Mod Idea Discussion: Farming

[NightmareElmo]

Hi guys,

I have an idea for a mod that I am planning on creating and I was after your guy's opinions, suggestions, and feedback for this mod. So as the title suggests it will primarily be a farming mod. Some of the features I have planned are as follows:

• Soil needs to be tilled with a shovel or something before you can plant on it
• The vanilla crop mechanic will be removed and replaced with the need to first craft seeds from the crop, which is then planted, grows and gives food.
• By adding fertilizer the crops will grow and/or produce quicker
• Some crops, such as corn and grain, will only produce once, and once collected will die and need to be replanted. For balancing reasons you will get more crops then a regenerating plant such as a mutfruit
• Once planted, seeds will take some amount of in-game time to grow ( a few days) or accelerated with fertilizer.
• Villagers cannot collect food from the crop until it is fully grown
• Possibly add in a watering mechanic, that the crop will not grow unless watered, this will be able to be automated (the greentop nursery has a sprinkler system, possibly look into implementing something similar)
• Eventually, I'd like to expand into animal farming (meat collection and milking) as well as brewing (because alcohol). But this will be Stage 2 of the mod

So yea, what do you guys think? One thing that I really want your guys feedback on is what can I add to make this mod worthwhile? There has a be a reason to download this other than making farming more immersive

[TeamBacon]

I've been wanting to do something like this, but simply have too much other stuff on my plate at the moment...

 

I am actually making some pigs and can probably provide you with some new plants and vegetables if you are interested.

 

 

 

But to answer your question, I think something like this would need a 'character' aspect in order to really shine... But as a quest modder I tend to think that everything needs a story and characters behind it, so take my biased opinion for what it is.

 

But if you could create real benefits for the items that you grow, real reasons for the player to invest into this farm, I think this could be a success for a certain group of fans. Obviously it probably won't be popular with the FPS crowd regardless of what you do, but that isn't important.

 

How can these crops make your settlement better? I think that is what made me not want to do settlements in their vanilla form, it didn't feel like I was working toward anything. I didn't feel the need to invest time into them because I never saw results with the people.

 

What I am thinking is a) having plants that give the player specific boosts similar to chems but more natural and b) having ways that expanding your farm can help your settlement become better and make the people that you 'supposedly' care about happier.

 

 

 

I'll PM you some stuff soon about some of the stuff that has been running through my head for Stage 2 of my own mod.

[EmissaryOfWind]

Maybe add some sort of XP gain (beyond the ten xp you get for building things), make food that you've grown yourself better than found food, etc. Adding new prepared food to make cultivating worth your while seems like a must, you could team up with this mod for that. Since you have multiple settlements and you're also off adventuring, a system to let you know when your crops can be harvested (maybe holotape-based) would be good, a "crops calendar" of sorts.

 

This goes well beyond the scope of this mod, @TeamBacon, but I think one of the reasons we just don't care about our settlers is that they are just so bland. They don't even have names, not to even mention personality, there is absolutely no progression in their behavior and how they treat you, so what's the point, right? I think more people would care about settlements and settlers if they reacted to changes, stopped treating you like a stranger they can't trust after you've made a certain amount of improvements, maybe started saying they're happy about certain things. Actually, that lack of even the most basic character development is one of my biggest issues with Bethesda's writing.

[TeamBacon]

 

This goes well beyond the scope of this mod, @TeamBacon, but I think one of the reasons we just don't care about our settlers is that they are just so bland. They don't even have names, not to even mention personality, there is absolutely no progression in their behavior and how they treat you, so what's the point, right? I think more people would care about settlements and settlers if they reacted to changes, stopped treating you like a stranger they can't trust after you've made a certain amount of improvements, maybe started saying they're happy about certain things. Actually, that lack of even the most basic character development is one of my biggest issues with Bethesda's writing.

 

You can't blame the writing on generic settlers because they literally don't have any writing, just generic lines. *which I guess is technically writing... but not really...*

 

But anyways, the characters in my mod are made to be able to be brought back to your settlement and have personalities. The goal is to have them develop as you progress through the game and have at least a few people in your settlement that you care to help out. Basically my mod was a settler mod, but then I got wrapped up in the quest so much that now it is closer to a quest mod.

 

But that is only about 8 characters, and there are only so many npcs that I can make. My work wouldn't do anything to fix the generic settlers that would still make up the bulk of your towns.

 

I think I might actually see if there is a cheap copy of 'The Sims' available on Steam and try to draw some inspiration from that. I have never been able to play games like that because the context of the game is so weak... But if the mechanic, which is obviously addictive to a lot of people could be successfully worked into a post apocalypse adventure... well, it is at least worth brainstorming about even if it is a stupid idea.

 

 

 

Anyways, as far as the original idea of farming, have you ever played a game called Harvest Moon? I honestly really liked that game when I was younger playing on my N64, actually, I still like it a bit.

 

The entire game has less dialogue than just Piper in Fallout 4, but it has a way of actually making you feel invested in the community.

 

I think implementing farming into the game is less about making the farming complex, but more about making it relevant. Though it could deal with being a bit more complex than vanilla, because that is just way to flat. I'm just saying, don't go overboard with complexity.

