Adding fruit trees

[MrBryMan]

I looked at the threads and discussions on the forum and did not find a single mention (maybe not noticed) about FRUIT TREES. As for me, this is a good alternative to berry bushes. Fruits, namely apples, pears, oranges, cherries, pomegranates, bananas or the like, can be found on the corresponding trees growing around the world in their traditional regions. Let them grow longer than ordinary trees, and the fruits ripen for a whole season, but they can also be canned and cooked food that is not bad in its characteristics (remember that in reality there are many vitamins in fruits).

[Streetwind]

There's actually a good chance you'll see them in the very next major version, as they were included in the choice that won the last community poll:

 

[Soliton]

I wonder what a fruit tree's actual use would be in the game?  The nutrition category "Fruit" is relatively easy to maintain just by eating berries and honey for most of the year, with making jam covering you for winter months.  In fact the hardest part is just gathering a sufficient number reeds to make the requisite skeps.  

In the most recent Devlog, it shows what I assume would be an alcohol distillery and, because adding the nutrition category of "Alcohol" would prove socially problematic, it would likely be a longer lasting version of the nutrition "Fruit".  Yes, the varied alcohols could be used for a variety of other purposes (i.e. food storage or treating diseases) it is unlikely that you would need more than initial batches to last you for in-game years.

If so, then would it be reasonable to balance the profundity of fruit trees with the ravenous hunger of passive animals (i.e. pigs and sheep)?  Firstly, I would recommend giving them a species respective nutritional requirement (vegetable, meat [protein], fruit, grain, and dry grass [roughage]) that must be fulfilled on a regular basis of they begin to lose weight, won't breed, get sick, and eventually die.  That way different animals feeds could be crafted, by using their associated proportions, stored and fed to the animals throughout the year.  As good as berries are, it would take a tremendous amount of them to make the quantities necessary for realistic animal husbandry.

This has the added benefit if the developer wanted to separate the yearly growth patterns of the different resources (i.e. spelt, turnips, apples are for spring / rye, carrots, lemons are in summer / etc ...) then you would have to be careful to make sure you are constantly producing enough food of the different varieties to keep animals alive as feed could also spoil.  To be absolutely sadistic, you could make it that feed can only be stored in sacks (cloth bags) and not stacked in chests (also increasing the rate of spoilage).

To make it even more difficult then make it where new animals spawn at diminishing rate for each chunk so that you either keep the ones available alive or you have to travel/transport to get new ones.

In total, this should drive the need to produce a constant amount of fruit from trees.

[Streetwind]

A possible "final destination" for fruit trees and berry bushes is that all of them produce fruit only once per year. One of the inspirations for Vintage Story, the Minecraft mod Terrafirmacraft, had it set up like that. You had different fruit trees that would ripen in different months, and different berries as well. If you managed to collect a good variety, then at least one of them would be ripe in any given month for like March through October and give you a steady supply of fruit.

If your collection of bushes outside the door gave you a harvest only once per year, instead of once per eight days, you'd quickly stop questioning the usefulness of fruit trees

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by Streetwind
Typo

[Soliton]

I absolutely agree with making each seed/bush/tree only mature given a narrow set of environmental conditions (i.e. only once per year but distributed throughout the year) but extended by use of a green house.  In fact in my next world, I am setting Food Spoilage Rate to 400% and Sapling Growth Speed to 96 days to start approximating this effect.

Having said that, I wonder if the existing growth mechanic could be tricked by creating a shaded garden and growing heat-intolerant vegetables in it?  I will have to try that in a creative world.