nnm711 Posted July 23 Report Posted July 23 Hello, new player here, enjoying my first playthrough. When I saw how the berry bushes work in 1.22, I looked for a way how to sidestep the fertilizer requirement(medieval peasants have to be crafty!), as I didn't want to waste valuable (and scarce at that time) resources on growing berries. I settled on strategy of just replanting the bushes when the nutrient levels drop too low, sacrificing one half of the farm for one year to grow fresh bushes. I knew the yield isn't going to be great, but it's good enough, one doesn't need that many berries anyway. It's now year 5, and some of my bushes were approaching the "barren" state threshold, so I replanted them last year. Surprisingly, they seem to regrow with nutrients still drained. You can see from the screenshot that the bush is not even mature yet, but it already has just 27% of nutrients, on a medium fertility soil. The wiki says that the berry bush only takes the initial fertility level from the soil based on its type, and then works independently, having to fertilize the bush directly, but this seems like a misconception. Out of curiosity, I tried tilling the soil immediately after destroying a bush. You can see the soil is actually drained of nutrients from the bush growing on it. My issue isn't with the soil remembering the bush nutrient values, but rather how invisible this is. The soil block itself shows nothing, because it's not farmland, and the freshly planted cutting doesn't show nutrient values yet, so player gets a delayed middle finger. I believe planted cutting should already show nutrient values, so it's clear what's happening under the hood. Maybe looking at a soil block with less than 100% of its nutrients should show the nutrients level too, as they seem to recover over time like unused farmland, but the process is fully invisible. For now, I guess I will just dig out each soil block before replanting the bush. ----- I also have a second issue, that the berry bushes seem to lose their traits over time. I haven't seen this as intended mechanic on the wiki. Apart from very few specimens when I find a new type of bush, I am very particular about planting only berry bushes with "-nutrient uptake", ideally also having "+yield". But when I checked on my bushes couple years down the line, I noticed most of them had no traits. I am now very glad I didn't put any fertilizer into them! I unfortunately don't have any relevant logs because I suspected some of them lost traits long ago, but I didn't remember what bushes had which traits, as they were mixed with traitless bushes, and bushes with wrong traits.(I initially thought cuttings could roll new traits when growing up, so I was also taking ones with traits that speed up harvest and remain ripe for longer, chasing that perfect 4-positive trait bush) I only became sure of this phenomenon on year 4's spring, when just before winter I propagated a lot of my good berry bushes, and after winter I noticed traits on almost all of the bushes were gone. There is a bug report about this on Github (https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues/9215), and it seemed to suggest melting snow is the culprit. I have built a cover for them so snow doesn't reach them anymore, but I have trust issues now, and I am now doubly hesitant to spend any kind of fertilizer on bushes, lol. But I have been thinking about it, as I probably have the resources now to just boost them into bountiful state and keep them there. I don't really want to do it though, if the "-nutrients uptake" trait could just vanish from them thanks to bugs. 1.22.4 changelog didn't mention anything about this, so I will keep waiting. ----- The berry bush rework seemed quite controversial. As a new player I don't think the result is that bad, though I wish there was a way to cultivate new traits within new bushes, or combine them somehow. (maybe having the bushes with different traits close together be pollinated by a single beehive could produce fruit with seeds, that could be extracted with a knife and planted) The trait utility also seems to wary wildly, with the "-nutrient uptake" being by far the best, making upkeep a lot more economical. +15% yield is nothing to write home about, should be at least 30 or 50% imo, or even randomized, so players keep searching the world for higher values. Harvesting speed seems pretty useless, saves maybe a second each year. Ripe duration could help line up harvest better, so the earliest bushes still have fruit while the last stragglers ripen up. The 20-year period until the nutrient consumption tapers out is crazy, I feel like something like 10 would be more appropriate(with sped up nutrient consumption). Considering each year on default settings is 50-60 hours of playtime, on solo worlds we are talking about a 1000-hour save before one has a truly "mature" bush. But even without fertilizing, on medium fertility soil the bush will bear fruit for 3-4 years, twice a year. I am still unsure it's all worth the effort, considering fruit trees produce fruit with superior qualities and quantities with no maintenance after successful planting, and there are wild bushes everywhere. I personally like to keep around as many varied food sources as possible, so I keep messing around with berry bushes. Maybe in the future the patches, the player could be able to make cream or yoghurt from milk and combine it with berries only, to produce dairy + fruit kind of food, to keep berries relevant.
MKMoose Posted July 23 Report Posted July 23 (edited) 52 minutes ago, nnm711 said: For now, I guess I will just dig out each soil block before replanting the bush. Yeah, that's the easy and immersive solution. Alternatively, you can just wait for the nutrients to replenish, though that still leaves the problem of how long to wait if the nutrients are not visible. The recovery rate should be 0.25% every 3.5 in-game hours on average, so ~1.7% every in-game day or a little less than 6 days for every 10%. 52 minutes ago, nnm711 said: The 20-year period until the nutrient consumption tapers out is crazy, I feel like something like 10 would be more appropriate(with sped up nutrient consumption). Considering each year on default settings is 50-60 hours of playtime, on solo worlds we are talking about a 1000-hour save before one has a truly "mature" bush. But even without fertilizing, on medium fertility soil the bush will bear fruit for 3-4 years, twice a year. Nutrient consumption falls off to just ~20% of the base value after 10 years, so the bush will have consumed ~80% of all nutrients it will ever consume by that point (neglecting variation due to differing health states) and further uptake is almost negligible in most cases. As I see it, extending their lifetime is significantly easier than dealing with breaking and replanting, unless maybe when you're mass-producing rot. At least, that is when you have sufficient fertilizer - I always have an excess of bones, but I don't know about your playstyle. 52 minutes ago, nnm711 said: I am still unsure it's all worth the effort, considering fruit trees produce fruit with superior qualities and quantities with no maintenance after successful planting, and there are wild bushes everywhere. I personally like to keep around as many varied food sources as possible, so I keep messing around with berry bushes. Frankly, for me it's a hard no. If apples didn't last well over a year in a cellar and ripen faster than bushes in Year 1, then I would be a bit more willing to bother with berries after Year 0. Edited July 23 by MKMoose
nnm711 Posted July 23 Author Report Posted July 23 Thank you for your response. I don't think digging out the soil is too much work, better than waiting it out blindly. I was just surprised this is how the berry bushes work, as the resources available indicated the soil remains untouched, and the nutrients data is stored on the berry bush itself. I half suspect the nutrient regeneration continues while the bush is in the cutting stage, because even the immediately replanted bushes have more nutrients than its predecessor. I certainly have enough bones now that I have both chicken and pig farm, though before that I saved all bones to craft Terra preta. I used to mostly eat bushmeat from wolves that crossed my path beforehand, and I rarely killed other animals for redmeat, because I wasn't sure how animal spawns work and I wanted to tame them later. (they still disappeared over time, probably from falling into those vertical holes that are everywhere) Nothing beats spending no resources though. If I am going to fertilize the bushes, I will most likely want to boost all stats though, so they reach the "bountiful" state. What does a nutrient imbalance do to the bush? If I just bonemeal it to 100% P, will it use more of the P nutrient than the rest? That would not make the bush bountiful immediately, but it would shift the nutrient consumption burden towards the most easily obtainable fertilizer type, if I did that for the first 5-10 years.
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