So thought I was gonna take some time to just give my thoughts on how the cultivation program and the work on the plots could be improved from a player perspective.

The idea is something like from some other online web games like Travian etc where you do things and it takes time, like 5 hours to upgrade a building or similar. Maybe you already see where this is going!?

Let me give an example:
You start out on your farm Monday morning on the first of February. Weather is good, you go to the “plots page”, here you have 5 plots á 100 hc. You have 100 hc of winter wheat, you click on this plot to bring up the detailed information. This is what you see: http://img191.imageshack.us/img191/2549/sa001t.jpg

Ok, so something have changed here! What we see is seven gauges that tell you about the conditions in the field/soil. Let’s go through them. ( 1 ) at the top is the growth gauge, this is basically the same as in the game today. It tells you how far the crop has developed and gives you an estimate on your yield. ( 2 ) is also the same, it tells you how much sun your crop has gotten, should be at optimum when the crop is mature. ( 3 ) This is for soil moisture. Plants don’t like when it is soaking wet or when it is desert dry. Every day when it is sun this gauge is going to move left towards ‘dry’, and when it rains it is going to move right towards ‘wet’. One can compensate for draught by installing irrigation drums on plots. The more in the center (green) the gauge is the better will growth be (the top gauge). This will also have an effect on doing work on the plot, if it is too wet you will get a penalty, so watching out for those rainy days could be very important if you know that you have to do work. ( 4 ) Fertilizer addition indicates when the crop wants its nutriments. All winter crops want nutriments early in the spring after winter, then the crops usually want another addition a month or two later when it really is growing strong. So adding fertilizer at the right time just as the gauge hits the blue bar will also give a boost to the growth meter. If you let it go into the red you will get a penalty on growth since the crop will be lacking nutriments. (5-7) Indicate weed/pest/fungi infestation in the crop. As long as they are in the green all is well, but if starting to go on yellow you will get a penalty on your growth gauge. That is, the crop will not grow as much as if it had been in the green. So if you notice that fungi is starting to take off towards yellow you spray against fungi and the meter goes back down again. Easy! Right!?

Ok, so that was a lot of information in one sweep. But let’s move on. We are in the wheat field’s information sheet. We see that the fertilizer gauge is at the blue bar – that means we should fertilize asap – but, since it rained heavily yesterday the soil moisture is really close to wet and if you would do work at the field now you would get a penalty for damage in the crop and your yield would suffer. But! As you are a good farmer you look at the weather forecast and see that weather is gonna be good the next few days, so you decide to wait until the next day. This exemplifies that seeking to do work under optimal conditions always is preferable, however, the next day the gauge might only gone up to yellow but the fertilizer gauge is now going on red. What to do!? As a farmer you always have to take hard decisions like this. Waiting for the soil conditions to improve while the crop suffer from lack nutriments or go out and do work anyway!? It will be your choice as a farmer!

So, moving on. The next day you log onto your SA account go to the plots page and see that exactly what I wrote above has happened. ‘Soil moisture’ is on yellow but ‘fertilizer addition’ is now on red. You decide to go ahead and do the work. You designate your tractor and fertilizer spreader, just as we do today, but you also select a worker. Since your farm is not so large you can handle it yourself. You press “calculate work”, just as we do today and SA tells you that this operation will occupy you for 5h 30min (real time). You press OK. And then you see something like this: http://img193.imageshack.us/img193/6484/sa002.jpg

Ok, so 5h 30 min is approximately one real day, so if you only log in once per day to your farm you might not be satisfied just yet (you have still 3 days of work left since one SA day is 4 real ays). You look at you other plots that were all plowed in the fall. You see that in one of your remaining four plots moisture is at optimum. This means perfect time to seed! Sunny weather and soil conditions at optimum, Yay! So you need to prepare the seedbed. But! Since we are good farmers we add fertilizer before we seed in the spring (or we combi-drill, but that is yet not a possibility in the game). So we choose ‘fertilize’, then we choose ‘prepare seedbed (harrow)’, and then ‘seed’. We do these steps just as in the first example of spreading fertilizer on the winter wheat. As we do this, the work activities show up in order in the “Schedule” screen so that we can get an overview.

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/1774/sa003.jpg

This will be particularly important when you start to hire workers. (These workers might be “teamed up” to make administration easier for very big farms that do not like to micro-manage their workers).

It should be possible to do several tasks at once in one field. The only restriction will be that the work that is started first must be finished before the estimated time on the second work is done, and so on. This gives the player an opportunity to plan the work carefully.

Let’s say you want to plant winter wheat using the plough technique, and we are in a hurry since we have a perfect weather window to operate in.

