their layout effect their efficiency.
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Yes, I don’t need to do it.
I was faced with a choice between optimization and how I want my build to look.
I decided to go with the build’s look, but it’s frustrating.
Things could be made easier for all players but your answer is “you don’t have to do it”. 
You don’t understand what I’m saying, apparently.
Here’s how my workshop looks.
I’m happy with this. I’ve managed to only have the parts of machines I like to be visible. It looks sober, simple.
I don’t want to have power coils everywhere with their energy rays and all that, so I’ve been able to make a compromise with the power coils being underground in another room, almost hidden.
But it’s becoming harder and harder to fit power coils the way I like them to be, and it makes it harder and harder to repair them with a spanner.
So it IS an efficiency puzzle to figure out how to place the power coils correctly.
Someone who’s power coils are placed ‘efficiently’ will have it look that way :
Would you tell me “you don’t need to have that many power coils” and shrug it off like with the farming optimization?
It needn’t be that way.
With my suggestion, you could make getting power something that only relies on the player having the power coils (and the items to connect them to your machines). It would then be only about ‘availability’ and then any efficiency puzzle would be truly optionnal.
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Actually … Just referring back to my first test farm (before I even thought about optimisation), I spammed everything down haphazardly and it still all grew to fruition and returned more crops than there were plants. So you definitely do not have to optimise to get a decent return of foods.
I can see the progression steps here now - you basically start of with a small vegetable patch in your own garden… then slowly upgrade to an allotment dedicated to your vegetables and finally get to the stage of industrial farming with optimum yields.
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Yup. That’s why I won’t bother optimizing myself.
Still frustrating to think that I could do it if I wasn’t bothered by how my build looks, though, you know?
I’ll probably end up having an area that is purely optimised farmlands and then other areas that are more aesthetically integrated within my build. Mainly because the optimised farm will be, for the most part, supplying my whole guild.
Same.
Which goes with my whole point about how you shouldn’t feel like aesthetics and optimization are mutually exclusive.
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Totally agree as someone who has comprised on optimization for the aesthetics with coils
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I do understand this, but at the same time, you know how we are. We will figure out the best way to do something, publish a guide and everyone will be doing it. It is the same reason players forge or buy AOE tools as soon as they can. They want to be efficient with the time they have in game. If I only have a few hours to play then I want what I do to generate the most return. If I know that I can improve the yield on my farm by creating all these weird air gaps (in the case of berries) then I will probably do it.
Can we not be given a way to optimize starberries, which are a lower tier crop to begin with, that is not as, well strange? Even the inorganics at least look like farms when optimized.
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Just like to pitch in a little to say that there are also some of us that will find a fully optimised farm as something that is a thing of beauty!
Aesthetics are completely subjective, and what pleasing to someone’s eye will not necessarily be pleasing to another.
So optimisation and beauty may not combine for some but it will for others.
I think this will always be the case for this type of thing.
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That is a fair point. Maybe I can be more specific. The berries just have foliage that hangs in the air without any visual support to be optimized. That looks odd to me. I would have expected since the seeds grow on trees that the foliage would require some form of support and still get max yield.
Or maybe it is just that I was hoping to create something that looked like vineyards and not take a 50% hit on my optimization. .
I built something similar in live in preparation!
Without realising that it will not be optimised, now I know.
Now I’m left with the decision, should I leave it so I can plant as much as possible in a smaller area, or space it out so that each plant is fully optimised?
And what will give me the better return, more plants with less optimisation, or a just a few with max optimisation?
All things I’m looking forward to puzzling out and trying out!
I may take a different route. I may plant things in a pretty way for a “display farm” that I never harvest, but it will look good and maybe be adjacent to my estate on the rolling hills of some planet and hide my optimized farm out of sight.
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You should still get a fairly decent return of crops from those - probably 1-2 berries per plant at least.
I wonder what the trade up would be for an optimised layout in say 1-2 plots, versus the return on an unoptimised plot with far more plants.
Obvious one would be, you would likely need to gather more seeds after an unoptimised plot harvest. I wonder if the actual differences are negligible with the current drop rates. I think I know what I am testing tonight!
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It’s also possible, that because of the space needed, that you actually get better returns from packing them in and not worrying about optimisation!
Just as a rough guess, with the numbers as they are now, a fully optimised plot would have to be able to produce about 4 times as many crops per plant than just neatly placing plants in rows (assuming you are able to trigger growth conditions).
Edit @Stretchious LOL!
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