Scythe should'nt be able to harvest onions, carots and other root plants

[Krakuntun]

Hey everyone,

just a minor thing i noticed being incongruent. 

Root vegetables (Carots, Onions, Cassava, Licorice...) are underground and therefore need to be dug out. It is not logical, this is possible with a scythe
made for harvesting grains and other surface plants with small stems.

Therefore I suggest to remove these vegetables from the "cuttable" shrubs. Perhaps a shovel could be used to harvest root vegetables faster?
Introducing a special spade specifically for this task seems excessive.

Greetings and good survival
Krakuntun
 

[Broccoli Clock]

First post and you're dropping words like incongruent? I'm going to like you. Welcome to the forums!  The pedantry involved is also lovely, it's a fair point and not reflective of real life. 

However, as a gardener, I don't think I use any tools other than my hands or a knife to take out root vegetables, rather than a small shovel. Still I think you're right, the scythe technically shouldn't cut them (or they cut the stems not providing the body of the plant).

 

[Krakuntun]

Haha, thank you. All thanks to academic writing

I also thought about the scythe cutting just the greenery off of these root vegetables as a possible explanation for the why of the current mechanic, but that also doesn't make sense.

The knife already gives a small boost i think. So might be a good alternative as well. 

[LeviticusFox]

Nothing you've said is incorrect, but personally I wouldn't support such a change without a different AOE harvesting method being introduced spefically for root vegetables. The scythe solves a problem mechanically, which is harvesting large amounts of crops taking ages when you're doing it one by one, even with a fast method like an quenched steel knife.

Maybe some kind of hand-pushed harvesting plow?

[Krakuntun]

Yeah, an alternative would be needed, i agree. I got several ideas for that.

1) enabling a different mode for the shovel, allowing you to dig up vegetables, like with the scythe or prospecting pick modes

2) introducing a new system, like a harvesting plow/spade

3) buffing knife harvesting for crops
 

Edited April 29 by Krakuntun

[Heegrim]

Yeah, the shovel should be used for harvesting root vegetables instead of the scythe. 

This also gives more variation to the usefulness of different crops early-game. Since you need metal to make a scythe, it would make more sense to plant more root vegetables in the Stone Age and then upgrade to favouring grains as you progress to metal tools. 

[LeviticusFox]

On 4/29/2026 at 4:26 AM, Krakuntun said:

Yeah, an alternative would be needed, i agree. I got several ideas for that.

1) enabling a different mode for the shovel, allowing you to dig up vegetables, like with the scythe or prospecting pick modes

2) introducing a new system, like a harvesting plow/spade

3) buffing knife harvesting for crops
 

I feel like number one is pretty solid actually and already in-line with the way other tools work. 

[cjameshuff]

This seems like an obvious use for the hoe, rather than the shovel. Especially since you currently don't really need to ever use a hoe again after creating your fields.

[Bruno Willis]

On 4/29/2026 at 8:19 AM, LeviticusFox said:

Nothing you've said is incorrect, but personally I wouldn't support such a change without a different AOE harvesting method being introduced spefically for root vegetables. The scythe solves a problem mechanically, which is harvesting large amounts of crops taking ages when you're doing it one by one, even with a fast method like an quenched steel knife.

I think that if root vegetables produced really abundantly if planted in quality soil, and grains cared less about soil quality, that'd be alright. In that situation, you're using your scythe to a few dozen rye plants, and then dipping into your kitchen garden and digging a couple of turnips up, and getting similar yields. 

This is coming from an interesting point MKMoose made in this thread: