Entire agriculture engineering system is annoying and counterintuitive-overcomplicated

1st Official Post

    Well, due to "no source" rule there is not much to say - agriculture is complete crap.


    1) Trampling - BS frustrating mechanic only to annoy users without any practical use.
    only possible use - crops that interact with user on collusion, damage or heal, but wheat and flower have no such effects and only option to lose your progress.
    on my server farm was ruined by people who come to see what crops are, come too close and days (mc days ofc) of work undone. (later on weed spawned on empty crops and finished entire farm)


    2) Hydration - wtf hydcation cell ever does? (for user who dont know about source)
    Constant clicking will result in empty hydration cell in your hands and nothing else, no visible effect on crops, no visible effect on cell.


    3) Nutriens - same problem, especially with crops that require nutriens to grow - you wont be able to ever plant them without source data, also you wont have chance to crossbreed them cos this. (crops with special reqirements actully impossible to grow without source data, there is no clue about it at all)

    I don't agree, mostly. You may be right about trampling, but adding item, which can actually measure hydration & nutrition values would let users be more precise about their experiments. It may be a little rough, but Industrial farming just started, so of course it needs little improvements. I personally like the way it goes now, not entirely, but i like it.
    And about no-source rule: we were able to find almost every plant availible and even to make it produce something.

    Quote from RawCode

    there is no way to discover 3 plants without source data, this is not right.


    also entire system is random driven, you must 1 spam everything then 2 pick best results and goto 1.

    Not entirely. That is what it appears at first, but there are rules that we are learning slowly. We know that breeding two plants gets GGR values based somewhere around those of the parent, and the recipes are becoming more and more apparent. The influence of biomes is also being investigated and valued.


    The only real issue that we have at the moment is one of documentation. We note down some of the findings, but not everyone participates, so it takes longer to narrow things down.


    Personally, I welcome an aspect where there is a challenge to the discovery, and where the randomness means that you could easily make a new discovery by accident (somewhat like actual science).


    If you do not like the agriculture system as is, then you do not have to use it. There are no items that are specific to the crops, and there is no way of getting them without making the cropsticks. There isn't really any reason to use it unless you want to.

    • Official Post
    Quote

    agriculture is complete crap.


    Except for fertilizing crops with said crap, no.


    Yes, there are some flaws and stuff that needs to be implemented, but due to SWP stuff i couldnt do real work for MC in quite a few weeks now. Please wait with an overall judgement until i've actually finished the implementation.

    Personally I havn't actually done anything in the new agriculture system however I will say that it sounds interesting, I also agree that the random thing as with all such features is all part of the fun and people will slowly correlate knowledge about certain things through trial and error, however just decompiling the code and making sense of it just spoils the fun for everyone who doesn't just want the best possible methods handed to them (which is not playing the game at all).
    Apart from that I think that you, Alblaka had way too much fun writing the guide (for farming) and I had fun reading it.

    I have to agree as is the mod is /utterly/ impenitrable to an average person who doesn't want to go on a huge secret hunt (or finds this forum right here afetr all the info is known and then reads everything).


    Resolving this will wither take better in game tools/hints and mechanic improvements (honestly, about half the people I know gave up because a random creature walked on one block and goodby farm for no aparent reason. About half of those stopped after trying to cross the plants not realising that the cross sticks can weed and require redulious amonts of micromanagment. Consideirng most people like mods like this for the greater automation e.t.c., it seems crazy to have something that requires so much dedicated attention)


    The alternitive will be much better info. Or being open about it. Perhaps once most everythings been discovered, the 'don't reveal the mecahnics via source' limitation can be lifted. (as it would be mostly unnessassary) Then the optimisers and mechanic junkies can have their fun, and your average person can get perfect guides that make everything /slightly/ less troublesome.


    Overall I REALLY like the basic idea here. The implimentation can do with some improvments.

    If everything was know/easy/automated, where would fun be ?

    Quote from raGan

    If everything was know/easy/automated, where would fun be ?


    Last I checked the name of this game is MineCraft. Not MineResearch.


    There's next to no engineering in this crop engineering, and what little progress there is ... is so small and fickle that the time vs reward of the system is completely skewed. Furthermore, I have to agree that there's absolutely no way that Ferru and Aurelia was discovered by someone who did not look at the source code or have help from someone who did. There's literally zero hint of what that plant is until AFTER the requisite ore is under the plant. On top of that, the lack of any sort of cue for hydration/fertilization is simply not fun. It's not random, it's not difficult. It's simply not FUN. Here's why, at least in a real scientific environment, there'd be clear visual cues as to the level of hydration in the soil (tactile dampness) and fertilization in the soil (the smell). Here, the plants just kind of sit there and either grow or disappear ... with no relevant link to how many times i click on it with crap or processed tin (PS, seriously? more tin sinks and still no renewable source of tin?).


