I am constantly filled with ideas - this time I have farming ideas

Farming Expansion - (make farming fun for me lol)

Orchard / Tree System

- buy a tree sapling from the MM (maybe they can drop, as well)

- dedicated tree section of the Farm whether its separate plots or a proper Orchard

- plant a tree of your choice in the plot, it takes a few days to mature, takes a few days to re-fruit once picked, etc

- nut trees, fruit trees, pine trees that can drop needles, etc

- maybe during its growing process it needs water and fertilizer like the other plants, but quite the significant amount

- maybe the tree dies if not watered / fertilized but can last like, a few days before it needs to be filled with water / fertilizer (encourages checking on the farm even if you're not growing new crops) or maybe it just won't give you fruit unless its been maintained for a few days

- the Orchard system could be locked behind a high farming level, encouraging farming for those who don't care to use it (me) but maybe low levels can instead plant berry bushes

- can lead to more cooking recipes like apple pies and apple cider, or other fruit juices and pastries

- can lead to fun insect companions that are attracted by the tree flowers and fruits (fruit bats?)

- trees can be cut down and cleared for new things

Livestock System

- morally questionable because of their sentience; maybe replaced with bugs, like moths for silk, bees for honey, or maybe you can trade with "livestock" npcs for eggs and milk (though still morally strange)

- chickens producing eggs, cows producing milk, etc (creates a reliable method of obtaining those two items)

- not certain on how this feature can be implemented in a way that makes sense

Other Ideas

- a wolf can be attached to your farm / orchard / livestock barns to maintain it at the cost of it's stamina in place of / in addition to Tiny and Biggs (our wolves should be an active part of everything we do on site)

- ingredients can have an upgraded quality if grown in the farm / orchard / livestock barn, resulting in upgraded food once cooked into a recipe, encouraging the use of the whole system and also encouraging the buying and selling of eachother's goods

- everyone loves a good farming simulator, mix it with wolves and what could go wrong?

- this is not meant to gatekeep users off of nice items for not farming, but is meant to encourage users to level the system and use it to its full extent by adding more ways to play it; for me, i have zero interest in the current farming system

Let me know what you think / if you have an idea to add, thanks for looking !

i like the tree idea definitely!

not sure on the livestock, just because we have confirmed sapient characters and companions that are livestock species and it may be Very Strange to have Biggs help you raise livestock chickens

they could be like, snails and rabbits and moths and isopods and such though since we already have these established as species that aren't talking so [also mm delicious moth eggs. i'd love moth egg sushi]

I really like this idea! I'd love to have a little orchard, and I like the idea of being able to set wolves to harvest fruit/care for crops/whatever. It would also make it easier for players to reliably find new food items as they're added - rather than figuring out which areas/encounters drop avocados or plums or what have you, you can buy an avocado/plum/etc tree to add to your orchard!

Maybe you could also have non-fruit trees, or trees for crafting? Growing pine trees for pinecones/needles, oak trees for acorns. If they added wood as a crafting material the orchard would be a good place for that as well (maybe harvesting branches rather than the whole tree, to keep it level with the other trees?). Combining the bushes idea with Reanimagpie's bug raising idea - mulberry bushes for silk worms!

I also like the idea of livestock, although I agree with Reanimagpie that it could get weird with sentient animals vs non-sentient animals. Maybe the livestock could be visually distinct from the sentient animals to help mitigate that? Following the naming trends of the seeds, they could be called Not-Chickens and be pink or blue and sparkly. Eggs aren't labeled as specifically chicken eggs, and they already drop from non-bird encounters, so it wouldn't be more of a stretch to say they come from Not-Chickens. (Just using chickens as an example since they'd be on the same page as Biggs.)

Like the orchard, it would also provide a place to reliably add new items. Goats could be added for goat's milk, sheep could be added for sheep's milk and wool, etc.

@Reanimagpie @Phlox

Your feedback is awesome ...

I guess I didn't think hard enough about the livestock and their sentience, bugs and things like rabbits being an alternative makes a lot of sense and still sounds like lots of fun...getting silk from moths and even having beehives and getting honey

I guess I just was trying to figure out where the eggs and milk should be coming from ? The milk is bottled up and ready to go xD maybe we can trade crops to chicken and cow npcs for their goods ? Though i suppose its morally strange for them to trade that kind of stuff for crops...

Milk can come from Kuzmas.
I love the trees idea! I just think they should absolutely seperate the water and mulch for them, from the ones for planting and farming crops. Some of the crops already use a LARGE amount of water, and that's a balance that would need to be sorted for sure.

@Synesthesia the weirdness comes less from not having cows [because we do! aurox are a companion in the game] but the implication that each large animal that's recruitable as a companion is sapient

it is very weird to milk sapient animals for profit so we'd need non-companion-like lifestock within the established distinction of large animal - sapient, small animal - nonsapient

i'd be down for bug/rabbit/other unusual source of milk of course

Ahhh, I was seeing companions more like pets, more than like how people are.

I don't know about livestock for the weirdness stated above, but I would really love the orchard idea! Support from me too!

support