This is a possible set up (still a 100 hc plot):
2x Kuhn Challenger T on two MF 7490; effectiveness; 12:41:00
1x MORIN-CHEVAL on one JOHN DEERE 6630 PREMIUM; effectiveness; 13:02:00
1x QUIVOGNE NEUMASEM-901 on one MF 6499; effectiveness; 15:05:00
(I believe the seeder currently has the wrong AP usage 0.12 instead of 0.22, otherwise this seeder is really price worthy..)

Anyhow, in 15h 5min the plot will be finished and you can of course assign the workers with the ploughs to go directly to the next plot if you want to do several plots and so on.

By making these improvements farmers will have more options and make more interesting decisions than today. Unfortunately, I believe, today players only “do” things, they never think about it, and who could blame us!? There is not much to think about when it comes to growing crops. It’s like this: 1 of April, plant a billion hc of potatoes. 1 of May, earth up a billion hc of potatoes. 1 of June/July, fertilize a billion hc of potatoes. 1 of August, top-kill a billion hc of potatoes. 1 of September, harvest a billion hc of potatoes. This is indeed unfortunate, and I believe that the suggested adjustments really would improve game dynamics forcing farmers to think more about what to do to get the best crop in the end. At the end of the day, this is what farming is all about :)


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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

Monster post :) See if you guys have the energy to get through it ;)

feel free to share your comments.

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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

hey read through it and have a few issues

1. A lot of users want it done NOW!! not in hours time. As i have noticed if you dont accept in a matter of minutes then they cancell the order or send abuse through the live pm system.

2. Change. Simply put a lot of users wont want change. personally i want simagri to be improved majorly and i like your idea. Tbh to do the first part first of more details on the plot system, the only issue i have is that it rained for 7days in france in february so it would be impossible to sow the fertiliser on crops

2a. Well you talk about soil moisture there - well this should be incooperated into the direct seed drill sowing programme. Direct sowing gives a better yield but in the game it is punished

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

1. A lot of users want it done NOW!! not in hours time. As i have noticed if you dont accept in a matter of minutes then they cancell the order or send abuse through the live pm system.

What are you referring to here? contract work!? I did not address this issue, but the problem with current system is just that everything happens "Now". It shouldn't happen instantly,it should take time so that the more effective farmer is the guy who is better in optimizing his his work in terms of weather windows, equipment usage etc. The current system were you can overuse the machines I believe is not making any sense.

2. Change. Simply put a lot of users wont want change. personally i want simagri to be improved majorly and i like your idea. Tbh to do the first part first of more details on the plot system.

Of course you would have to start somewhere. I'm not saying it all should be done over night. Either the developers could implement it in the game, or they could start a new server where the new features get tested out by players who like a more advanced and realistic game.

2a. Well you talk about soil moisture there - well this should be incooperated into the direct seed drill sowing programme. Direct sowing gives a better yield but in the game it is punished

Direct Seeding can give better yields under some circumstances than traditional ploughing. That is, if weather is warm/dry and soil is already pretty dried out direct seeding is better because soil surface is not broken and the soil is not stirred, therefore soil moisture is preserved and capillarity is not broken. So under these circumstances I agree that soil moisture should drop at a slower rate if one use direct seeding. The result of that would then of course be a higher yield in the end. :)


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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

solanum

1. yes contract work, users dont wanna wait around for it to be completed. thats what im getting at. the other problem is that some people can only pop onto check there simagri account maybe in a 20 min lunch break or so fourth.

see that is a topic with a lot of debate about it. it suits some people and not some people but again you made a reference to it in a new server but there probably wont be one for a while.

Another thing is what happens when sowing at say 11.55pm when server is about to change to a new day and then all of a sudden it changes to bad weather and the work cannot be completed.

2a i fully support soil moisture for direct sowing as i think for the price of a direct seed drill we shouldnbt be punished on choosing that over conventional ploughing.

Dont think me trying to make this look bad love the idea of it

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

some great pointers there, and i do believe we should get more involved into the culture growing process and decisions. I'll adress the pests/diseases cause that is my domaine. Well with integrating the moisture into culture growing and everything it should have a bigger influence on disease development, insect attacks and weeds, i do think that as most of the farmers do we should be able to choose, which tactic to use to fight pests, by that i mean pre-sowing application of herbicides, and granulated fungicides. With changes like the ones u pointed out it would have big impact on the game play not that i dont support it but if you want to implement something like that it should have some affects on every aspect of the crop production.