    At least for me, this is a game about engineering. Spending (real) DAYS on a self-sufficient nuclear CASUC reactor? FUN! Designing the perfect zero-waste biofuel generation system using BC3/IC2/Forestry (Wow, using all the wastes in one farm to power the next is surprisingly compelling!)? FUN! RP2 Frames (whenever they come out)? Going to be a total BLAST. Spending (real) days on engineering the perfect wheat culture, only to discover that Alblaka in his/her infinite wisdom has decided perfect seeds require perfect babysitting (without measurement tools no less!)? Polar opposite of fun. The only reason I'd use Agriculture right now is to get Ferru and Aurelia, because they're convenient to have ... NOT because they're fun to make.

    Quote from Irontygre

    There's next to no engineering in this crop engineering, and what little progress there is ... is so small and fickle that the time vs reward of the system is completely skewed. Furthermore, I have to agree that there's absolutely no way that Ferru and Aurelia was discovered by someone who did not look at the source code or have help from someone who did. There's literally zero hint of what that plant is until AFTER the requisite ore is under the plant. On top of that, the lack of any sort of cue for hydration/fertilization is simply not fun. It's not random, it's not difficult. It's simply not FUN. Here's why, at least in a real scientific environment, there'd be clear visual cues as to the level of hydration in the soil (tactile dampness) and fertilization in the soil (the smell). Here, the plants just kind of sit there and either grow or disappear ... with no relevant link to how many times i click on it with crap or processed tin (PS, seriously? more tin sinks and still no renewable source of tin?).


    At least for me, this is a game about engineering. Spending (real) DAYS on a self-sufficient nuclear CASUC reactor? FUN! Designing the perfect zero-waste biofuel generation system using BC3/IC2/Forestry (Wow, using all the wastes in one farm to power the next is surprisingly compelling!)? FUN! RP2 Frames (whenever they come out)? Going to be a total BLAST. Spending (real) days on engineering the perfect wheat culture, only to discover that Alblaka in his/her infinite wisdom has decided perfect seeds require perfect babysitting (without measurement tools no less!)? Polar opposite of fun. The only reason I'd use Agriculture right now is to get Ferru and Aurelia, because they're convenient to have ... NOT because they're fun to make.


    I can tell you I suggested Iron ore under plant to grow, and needed no source code to guess right. But yes, I agree with you that it needs some additions, like tooll to measure hyrdation and nutrition levels. On the other hand, you are trying to compare research with engineering. Well, fully automated farms and miners are ok, but how are you going to automate research ? Do you just want to be able to make machine, which discovers new plants for you ? Spending days to discover new things by yourself can be fun too in my opinion. I agree on some requirements for plants being little hardcore without proper equipment though.

    Quote from RawCode

    there is no way to discover 3 plants without source data, this is not right.


    also entire system is random driven, you must 1 spam everything then 2 pick best results and goto 1.

    In all fairness, how do you think real crossbreeding works? Take two samples with properties you want to combine, combine them, hope for something good. That's what this does. It's not random, but there is a random element involved.


    It's rough, it's unpolished, the rewards don't fit the amount of time and effort required for the payoff, but it's a start, and it gives you something to do when you're bored.

    Quote from raGan

    I can tell you I suggested Iron ore under plant to grow, and needed no source code to guess right. But yes, I agree with you that it needs some additions, like tooll to measure hyrdation and nutrition levels. On the other hand, you are trying to compare research with engineering. Well, fully automated farms and miners are ok, but how are you going to automate research ? Do you just want to be able to make machine, which discovers new plants for you ? Spending days to discover new things by yourself can be fun too in my opinion. I agree on some requirements for plants being little hardcore without proper equipment though.


    I think you missed my point. This is IndustrialCraft. Key word there: Industrial. To me, that means this is a primarily an engineering expansion mod. This is not ResearchCraft or ScienceCraft or BiologyCraft or some other variant. It is supposed to make Minecraft feel more like an Industrial environment. Not a research lab. Not a science project. An Industry. Industries take already well known science and applies them to the limit. It takes well researched fields and furthers them for profit. It does NOT explore entirely new fields of research for "why the hell not."


