COLD HARDY CROPS FOR WINTER GARDENS/GREENHOUSES

[ijkdenem]

got a few things i found that i wanna suggest. video link for where they are from below. very informative.

{Cold-Hardy Crops You Can Grow Through the Winter}

kale(russian varieties), red veined sorrel, lettuce, tatsoi, carrots, spinach, swiss chard, claytonia, arugula, mustard greens, parsley, cilantro, yukina savoy, mizuna, mache

(lingonberry, crowberry, bearberry, these 3 grow in cold climes as said by LadyWYT)

Edited September 4 by ijkdenem
added stuff

[SnapJelly]

I'd like all of these additions though maybe something added where wild vegetable spawns are more regional then if there THAT many, going out to try and look for different veggies could be fun!

[SnapJelly]

19 hours ago, ijkdenem said:

cilantro

They should add a random chance for each player to be born with the soap gene and make cilantro do damage instead lol

[LadyWYT]

10 minutes ago, SnapJelly said:

where wild vegetable spawns are more regional then if there THAT many

In addition to the more cold-tolerant crops being locked to spawn in the more northern regions, in addition to being more heat-sensitive. That way the player has more survival options in cold climates, and more reason to venture north. That being said, I would be concerned about potentially unbalancing the game somewhat, since I mean...one of the main points of wintertime is that it's supposed to be a time where growing crops isn't an option, hence the need to preserve food. Thus it seems a little counter-productive to give the player a way to grow crops all year round outside of warmer climates.

[SnapJelly]

5 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

one of the main points of wintertime is that it's supposed to be a time where growing crops isn't an option, hence the need to preserve food. Thus it seems a little counter-productive to give the player a way to grow crops all year round outside of warmer climates.

I agree with this, preperation for winter should imo always remain a core focus of the game however for the sake of argument I do wanna play devils advocate and say I do think there are ways this could be implemented to balance things out more.

For example you could add the requirement of removing snow from your crop fields to keep them growing, make them grow very very slowly, or simply make their nutritional value much worse than other veggies that are less cold resistant so people are still pushed to try and stock up on those if they can, but have an option for food if they can not.
Again, I agree with you but just spitballin some possibilities.

 

Overall though for something like this many aditions to truly work in the best way I think it would require a greater overhaul of the food spawning system in general, making crop spawn more regonal or changing how the seed drops work could all aid in making the player having to plan ahead more to gether specific crop types specifically because they want to have them. But all of that is a different discussion to have for a different day

[qualicabyss]

we have cold tolerant crops, they're just screwed over by the universal growth speed reduction below 10c and universal growth stop at 0c
actually 13/18 crops survive below 0c, and only 1 doesn't survive below 10c
crop temperature system needs remade

[SnapJelly]

22 minutes ago, qualicabyss said:

we have cold tolerant crops, they're just screwed over by the universal growth speed reduction below 10c and universal growth stop at 0c

Perhaps a way to artificially heat up greenhouses with fuel could be cool, it would allow people in cold climates to grow warm climate crops in exchange for regular monitoring

[PhotriusPyrelus]

3 hours ago, SnapJelly said:

preperation for winter should imo always remain a core focus of the game

Eh?  Can't you just go south and mitigate Winter entirely?

[SnapJelly]

49 minutes ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

Eh?  Can't you just go south and mitigate Winter entirely?

yes, but you won't find many winter crops there man

[ijkdenem]

9 hours ago, SnapJelly said:

They should add a random chance for each player to be born with the soap gene and make cilantro do damage instead lol

frick yes i was thinking the same thing too lmao.

[ijkdenem]

6 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

Eh?  Can't you just go south and mitigate Winter entirely?

not everybody wants to just live at the equator. i just added these for variety.

[LadyWYT]

6 hours ago, PhotriusPyrelus said:

Eh?  Can't you just go south and mitigate Winter entirely?

You can, but it's gonna be a very long trip on default settings. And like @ijkdenem said, not everyone wants to just go live in tropics.

 

8 hours ago, SnapJelly said:

Perhaps a way to artificially heat up greenhouses with fuel could be cool, it would allow people in cold climates to grow warm climate crops in exchange for regular monitoring

Maybe, but I think part of the core design of VS is that the player is meant to work with locally available materials, and not meant to be able to have absolutely everything available in the convenience of their base. That is, if you want tropical materials, you need to actually go to the tropics, and vice versa for materials found in cooler climates. Certain foods might be entirely unavailable in certain climates, outside of trading, that is.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

7 hours ago, ijkdenem said:

not everybody wants to just live at the equator. i just added these for variety.

I mean sure, but he said a main focus of the game.  It's not a main focus of the game if you can choose to avoid it entirely by settling in a certain area.

[MKMoose]

On 8/26/2026 at 9:28 PM, SnapJelly said:

Perhaps a way to artificially heat up greenhouses with fuel could be cool, it would allow people in cold climates to grow warm climate crops in exchange for regular monitoring

As much as it could be cool and actually somewhat realistic, I largely agree with @LadyWYT's sentiment in that it doesn't seem appropriate to allow the player to excessively circumvent seasonal or climatic limitations for crop growth.

The current system is already very lenient, allowing to grow a couple crops in "icy" climates in low fertility soil with no fertilizer and no greenhouse (and a lot more crops with additional investment).

 

On 8/26/2026 at 8:04 PM, SnapJelly said:

For example you could add the requirement of removing snow from your crop fields to keep them growing, make them grow very very slowly, or simply make their nutritional value much worse than other veggies that are less cold resistant so people are still pushed to try and stock up on those if they can, but have an option for food if they can not.

I don't personally think this would end up working very well, and the same goes for heated greenhouses. Tweaking the nutritional value of some crops could be fine. I feel like some problems here are a consequence of the current farming and general food mechanics more than any flaws inherent to your suggestion, though. Frankly, I don't like farming as it is now as a whole to the point where half of my suggestions on these forums touch on related mechanics, but that's another matter.

Giving the player a way to invest significant additional time and effort into cold-climate agriculture just to get at best similar yields to what they would get in warmer climates just seems largely kind of pointless from a design perspective, unless there is something else to counterbalance it - I don't think it's interesting to make farming almost the same in every climate and just more tedious and time-consuming in cooler climates. In part just because what kind of "uncompromising wilderness survival" is this if I can just build a nice greenhouse and grow crops in a climate which realistically has essentially zero agriculture?

I would love to see cold climates designed with a unique gameplay flavor and focus of their own, which could also end up much more immersive and realistic. Cold and especially subarctic climates are a great opportunity to incentivize an alternative playstyle focused heavily on hunting land and marine mammals or birds, as well as on fishing and foraging. In terms of farming in cooler climates, I would like to see animal husbandry highlighted, with some reasonably cold-resistant crops (or ideally hay meadows) strongly favoring usage as fodder. Herding, especially reindeer herding, may be of particular interest as well.

Edited August 27 by MKMoose