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He who dares, wins!

well, on terms of herbicide and fungicide i do beleive we should be doing it in janurary feb to reduce weeding control as we do it in real life why not on this

for planting potato we should be able to use an applicator

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

Sounds good mate! I reckon if the system was like that people wouldn't have so many fields! as at the moment you can work a 200hec field in seconds!

Ok, to clear up a few things.

First, about time. What I mean is that all activities must be queued. One worker can only do one job at one time. However, you can assign one worker several tasks in a row. Like the example in my main post where you first fertilize, then prepare the seedbed and lastly you seed. So if you only can log in for like 20 min you can still assign the workers their tasks.

Second, about the issue with people who log on 11:55 pm. I think you solve that in this way: One real day is 4 SA days. So what we do is we divide every real day into four SA days. That is, when you go to the weather forecast you will see the weather for the coming 8 SA days. That is two real days. Then the server will update every SA day instead of every real day as it is now. So, when you log in will not matter, you go to the weather forecast, and then assign your work in the schedule to your workers for them to carry it out.

If you have a forecast saying:
Day 1: Sunny
Day 2: Cloudy
Day 3: rain
Day 4: sunny
Day 5: Cloudy

Let’s say you want to plant potatoes. You assign your worker for planting duty but the work will take three days, and on day three there is rain. You cannot do this work in rain so during the rain the worker will pause and only resume work when conditions have improved. Here I’m thinking it would be nice to be able to set a threshold for when the worker should pause and resume his duties depending on soil moisture. Because maybe conditions have been pretty bad for some time and you are behind optimum planting date and therefore you might wanna plant even though it is not optimal, but still ok. Other days it could be the opposite, you have lots of capacity to do the scheduled work and therefore only want to do work when conditions are really good. It should be your choice as a farmer!

In this way the crop management will be indifferent to when you choose to log on to do work, you always plan ahead for the next few SA days.

Third, about contract work. This should be done just as the regular work you do at your farm. However the issuing of the FWF order could be improved so that the farmer that wants work to be done in the next few days send the request for work a few days ahead so that the contractor can incorporate the task in his schedule. Also, a better bidding program could be implemented so that farmers that do not have a contractor to rely on can put his order with the suggested starting date for doing the work in a “contract pool” where any contractor that has capacity available can go and get contracts. This would favor more active players which in essence is better for everybody’s game play.

So that was my points on those problems :)


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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

I like this idea, it sure makes growing plots much more interesting, and in depth. However with this system activities must be queued in order for this to work with my life.

It looks like you want the game to look like the old simfarm game. The game does not use the same time system that something like Travian uses, and they don’t use the same money scheme that games like Travian use. to make you constantly buy boosters.

The hours are represented by your AP’s the game would need to be completely reworked to use the other time system and it could not just be for plots everything in the game would need to use that time. And in the end what is the difference if you use 24 units of time (ap’s) instantly or if you need to actually wait 5 real hours to watch the clock tick down? You still used up the same amount of game time units one is just a lot faster and easier.

Changing the interface would be making feeding livestock work like adding straw, 1 screen to feed them all, that would be an interface change. It seems like you want to change the whole game to be an online version of simfarm.

@Blueberry. Well, I think you fail to understand the reason behind the idea. First of all, incorporating the “real time” will not make it harder for people that cannot log in more than once a day. On the contrary, in fact, by making it possible to assign schedules people could in theory plan ahead for more than one day, so that one could be offline for more than a day and still have your workers doing work at the farm. However, you would not be able to supervise and take additional decisions as time progress. But still, that you cannot do today either.

Second, adding this new dimension would not mere copy the current AP usage system. First of all, overuse would now be impossible. More realism as to the relationship between work and weather is obtained by the four weather cycles per day. If you would incorporate that feature now with the AP system players would in fact have to log on four times per day to obtain the same result (like milking). The Schedule will give the farmer the possibility to log on, plan the work, and the let the workers carry out that work. Of course, things can and will happen during this time, things like breakdowns, changes in weather etc, but the workers will act according to your instructions as I proposed in previous post. The farmer is in control!

Third, the implementation of this would not have to change the entire game structure. It could, but I believe it is not necessary. The crop program runs in cycles of 8 hours for weather and crop parameters update (the 7 proposed gauges). Work is carried out by the workers by calculating the time for that work. How this time is calculated could be done by using the current AP system. That should be basic. The server as such still running on 24h cycles for everything else. I don’t see why this is a problem, the crop program is a program that runs in the main serverprogram.

And last for programming, Travian is not built on Flash, it is built on PHP, as is SimAgri.


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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

but why copy another game tho?

Milking will never be automated this has been stated amny times before as it is in a system at the moment were you have too make the effort to log on, it would be cheating otherwise in my opinion.

