With all the tinting and new lighting any chance, the new GUI color picker for character customization can be sneaked in this update? @james
Indeed, but maybe there should a reasonable attempt at accommodating a wider range of aesthetic looks rather than settling for what is currently available.
Boundless appeal to me was and is both it’s natural world beauty and the amazing things that people create within that world so why restrict so narrowly certain systems within that world.
I’m confident as time goes on and devs can allocate more time to such things, constrictions within system designs will change and become more flexible, allowing for more creative approaches to current systems.
Hope so anyway.
I completely get what you are saying.
However, if what you find aesthetically pleasing is the most important factor to you, then just go with that.
Make something you like and don’t worry about ‘optimising’.
I know Boundless doesn’t reflect the real world, but lets just use forestry as a broad example.
A forest that is optimised for growth and logging is not full of natural beauty.
A beautiful natural forest is not the most efficient way of gathering wood.
Maybe you will find a way creating balance and getting a bit of both!
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My only issue would be seeds. If the plot is not optimized then the seed return would be even lower making more grind to gather more seeds. This is especially true if the seed return remains below a 1 for 1. If this is the case then I am going to want to optimize in order to decrease the gathering for the next plot planting.
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I feel a nice solution would be what someone recently suggested. Seed extraction from end product. The extractors can be used for this as well I assume. Maybe it could be something simply added with a recipe.
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I am plowing through a few smart stacks of mats so that I can enjoy farming when it goes live. I want a small rural farm look that will probably not be optimized.
I do understand the desire to maximize personal aesthetics and full optimization. However, I think an industrial operation, whether it is crafting or farming, should have an industrial feel. The look and restrictions provide a structure to the world.
When I first started playing, I had a hard time with cities because there was no obvious structure or layout to most of the building that could easily be identified as shops, factories, or residences. I quickly went to a solo mindset because I perceived everything to be a facade with little to no substance.
I like the restrictions and the trade offs that come with the current system. To me it just makes sense and grounds the universe just enough.
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I try to make the aesthetics work based on what the optimisation restrictions are, and:
As such, I think that my future farms at my place are looking good so far, and they would have optimal yields, given what we currently know and how things currently work on testing. 
(brighter screenshot edit)
Of course, they lack decorative elements at the moment, but I have more of these to prepare, and if things still change, I don’t want to have made something overly intricate that then needs to be torn down for whatever that might change.
We’re still early into testing and there may be changes we can’t predict at this point, after all.
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That’s easy for you to say.
Aesthetics vs Optimization is an issue that you can’t brush off by saying “just don’t optimize”.
It’s still very frustrating to have to make that kind of choice.
Frustration isn’t fun.
If you don’t optimize, you’ll feel like you’re behind everyone else. If there’s some kind of way that is found to optimize the space and blocks used, you can be sure that everyone will know about it and use it. That’s only creative for the one who figured out the solution to the efficiency puzzle.
I’ll feel forced to have a nice looking farm which I won’t harvest from, and a weird-looking-farm with chess-like-patterns everywhere and oddities like floating blocks. I don’t even know where I’ll find the space to make such a farm, since I’m surrounded by neighbors. I’ll have to make it far away and connect it to my home with a portal or something. 
The more we go into the farming update, the less I’m happy about it.
If it was ONLY about new liquids and new building blocks, I’d be happier, TBH.
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Definitely understand your point of view, and feel similarly about a lot of stuff in games usually, especially in ARPGs with meta builds.
Here’s an idea, not sure if you’ll like it or not, might be worth suggesting – perhaps using gleam light you can keep the “ugly” but optimal farm under the pretty/nice looking farm? Or some clever use of glass through the pretty farm if you really did want natural light. 
To be honest, I’m not sure I’ve seen your builds or not, but I think you’re probably a creative builder that could work something out like that.
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Gleam light really is as good as sun light?
Would refined gleam be better than natural gleam, then?
That could change things, for sure.
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I certainly hope so! We’ll be able to find out once they update testing with the changes mentioned here:
In any case, I do hope you can find an aesthetic solution that works for you without sacrificing efficiency. I don’t like feeling that either.
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The farm I’ve already prepared has half of the requirements to be optimized.
It would have more IF proximity was counted in X;Y;Z and not just X and Y.
Lots of soils on my farm have sand/mud/gravel/corruption under for each type of plants. It was only after I finished it all that I understood it was all useless. 
What frustrates me even more is that it’s not clear in the tooltips. “Sown near” isn’t enough. It should say “Sown horizontally near”, at least. @james can’t you guys at least change that before the update goes live?
Anyway, if Gleamlight can be as good as sunlight, I’ll make so kind of quarantined xeno-farm near the mantle, with rows of refined gleam on the ceiling and all the weird chess-patterns. It will look ugly and it will be somewhat hidden like my prestige vault where I place rows and rows of high-prestige blocks to artificially elevate the prestige of the whole build. It saddens me to have to do that kind of things, but I feel forced to.
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If you don’t mind me asking, what makes you feel like you have to do that?
Just a little heads to remember that some of those requirements in testing could potentially change, so an optimised farm in testing may not be optimised when it goes live!
I have asked for some clarification on what could potentially change here:
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however, gleam for surface gives you 24h light source - sun for the day light (or maybe additive sun and gleam, or just the strongest counts?) and then gleam for night time
unless the system always counts night hours as no-light time, then it may well be underground with gleam and reacting to gleam light during the day only
also, wonder if gleam light has the same “strength” as sunlight
Feeling forced to have an hidden optimized farm, or feeling forced to have an hidden vault where I place chiseled prestigious blocks to up my build’s overall prestige value?
For the first one, because I wanna get the best out of my future crops while making sure it doesn’t take too much space to not have to allocate too many plots for that (whereas before farming, no plots were required). If we all had infinite plots, that would be far less of an issue for many people.
I’ll probably hide my own optimized farm because I don’t want it to interfere with the aesthetics of my build.
For the second one, because you get more coins per visitor depending on your prestige rank. I’m at Town, currently. That’s 60 coins per visitor. I wish it was enough for me to buy tools and stuff, but I’m not connected to enough places to get many visitors anyway.
Again, it all comes down to aesthetics. I don’t wanna make my build mostly out of machined metals or decorative diamonds or refined gleam, so I hide all of that deep beneath the ground.
I won’t start another argument about footfall, but your farm ideas do make some sense
Testing release note continue in the following thread:
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