    Furthermore, I want to hear your logic as to why you chose to put an Iron Ore block under a random growing plant. What keyed you into Iron Ore instead of one of the other couple hundred blocks you chose? Until I can get a logical explanation for why you chose Iron, I'm not going to accept your anecdote as justification for this system (and for that matter, nor do I believe you got absolutely no help from source or someone in the know to come to that conclusion ... there I'll say it). Or maybe you're just crazy and decided to try all the combinations of 100 or so valid blocks in the 17 potential logical locations and somehow have compressed 10^36 growth trials into the span of a month?


    Quote from Nightdagger

    In all fairness, how do you think real crossbreeding works? Take two samples with properties you want to combine, combine them, hope for something good. That's what this does. It's not random, but there is a random element involved.


    It's rough, it's unpolished, the rewards don't fit the amount of time and effort required for the payoff, but it's a start, and it gives you something to do when you're bored.


    No, it is random and convoluted because I can get sticky reeds from crossbreeding 4 wheat. On that note, I can get significant amounts of Ferru by crossbreeding 4 stickyreed over and over again. The implementation of the random element is, for lack of a better phrase, half-assed. The only part of Crossbreeding that makes any sense is the Growth/Gain/Resistance values of seeds, and that's been negated by the concept that perfect seeds require perfect babysitting. This is INDUSTRY, the first thing any sane industrial civilization is going to do is breed crops that require LESS babysitting, not more! 1/1/1 Wheat is strictly better than 31/31/31 Wheat because it GROWS ANYWHERE with NO INTERVENTION.

    Well some points are really valid, while some are not.


    Creating new plants is research, but there is no engineering without research... and research has a lot of random effects. If there would be more crops it would make sense to create a "breeding tree" so that you need to breed certain crops to get new ones. But for the limited amount now this would not make much sense.


    Some things limit the use of aggriculture greatly... but crop-trampling is none of them.


    1. The Seedbags are annoying. The don't show the values once scanned and they don't stack... you need a lot of storages for your seeds. And they are too hard to get. Most plants give seeds without destroying them. You should have a small chance of getting seeds if you harvest plants.


    2. Hydration and Fertilization both suck. Methods of messurement are fine, but still this would mean you have to right-click every plant. There should be a visible element or something that gives you a hint. It's ok to baby-sit plants for breeding, but there sometime you actually want to benefit from your plants. That's really easy for sticky-reeds and other simple plants, but things like ferru or aurelia are a pain. Exspecially compared to how easy it is to get the ressources they provide by other means. If it is easier to create Iron/Gold with UUM than by using plants, there is something wrong.


    3. The cropnalyzer. I seriously hate it. It's ok that they forgot to implement some kind of energy-storage or an adapter to use it with Bat/Lappacks... but it's annoying that you need everything in your hotbar, since you can't see your inventory. I would prefer a stationary cropnalyzer anytime if it let's me analyze seeds in my inventory.

    Quote from Irontygre

    I think you missed my point. This is IndustrialCraft. Key word there: Industrial. To me, that means this is a primarily an engineering expansion mod. This is not ResearchCraft or ScienceCraft or BiologyCraft or some other variant. It is supposed to make Minecraft feel more like an Industrial environment. Not a research lab. Not a science project. An Industry. Industries take already well known science and applies them to the limit. It takes well researched fields and furthers them for profit. It does NOT explore entirely new fields of research for "why the hell not."

    Crops are present in Industrial Craft to enhance gaming experience and to add closely related elements to the game, so I don't see why this is so horrible decision. Industry and research are not the same, but there is great connection between the two and many IRL organisations cover both of them.
    Think about lategame scenario: You are standing in your large base, where everything takes care of itself, energy is produced constantly without interfering. Now it's the right time to research, so you can later integrate the results of your research into your big automated factory. Currently there is now way of automating plant harvesting/fertilizing, BUT this is only beginning. It is too soon to say that whole concept is very wrong and does not even fit the game.


    Quote from Irontygre

    Furthermore, I want to hear your logic as to why you chose to put an Iron Ore block under a random growing plant. What keyed you into Iron Ore instead of one of the other couple hundred blocks you chose? Until I can get a logical explanation for why you chose Iron, I'm not going to accept your anecdote as justification for this system (and for that matter, nor do I believe you got absolutely no help from source or someone in the know to come to that conclusion ... there I'll say it). Or maybe you're just crazy and decided to try all the combinations of 100 or so valid blocks in the 17 potential logical locations and somehow have compressed 10^36 growth trials into the span of a month?