[tartarsauce2]

I asked that guy who did DECAY about grocery distribution as a form of charity with the rewards being basically small pieces of junk (I was thinking with slightly more useful junk than usual junk like say copper or something so that it's not just another boring "free stuff" mod, thinking about craftable ammo in this one etc) - he's doing various political factions for fun, and when he mentioned the panther movement I thought of the grocery stuff they did (instead of the beret sunglasses and standing on steps with guns bit because that's soooo over-represented in FO4 anyways)
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/articles/217/?

so if farming alone isn't enough, you could add in a radiant quests style of thing, I know, I know, but I have an idea where the brotherhood is an evil empire etc etc etc (everyone's an evil empire :D )
and I asked someone about it, they told me it was a nice idea, but questioned whether it's doable
farming + radiant grocery quest = one step closer to it being a reality, and I don't even lift a finger but to say it, if it strikes your fancy
or you could do it as a sort of dual "a settlement needs your help" thing, or a tide goes in, tide goes out struggle to maintain networks across the commonwealth and expand your own followers faction to fight alongside you, and do patrols, based on how well you're doing with settlements (minutemen overhaul or my minutemen are doing this already)
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4110840-i-accidentally-a-whole-new-storyline-for-all-kinds-of-crazy-good/

 

my endgame with all this stuff I'm mentioning is a sort of supermodded experience, with oregon trail supply management but also fallout exploration, cool weapons etc and to use numerous weapons mods in tandem with quests like this and the farming stuff
where neat weapons are found somewhat commonly but may have to be discarded occasionally because of supply management like maybe ammo or gun weight, or something, someone made a caravan and postmaster system for survival recently, and I like less loot and ammo's concept as well

and an entire overhaul of the factional system into something more of a big drama, this came from someone's idea to make the institute the good guys or expand their storyline
and then I thought of the acquisitions thing that quartermaster does for farms... and everything exploded in my head

the trick is that when all of these things are working together, it begins to morph the game entirely into something "new"
also, I was always disappointed in DA:I's implementation of "forming a faction" and I've kind of wanted something proper like that minus the uh, campus "social justice" elements, that you can also see the impacts of on an open world, while it's also not an endgame overpowering event and you CAN in fact neglect it and things will begin to slide again (to represent the fact that the commonwealth isn't the only location in the world and other locations' problems can spill over etc) - which then opens the door to new area quests :D

Edited May 16, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[TeamBacon]

so if farming alone isn't enough, you could add in a radiant quests style of thing, I know, I know, but I have an idea where the brotherhood is an evil empire etc etc etc (everyone's an evil empire :D )

and I asked someone about it, they told me it was a nice idea, but questioned whether it's doable

farming + radiant grocery quest = one step closer to it being a reality, and I don't even lift a finger but to say it, if it strikes your fancy

or you could do it as a sort of dual "a settlement needs your help" thing, or a tide goes in, tide goes out struggle to maintain networks across the commonwealth and expand your own followers faction to fight alongside you, and do patrols, based on how well you're doing with settlements (minutemen overhaul or my minutemen are doing this already)

https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4110840-i-accidentally-a-whole-new-storyline-for-all-kinds-of-crazy-good/

 

my endgame with all this stuff I'm mentioning is a sort of supermodded experience, with oregon trail supply management but also fallout exploration, cool weapons etc and to use numerous weapons mods in tandem with quests like this and the farming stuff

where neat weapons are found somewhat commonly but may have to be discarded occasionally, or something, someone made a caravan and postmaster system for survival recently, and I like less loot and ammo's concept as well

 

and an entire overhaul of the factional system into something more of a big drama, this came from someone's idea to make the institute the good guys or expand their storyline

and then I thought of the acquisitions thing that quartermaster does for farms... and everything exploded in my head

 

No...

 

Just no...

 

Why would you need to overhaul the entire faction system, rework the entire economic mechanics of the game, and change the main quest line in a farming mod?

[tartarsauce2]

no, the farming thing is merely one aspect of this, it looks like it's happening or becoming doable via different mods that handle separate stuff
I mentioned the charity groceries thing because the farming mod could use a little extra something, but it has the extra advantage of tying into this over-all thing as well better
the person that thought it wouldn't be doable was thinking that it's too much for a singular thing as well

so I'm just... you know, bringing it up, just in case, maybe, the creator, oh I don't know, happens to make the charity groceries radiant quest thing... because it works on its own
but it also happens, to you know... add to the general situation in a certain way that makes the dream that much closer to reality in a sense :tongue:

and then someday down the line someone could actively work to incorporate the various aspects into a full compilation of all these different mods with some over-rides and patches to get them compatible with the faction overhaul (down the line extremely)
but I'm outlining the idea to try to drum up hopes in a general sense

maybe it incorporates your settlers mod, as a way to further this even more than what I suggested...
dun dun dun~ every mode is independent and modular, but built such that together they can make one hell of a game
I'm thinking of compilations, nuking my mod folder right now as we speak because I'm sick of my crashy kludge and gonna try from simpler scratch again now to finish game in time for far harbour
and less generic settlers
http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/4772/?

Edited May 16, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[yzerman19]

These are all some good ideas. Improving of any aspect in this game is so much better than just playing vanilla. That is why I was kind of turned off by how long it took them to get the CK out.

[3bestpals]

Hey! I am very interested in this mod, and have been searching for this (or something similar) for a few weeks now.

 

I actually disagree with this mod needing anything additional to make it worthwhile. It would be weird if I had some magical green thumb that added effects to my fruit (maybe 'Green Thumb' would be better as an optional perk).

 

There are currently no farming mods that make it possible for crops to grow without settlers. If you can get just that basic premise up and running, tons of players would be happy, let alone add all this awesome ambitious stuff with soil tilling, seeds, fertilizing, etc (which I am into, don't get me wrong!).

 

Have you begun work on this mod yet? Do you have any updates?

 

If not, BUMP, in the hopes of finding someone else to make this happen!

Edited May 29, 2016 by 3bestpals