LadyWYT Posted June 5 Report Posted June 5 7 hours ago, Maelstrom said: No! Just no. If one has a huge expanse of low fertility soil, just run in a single direction until you get some medium fertility soil. It may be a few hundred blocks, but you'll eventually get there. Even fertilizer enriched low fertility soil is obnoxiously slow in growing crops. I would say it's fine to use low fertility soil to farm, but fertilizer shouldn't be relied on in that case. It's better to just make bigger fields, rotate crops, and make sure that the crops are planted as early as possible in order to have enough time to mature before frost(which is going to be tough on the first year). As for farming in general, yes, terra preta is the best dirt, and requires compost to craft, but building an entire farm out of terra preta is a task to be completed over several in-game years, and not the first year or two.
Kolyenka Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 On 6/5/2026 at 6:29 AM, Maelstrom said: No! Just no. If one has a huge expanse of low fertility soil, just run in a single direction until you get some medium fertility soil. It may be a few hundred blocks, but you'll eventually get there. Even fertilizer enriched low fertility soil is obnoxiously slow in growing crops. I know this as I have had multiple starts where medium fertility soil is a long way off. Just take a stack of shovel heads (4 stone heads) and dig up a couple stacks of medium fert soil and take it home to the nearest pond/lake for farming. I agree that finding better soil is obviously preferred over using (and improving) low fertility soil, but sometimes you will starve before you find better soil. Especially if you are playing on a world with lots of oceans. I'm 60 hours into my current game and have spent probably 30 hours exploring (looking for better soil among other things) and I haven't found a single medium fertility block yet. I do however have lots and lots of rot from hides and such. Plus, while medium fertility is good, naturally occurring terra preta is not common, especially not in large enough amounts to replace your whole garden. So farming rot to make terra preta is worthwhile regardless of whether you have medium fert or not.
CastIronFabric Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 (edited) 3 hours ago, Kolyenka said: .Plus, while medium fertility is good.. The common understanding I have gotten while playing the game and also watching several online tutorials is that medium fert dirt is not 'good' its essential to the point that if you can not find any anywhere despite several months of looking that this is an extreme outlier not normal. In fact, one tutorial I saw said that crops will not grow in time in low firt dirt at all...full stop. I do not know if that is accurate but I think your game world is an outlier, not a norm. So I think calling it 'good' is an understatement. Edited June 23 by CastIronFabric
Maelstrom Posted June 23 Author Report Posted June 23 1 hour ago, Kolyenka said: I agree that finding better soil is obviously preferred over using (and improving) low fertility soil, but sometimes you will starve before you find better soil. Especially if you are playing on a world with lots of oceans. I'm 60 hours into my current game and have spent probably 30 hours exploring (looking for better soil among other things) and I haven't found a single medium fertility block yet. I do however have lots and lots of rot from hides and such. Plus, while medium fertility is good, naturally occurring terra preta is not common, especially not in large enough amounts to replace your whole garden. So farming rot to make terra preta is worthwhile regardless of whether you have medium fert or not. finding medium fert soil is easy enough. My first long term world was the worst I've ever seen. Low fert soil for about a 1,000 block radius of spawn and a dramatically low amount of forageables. The food availability was so low that I walked every where to keep from starving. By the time I found medium fert soil close to the evening of the first day, I had not come close to starving. If I had sprinted everywhere food would have been a much worse problem. There should not be a problem finding medium fert soil within the first day or two of spawning a new world. Terra preta no longer spawns naturally needing high fert soil or twice as much of other ingredients. Holding out for high fert soil to start a garden (let alone fields for farming) is NOT on the early game bingo card. High fert soil and terra preta are mid to late game goals, unless you have an absurd spawn. I had one in which there were a dozen high fert soil deposits within a few hundred block radius of spawn, but that is one world out of a dozen or more that I've played.
Dilan Rona Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 On 5/26/2026 at 6:04 PM, blindstitch said: On 5/26/2026 at 5:54 PM, LadyWYT said: Flint can be cooked in a bloomery, which is more efficient than the firepit. Flint that can go into a bloomery is something i only learned myself literally last week
Zaph42nd Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 Possibly repeating others but wish I had known starting out and especially in mid-game a couple of things: - Windmills are more effective and efficient at higher altitudes above sea-level and with some distance between windmills ensures they run smoothly. That took me some time to get used to, especially with how 1.22 changes windmill behaviors a little bit - Hunger rates are reduced by sitting and not having items in your off-hand, that took me way too long to notice. Relatedly, you need to balance your diet to maximize your health, an unbalanced diet while preventing starvation, does make fighting a lot less fun (plus diverse diets encourage playing with more game-systems) - You can tame an elk even in Homo Sapiens (no lore content) which makes traversing a lot less annoying (or more now that you've got one) and you should try to get some saddle-bags to make it even more worthwhile
LadyWYT Posted June 23 Report Posted June 23 2 hours ago, Zaph42nd said: Hunger rates are reduced by sitting and not having items in your off-hand Holding items in your off-hand will definitely increase hunger, so keeping the slot empty will reduce calorie burn. But to my knowledge, sitting actually burns more calories than standing; I think it's coded that way to account for AFK players in multiplayer, since most tend to just stand around and there's no "auto-sit" feature. I could be wrong though.
Maelstrom Posted June 24 Author Report Posted June 24 (edited) 20 hours ago, LadyWYT said: But to my knowledge, sitting actually burns more calories than standing; Sitting does indeed burn calories slower. I recently used this a couple weeks ago. Congrats! You stand corrected. Or maybe you sit corrected if you're actually sitting. Edited June 24 by Maelstrom 1
Demoncyborg Posted June 24 Report Posted June 24 (edited) 22 hours ago, LadyWYT said: Holding items in your off-hand will definitely increase hunger, so keeping the slot empty will reduce calorie burn. But to my knowledge, sitting actually burns more calories than standing; I think it's coded that way to account for AFK players in multiplayer, since most tend to just stand around and there's no "auto-sit" feature. I could be wrong though. I think it's probably the standing still mechanic- according to the wiki, standing still without jumping or clicking reduces your hunger rate 4-fold after 3 seconds. edit: peeking at the source for it on the wiki seems to confirm that sitting has nothing to do with it either, but im not a coder so there could be more hidin' there Edited June 24 by Demoncyborg
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