Tomatoes, Barley, potatoes and beans?

[DakotaGrey]

I know that we already have grain crops so barley might not make sense to the Devs, but I would love to see more staple crops.  My seraphim might not care about eating the same hearty red meat stew with cabbage every day, but it would drive me insane.  I also enjoy gardening in real life and all of the balancing and rotating of crops and the soil is part of what makes it fun.  Gardening makes me puzzle though my dietary needs for the year and how much of each plant I'll need to accomplish my goal.  Some years the yield is enormous, and the family and I are searching for cars at church with unlocked doors so we can stuff it with veggies and fruits. Other years the yield is poor, and we need to supplement with hunting and groceries more.  Then there's all the prep work and family salsa days.  We'll have a dozen people working together to make enough for everyone.  My point is that having a few more crops leaves room for people to scramble as a community and work together both in the harvesting and the processing.  If we're always harvesting the same few crops and fruits, it becomes somewhat monotonous for those that play as farmers and cooks.  Beans would bring the possibility of chili and soups.  They would also require a step to shell them. Potatoes would probably compete with cabbage and the Devs wouldn't see much point in adding them since cabbage already fills that roll. They would however help diversify peoples harvesting.  Potatoes have to be dug up.  Tomatoes would add plants that have to be harvested over time.  The bush would stay and continue to slowly produce fruit even after the initial harvest.  Farmers would have to harvest multiple small batches until the plant was done.  I simply think that adding a bit of variety adds replay value.

[LadyWYT]

23 hours ago, DakotaGrey said:

Tomatoes would add plants that have to be harvested over time.  The bush would stay and continue to slowly produce fruit even after the initial harvest.

I think they tried to implement this concept with peppers, and it didn't exactly go as planned. That is, the implementation turned out to be very buggy, so while peppers are technically still in the game, they are currently unobtainable due to being unfinished.

 

23 hours ago, DakotaGrey said:

I simply think that adding a bit of variety adds replay value.

I do agree--it's one of the reasons that Wildcraft and other crop mods are popular. However, I do think it's the kind of thing we'll see get added later, as either a smaller update(mostly bugfixes and QoL, like 1.21 was), or as a part of a major update(story content, new gameplay mechanics, etc). As it stands now, there's already a decent variety of food currently in the game, with other systems still waiting to be fleshed out(late game tech, fishing, herbalism, etc).

[DakotaGrey]

Agreed, I just wish it was base game.  The mods have caused some problems with my gardens when updates came out and the mods weren't aways updated promptly. I've had to just remove harvests from my cellar because its unusable for rl months.  I just broke the question mark blocks in my garden to make sure I could grow enough for the coming winter.  Sad to hear about the peppers but it makes sense now with context.