    There was actually clue about every plant so far. Seeds of ferru were analyzed and keywords for this plant were found (Grey stem, Metal). Once i saw them, i knew this plant is going to produce something iron/tin related. Someone noticed, that Ferru cannot reach its final stage, so I looked into plant suggestion thread to find my earlier suggestion (this one), to see if there are any similarities. Then I suggested the person who discovered it adding Iron ore under soil block. I was just a guess, but it worked. My reasoning behind putting iron ore under soil block was simple - soil around iron contains greater amounts of it, and Rusty root (as i named it) had ability to absorb iron and create a thin layer of it all around the plant, to protect itself (since it cannot process iron). Iron ore is not required for plant to grow, but is required to provide enough iron particles for the plant to reach stage, where it's covered in iron.
    Same applied to aurelia.
    Redwheat is different, as I am still not aware of any conditions needed to succesfully harvest the plant. However, it is also based on suggestion (here), so everyone is free to try.

    Number of Ferru plants that aren't fully grown that have so far yielded seeds for me: 0. However, I will chalk that up to a retarded RNG.


    As for the rest of your points ... potential or not, *this* release is half-assed and not fun. It's annoying, tedious, and the time-reward ratio is completely off-kilter. I'm not clairvoyant, and as such I can't see future releases right now. Therefore, I'm making the statement that *this* implementation of agriculture is worthless.

    I think that the amount of micro management required to tend to these crops aren't really worth the reward currently. You don't have to sit and watch the electo-furnace, you don't have to sit and watch the miner, you don't have to sit and watch the nuclear reactor because you already know when to turn it off, but you BETTER watch that cross breeding stick.


    For the love of...you are literally watching GRASS GROW out of fear that ONE WEED will spell Armageddon for your crops. I mean when you have to break out a book to pass the time while playing a game...

    Quote

    For the love of...you are literally watching GRASS GROW out of fear that ONE WEED will spell Armageddon for your crops. I mean when you have to break out a book to pass the time while playing a game...

    In that case, you could call it mining in EVE Online... /slowclap


    Sorry couldn't resist that joke, lol.. But I will say that the system does need a good bit of work, but conceptually is solid as to how to go about breeding new plants. Perhaps some of the mechanics could be alleviated with some cross compatibility with Forestry or Farming Overhaul where Humus, Peat, and Bog Earth could play a factor to how hydration affects the soil as a whole. Since Phosphorous is a primary mineral governing soil fertility, an IC form of Apatite could also be worked and integrated with the Forge Ore dictionary as to focus the resource need on said crops...

    Would anyone like to try a Slowpoke Tail?! Only 1 Million Yen!


    Quote

    this isn't about arrogance or ego, I have a block that I put a lot of freaking work into


    Every Mod Author, in existence. And yet, you STILL say otherwise.

    I have to agree a bit with the OP. I mean, sure, the system is fun. But for people who have incredibly bad luck (Like me), the system pretty much sucks. You have to crossbreed the vanilla plants at least 5000000 times before you finally get something non-vanilla, and then it's a black flower which drops ink sacks. Sure, Coffee and Hops are good implementations, and are fun. But maybe they would be more fun if I was actually able to access them. There's no point in Coffee anymore if I already have a Diamond Drill and full Quantum Armour by the time I finally get one coffee bean.

    I think it is amusing, everyone bickering about the crop system. If you like it, play with it. Those of you who don't like it, ask yourselves this: "Is it necessary?" Was the answer no? Huh, seems weird that you'd make such a fuss about it then. And if it still upsets you, I'd say the reason is not that it hinders your gameplay, rather, you have a desire to grow these new plants but don't have the self-restraint or patience to see it through and put in the time, and that is your real problem. If it bothers you this much, reality must really suck for you, because anything I know of out in the real world that is worth having is worth a lot of work, and often requires a lot of work to obtain.

    There's just 1 simple answer I can give to the haters of this part of the awesome mod (you guys are doing an awesome job.). DON'T USE IT. I agree a tool to measure all the parameters would be easy, though. But this part of the mod might be REALLY fun for other people that enjoy doing this type of research. I for one almost got bored on a Tekkit server when someone told me about this part of the mod. I looked into it, thinking, wow, this could be a lot of fun! If you don't think the same way about it, then just don't use it. Nobody makes you. Stick to whatever you like in the mod, I like it in its entirety. It adds a whole new part that you can spend hours, days, weeks with trying to get that one perfect crop. Just have fun the way you want to, don't think it's necessary to use this.


    P.S.: It's a lot more fun with multiple scientists on 1 server.