You cant plan ahead in simagri thats the issue it requires a hands-on approach every day especially after a new day has begun with break downs sick animals. What about crop quality if you have it ready to harvest, but want 3 star and you have assigned to harvest a worker you lose quality.

then FWC, this is were its mental/awkward. you get rated on time taken to do the job. So then basicly you log on to check orders sent over, then you do it. if you have it auto mated why bother going to the effort of loggin on? isnt that the fun of it?

A change i would like to see if the ablity to buy aps for a day and not have to buy for a full week

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

“Well, I think you fail to understand the reason behind the idea.”
Or maybe you failed to explain your idea past the point of looking like sim farm and that is why I failed to understand your unexplained idea. Even in your 4 statements you still did not really explain anything.

“First of all, incorporating the “real time” will not make it harder for people that cannot log in more than once a day. On the contrary, in fact, by making it possible to assign schedules people could in theory plan ahead for more than one day, so that one could be offline for more than a day and still have your workers doing work at the farm. However, you would not be able to supervise and take additional decisions as time progress. But still, that you cannot do today either. “

You do not need to sign on every day now, things like pests and weeds you have 3 days to take care of, other items are listed out in order on when you need to do them so you can sort of plan. So again I have no idea what you are trying to say.

“ adding this new dimension would not mere copy the current AP usage system. First of all, overuse would now be impossible”

Is not really a new dimension it is just a different way of representing time units in the game. What overuse do you think there is a problem with now that is so drastic you think the entire game needs to be redesigned?

“More realism as to the relationship between work and weather is obtained by the four weather cycles per day. “

There already is stuff wind is a sub cycle of the weather we have now, you do get stuck every now and then and use more ap’s. just making the weather change 4 times a day does not make it better or more realistic.

“The Schedule will give the farmer the possibility to log on, plan the work, and the let the workers carry out that work. Of course, things can and will happen during this time, things like breakdowns, changes in weather etc, but the workers will act according to your instructions as I proposed in previous post. The farmer is in control! “

If in the end all you want is to be able to schedule the work then why not come up with an idea for that? What about the idea that I listed a while ago where you can hire other farmers to do your work. not farm warden but pay a price over the ap cost to have anyone do the work. say I did not feel like messing with pruning so I decide I will pay 5 per ap for anyone to prune my orchards, I think it takes around 600ap so someone would make 3,000 for doing that first come first serve.

“ the implementation of this would not have to change the entire game structure.”

It would make no sense to have crops run on their own time system and then everything else on a different one, again if all you want is a schedule system then come up with an idea for that.

“And last for programming, Travian is not built on Flash, it is built on PHP, as is SimAgri. “

You can mark me as fail for this too because I have no idea what that has to do with anything.

I’m sorry, but I think you are missing the point. Still. It is not all about a schedule, even though that is a major part of making it work. Making it possible to help out between friends and improve contracting work is a good idea, I wrote about it in this thread, and I’m sorry if I have missed your comments on this subject in another thread.

The point with the thread was not to give the in depth, super detailed, description of every aspect of the game. I started out by saying that the crop program/cultivation interface is not what it could be. Then I started out explaining the starting point of my idea on how I believe that the game could be improved. That is, I don’t say I have the final answers to what should be done or not (or could be done), but I am willing to express my thoughts and I invite other players to give their constructive criticism and express their own ideas within the framework that I provided in the main post.

I think your comments are wrong, and they do not add anything to this topic. It would be better if you would try to express solutions to improvements instead of just being all negative. And if you do not see that the current cultivation system could be improved a lot, and would be improved by adding the features that I proposed in this thread (and perhaps even some more that has not yet been suggested), then maybe this is not your topic. The main object is to figure out a better way of simulating agricultural work.


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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

So, I’m gonna go ahead and add an example how harvesting could be done more realistic. This would address some issues that I know is on many farmers minds: How do we solve the logistics!?

As the game is now, one just need one trailer and one tractor to harvest or silage. I think this is wrong and should be changed.

In this example two Lexion 770 will harvest a 100 hc plot of wheat with an average yield of 5 tons per hc. The plot is situated 0.5 hours from the farm/coop, one way. If we choose to empty the combine on the go one Lexion 770 would perhaps have an average output of 50 tons per hour. This means that we need to provide for a transportation chain that can handle 100 tons per hour. Since one trip from the field and back is one hour we need at least 100 tons capacity on the trailers if the combines are gonna be able to work 100%. Here it would be fun to be able to hire in your neighbor to help out, maybe you only have two 36 ton trailers, then you could make a deal with a neighbor that he helps you out with one trailer and tractor (for a fee, of course) so that you achieve the 100 tons per hour capacity. Then your friend would see in his “schedule” window that the worker assigned to help out is doing work for another farmer and is expected to be back in about 5 hours. In any event, you will need to think about how to set up your logistics, and the distance to your plots, or the distance between coop and plot, will be more important than before. This goes for silage too, of course, but here it will be even more important (Everyone that are doing silage know that solving the transport chain is the major headache). Anyway, I think this could be a fun touch to the game!

