Making berry bushes less OP

[redram]

Saw there was some discussion of berry bushes and their OP-ness on the discord.  Wanted to post a suggestion for making berry bushes less OP.  Basically the suggestion is that to move a berry bush, you have make a linen sack.  This sack allows you to transport one bush.  It's basically like the burlap sack in a ball-and-burlap tree.  The mechanic could be holding the sack, having dirt and shovel in your hotbar, and right clicking on the bush.  The sack and dirt are used up, and the player gains a B&B berry bush.  The shovel loses some durability.  You then right click with this B&B bush to plant it.  You do not get the sack or dirt back, and hopefully you placed right because you'll have to use a new sack to move it again.  This places a fairly steep cost on moving berry bushes. 

Of course, it could also be made that bushes only produce at a certain time of year, once the game has a calendar year with seasons and such.  That would also greatly reduce their OP-ness.

[tony Liberatto]

I guess the main question is how far are we from a calendar year

That would solve many food issues and at the same time create a lot of others.

[Soloquendi]

I think seasonal harvest would be the way to go.  Making things overly complex without needing to just adds unnecessary work for the developers. 

[MarcAFK]

Making them take longer to produce would also help. Then maybe adding an extra time needed for the plant to recover from being moved.  Perhaps when you replant it gets a few extra growth stages which double or triple the recovery time compared to just picking.

 

[Tyron]

> I guess the main question is how far are we from a calendar year

We have an internal game calendar and crops already grow based on the calendar, but I suppose you'd need to also have seasons to indicate the time of year. Saraty and me thought of changing terrain gen to be more TFC like, so the climate is hottest at z=0 and the further away from z you go the colder it gets, only then it would probably make sense to add seasons. With the biome patches thing we have going right now seasons might be awkward looking otherwise

Also even if seasons are added, aren't berry bushes still quite OP?

[copygirl]

12 minutes ago, Tyron said:

Saraty and me thought of changing terrain gen to be more TFC like, so the climate is hottest at z=0 and the further away from z you go the colder it gets, only then it would probably make sense to add seasons.

Would there be summer and winter at the same time in different areas of the world or would seasons be global?

[Stroam]

Make them unable to move and rarely drop a seed when harvested that can be planted to grow a bush. That'll put them more in line with crops.

[redram]

4 hours ago, Tyron said:

Also even if seasons are added, aren't berry bushes still quite OP?

Depends on how many times they produce in season. I think in TFC you would get max of 2 crops maybe in a season, iirc?  If you can only harvest them like, twice a year, I think that greatly reduces their op-ness (harvest times need to scale with year length of course, for custom years).   The berries also rotted really fast, so I think most people used them to make alcohol.  So if we get food decay, and berries can't be easily preserved, that also makes them less op.  preserving could require sugar, which we don't even have right now.   I think it'd be a bad idea to require they be planted on farm ground, but maybe they could have their own internal fertilizer counter, and you have to also fertilize them once in awhile to maintain peak production?  The chance to set a crop could go down linearly with the percent of fertilizer they have.  They could perhaps have a buffer, so they could have maybe 120% fertilizer, so the player can have guaranteed set for a season or two.  Or, just limit it at 100, and sometimes a bush doesn't set berries. 

The seed idea is one that would also work.  I presume you could just plant them on grass.  That does create the ability to expand the berry farm outside of what's available naturally, so that would be a design decision there.

Then, there could be crop pests.  Racoons, crows, hogs, dear, bears(!).  Irl every animal around is after those berries.   Straw dummy plus some clothes = scarecrow to keep birds away, fences keep out hogs.  Racoons and bears?  Domesticate yourself a wolf dog or six.   At this point, the player is earning every berry they get!

Also, I know on discord someone suggested more berries and I think Saraty said you guys wanted to limit the number of different berries, but I'd just suggest maybe reducing it to one kind of currant, so there can be a couple other different kinds?  Having three kinds of currants seems to me kind of monotonous.  I'd really love to be able to do strawberries myself.  There's goose berries, choke berries, huckleberries, elder berries, lingen berries, on and on.  And then there's grapes and raspberries and the like, which It think would be great to have as a vine style plant, that can be trellised, or grow on fences, though I know that'd probably be code-complicated.

[Tyron]

7 hours ago, copygirl said:

Would there be summer and winter at the same time in different areas of the world or would seasons be global?

Possibly, why not.

2 hours ago, redram said:

Depends on how many times they produce in season. I think in TFC you would get max of 2 crops maybe in a season, iirc?  If you can only harvest them like, twice a year, I think that greatly reduces their op-ness (harvest times need to scale with year length of course, for custom years).   The berries also rotted really fast, so I think most people used them to make alcohol.  So if we get food decay, and berries can't be easily preserved, that also makes them less op.  preserving could require sugar, which we don't even have right now.   I think it'd be a bad idea to require they be planted on farm ground, but maybe they could have their own internal fertilizer counter, and you have to also fertilize them once in awhile to maintain peak production?  The chance to set a crop could go down linearly with the percent of fertilizer they have.  They could perhaps have a buffer, so they could have maybe 120% fertilizer, so the player can have guaranteed set for a season or two.  Or, just limit it at 100, and sometimes a bush doesn't set berries. 

The seed idea is one that would also work.  I presume you could just plant them on grass.  That does create the ability to expand the berry farm outside of what's available naturally, so that would be a design decision there.

Then, there could be crop pests.  Racoons, crows, hogs, dear, bears(!).  Irl every animal around is after those berries.   Straw dummy plus some clothes = scarecrow to keep birds away, fences keep out hogs.  Racoons and bears?  Domesticate yourself a wolf dog or six.   At this point, the player is earning every berry they get!

Also, I know on discord someone suggested more berries and I think Saraty said you guys wanted to limit the number of different berries, but I'd just suggest maybe reducing it to one kind of currant, so there can be a couple other different kinds?  Having three kinds of currants seems to me kind of monotonous.  I'd really love to be able to do strawberries myself.  There's goose berries, choke berries, huckleberries, elder berries, lingen berries, on and on.  And then there's grapes and raspberries and the like, which It think would be great to have as a vine style plant, that can be trellised, or grow on fences, though I know that'd probably be code-complicated.

Good points!

[DMKW]

I kind of like the burlap sack idea.  Especially for fruit trees if thats ever a thing.  Dig a 3x3x1deep hole and place the plant.  Fill with animal manure and wait.  If food rotting is a thing then I'd definitely like a way to preserve the crops.  Drying, canning, salthing, whatever.