Weeds: punishment for ignored farm

[orchid imp]

Basicly my idea is when a tile of a farm is empty and left alone after maybe a week a weed will start growing,and if not taking care of it will grow in multiple phase,phase 1: 5-8 day ,a weed start to grow but does nothing yet phase 2: 12-14 day: the weed is clearly seen and have a type (exemple one that take P) it start draining the soil slowly. phase 3: 2-3 month: the weed basicly grow like a full plant and take all soil nutriment very fast. BUT,it would encourage taking care of your farm a minimum,also cutting it down could give dead weed to rot for compost but would give more if cutted down eraly (feel weird but it would reward player taking care of it early)

[runic beacon]

i mean weeds are sort of in the game, grass will grow on empty tilled soil

[honest socket]

Maybe the grass could slowly take nutrients?

[sacred acorn]

Hm. Making untended fields require maintenance might be fine, but I would be sad if it discouraged people from doing crop rotation as a result. Fallow fields are also the only way of renewably getting horsetails for extremely basic renewable healing, and fallow fields are also uniquely useful for gathering grass during snowy winters because the fields block the accumulation of snow and allow for use of a scythe without clearing the snow.

So, unsure. You do specify that it takes a while for weeds to appear, which could make it a manageable nuisance.

[honest socket]

True, maybe there could be a weed plant that could grow and take nutrients except in winter. So that you would want to go and remove the weeds from your fallow field, while keeping grass and horsetails. I like the idea of different types taking different nutrients.

[sacred acorn]

I'm reminded of Don't Starve Together, where the weeds that can show up in your fields are mechanically bad, but still have some minor uses if you grow them. I think having them be harvestable for a crop that rapidly spoils for composting might be good enough.

I dunno. Maybe a kind of thistle would be appropriate as a weed? If you let it fully grow it can become a flower that can be removed and replanted in normal grass for beekeeping, at the cost of it consuming some nutrients. (If I'm not mistaken, flowers aren't renewable in-game at the moment.)

[honest socket]

Maybe all flowers could grow on farmland?

[sacred acorn]

That could be nice. Just trying to tie back in with the nuisance plant idea.

[honest socket]

I mean what is a weed but a plant that grows somewhere that you don't want? Each flower could take nutrients so you wouldn't want them growing in a field meant for grain, or a veggie garden.

[sacred acorn]

Could have them grow flowers appropriate to the given latitude if you wanted all flowers to be renewable...

You know what, yeah, that's a good idea.

Might just want them to take longer to spring up than grass or horsetails given that they'd punish you nutrient-wise.

[honest socket]

True

[wet rock]

And what if the weeds could also have some purpose, like dandelions that quickly drain the soil but still can be used for some okay food items, or tanzie that's really hard to get rid of but can be used as a potent poison somehow. Basically with this the weeds would be a punishment if you're trying to do a lot of farming, but potentially a good thing if you're not farming maybe?

[rocky hollow]

against this, because depending on your region (far north, dry areas) horsetail is otherwise unobtainable aside from "till absolutely everything"

[hard summit]

A potential answer to this might be to introduce tilling as a maintenance measure and not just a convert-dirt-to-farmland measure.

Soil that has not been tilled since last having a plant on it or that has sat for a period of time (4-5 months, maybe) becomes "hardened" and needs to be tilled with a hoe or horse-drawn plough to loosen it again. If the soil below a plant is hardened at any point in the first 1/3-1/2 of its growth cycle, it receives a growth speed and yield penalty.

Freshly-tilled soil would be unable to grow weeds, with the % chance for weed spawning increasing as it hardens. This way players could choose between letting a field fallow in a hardened state, allowing weeds to grow, and ploughing the field before fallow to prevent weeds from leeching nutrients.

[wanton sky]

Another similar suggestion: blights, that have a small, small chance to affect each crop block, and must be removed before they spread (idk what blighted crops would drop tho), still forces interaction, and also puts risk to farming

Checks to affect every single plant like once a day, and takes like... maybe another day to spread

Could also get us our halucinogenic wheat lol

I would LOVE to have to interact with farming more, its my fav part of the game

Weeds MAY be a bit TOO much upkeep for large fields tho, maybe a bit tedious (defo open to it tho)

[hard summit]

If tilling the soil = prevent weed growth, then horse-drawn ploughs would be the technical solution for doing that in a timely manner at larger scales

[honest socket]

I really like that

[silent kraken]

But then they should also add a composter to compost the weeds for soil

[runic beacon]

is a composter much different than the barrel solution we have now?

[honest socket]

I think a compost pile could be cool

[silent kraken]

yeah imagine flies flying over it