:)

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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

solanum

you couldnt do it what your saying about the wheat harvest. As there is too many complications.

What is your neighbour runs out of fuel, or his tractor is being used for another task or he has signed up to cart for another person and you use him at same time.

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

It is the neighbor that assigns the worker, not you. you just send the request with the start time for the harvest and SA will calculate the time it would take for doing the work, then the neighbor either accept or reject that propsal. In other words, it will be the same as doing regular work at your own farm, or a type of contracting work. And if you don't have the fuel for the job, you cannot accept it, doesn't have to be harder than that.

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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

well it is, means then you are waiting around for the farmer to accept

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

I see what you mean, but look at it like this. You and me are neighbors and I need your help for harvesting. First I'll send you a pm and ask if you can help me out with my upcoming harvest. You say ok. I'll send over the request on say Monday that I plan to start the next real day (4 SA days). You accept and then assign the worker and equipment. That worker and equipment will then be unavailable to you during the time you are helping me out.

You could probably solve it in another way too. Perhaps by you just assigning me your worker and tractor/trailer for a specified period of time. During that time it will show up on my equipment list and I will pay you for every hour or hc that I use it for during that time.

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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

“ but I am willing to express my thoughts and I invite other players to give their constructive criticism and express their own ideas within the framework that I provided in the main post.

I think your comments are wrong, and they do not add anything to this topic.”

Those comments are funny, I have asked you questions about your post and you refuse to answer any of them if you just want people to say good idea then that is what you should say.

Here is a concept for you to think about it will help you understand my questions. Did you ever hear of the old saying about “trying to reinvent the wheel” ? That is the basis of your post you want to reinvent the wheel, the wheel in this case is the game. When you go about reinventing the wheel one of the first things to think about is why is the wheel round in the first place. It could be any shape but it is round, why is that? Round in this case could be ap’s/time units. You want to change that to something else yet when I question you about it you have no answer.

“I’m sorry, but I think you are missing the point.”
I think you miss the point yourself there are several concepts in your post I have asked you about them and you refuse to explain them, so here is just one simple question for you.

What is your issue with overuse, what specifically not some generic response?

solanum

there is 2 main languages, english french, most users are one or other thats is the first issue i have as most of the french in my region dont like english players.

i dont know how you can solve it by hiring to someone else. becuase you cant hire a tractor unless its broken down, so why should we start to lend each other a machine. means then if i harvest and you have my tractor i have to wait?

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

Robouk, The example with helping friends out was based on the presumption that you already is friends with your neighbor. I know that most players are french, therefore I play on the US server, but here are also more french than english-speakers.. It's a problem if you wanna make friends.

In my example you would be able to help your friends out, that there is a rule about only being able to rent a tractor if yours is broken down as it is now is no issue for allowing for that.

But yes, if/when you decide to help out a friend (for a cost so that people don't cheat...) you cannot use the equipmnent or worker at the same time. This means that if you help your neighbor and he helps you, you should try and seed on different dates so that the crop matures a little bit differently. Like it is in real life.

:)

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Contract grower for the US server - Message me if you would like to have a supply deal for your livestock!

solanum, i wasnt trying to be awkward about it. but the system of hiring a friend still revolves around him logging on.

i do agree with the silage it should be a few tractors invovled but the coding is near impossible for an effective system. as my friend has tried this similar idea which i cannot speak more of and its extremely awkward

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Feed Supplier on France 3. Claas Machinery Distribution

“i do agree with the silage it should be a few tractors invovled b”

Robouk, in the end though it’s the same result, if one tractor needs 50 aps for one plot or if you use two tractors and then use 25 aps per tractor isn’t that the same in the end? You still use up 50 ap and use up 50 ap of equipment time if its 50 on one or 25 each on two.

Its like the pictures you see with 3 harvesters in the big field with the all the trailers and stuff here we use one harvester no matter the size of the plot but the ap usage is inline with that harvester.

So even if we could use three it would just use 1/3 the ap per harvester we still would not have that image of the big farm like the brochures show. You would just need to click on three harvesters instead of one to harvest the plot.

Like fuel we don’t need to fill every piece of equipment with fuel or haul the fuel out to the equipment to fill the tank, ect.. it comes from one global tank.