Better Farming mod

[Ani2]

Better Farming

Now, as we all know, Technic has lacked farming somewhat since the sudden and unexpected Creeper-like blowing-up spree of Forestry and then its speedy removal. So, I'm suggesting a mod that adds some better and more realistic farming back into our favourite modpack.

Now, the main thing that bugs me about Wheat farming right now is how incredibly unrealistic and thus very linear it is. Right now, I get one Wheat and generally two Seeds. What bugs me about this is that I can't use these Seeds for anything anymore but making more Wheat, which can be very agitating sometimes when one does not wish to farm Wheat any further and yet still wants rewards for the final fruits of their labour.

So basically, I think Wheat should drop one Wheat when harvested. This wheat can be used for anything it can be used without this mod, except making Bread and Cakes. Why? Let me explain further.

In real life, there is no such thing as simply 'Wheat', apart from the plant itself and the stalks harvested from it. These simple stalks may be somewhat able to lure animals, and nevertheless liked to be eaten by these animals, but in no way is used to make Bread or Cake.

So I suggest Wheat be modded so that it is the one and only drop from Wheat plants, and that it can then be crafted into three Wheat Seeds.

Wheat Seeds are just like regular Seeds, except that they are Wheaty, and the texture will be yellowed to show that they are not simply Grass seeds. They still work to lure Chickens and to plant new Wheat, but they are the cultivated form of regular Seeds and so cannot be used in any non-cultivated uses that may arise in the future for Seeds. The other reason is simple - so that wild Grass cannot be used to make Flour.

Flour will be a creamy-coloured Sugar-like item that is created at a 1:1 ratio by crafting Wheat Seeds. This way, in our final-harvest scenario, the player can recycle any leftover Wheat Seeds into Flour, so it is still useful. But useful in what way?

Flour would replace Wheat as the ingredient used to make Bread and Cake. It's that simple. This way, the player is also able to double their harvest by making a trade-off and halving farm size each harvest and yet doubling the production rate of Bread- and Cake-making material.

Sound good enough to get made and maybe make its way into Technic someday?

UPDATE; Animal Farming Improvements

Another thing that sucks right now about Minecraft farming is Eggs. Eggs suck, because I have a really soft spot for animals, must be some OCD thing, and I can't bring myself to kill anything, so I have a bazillion Chickens and a double-chest full of Eggs which I can't hatch or eat. So what will we do? Make Eggs cookable in a Furnace to make Scrambled Eggs, which can be eaten!

Also, Sheep should drop Mutton, which can be eaten or cooked then eaten, like any other meat. This would level Sheep out with every other farm mob, all of which but the Sheep have a secondary purpose - Chickens with their Eggs, Cows with their Milk, and Pigs with their riding.

Additionally, Cows should have to wait an extra two days before being re-Milked. This would make Milk less OP, and so someone with a hundred buckets wouldn't be able to milk a single cow a hundred times.

UPDATE; Chicken Farming Improvements

You know what really sucks right now about Minecraft farming? The Chickens. The system was probably completely messed up in the Breeding Update.

Right now we have Chickens that lay eggs with a 1/8 chance of breeding true, and yet they can just stuff themselves with Wheat an breed true every time, without even needing to use up the extra nutrients and energy of producing an egg that needs to be looked after, (sorry if I'm being a bit over-sciency over all this).

So I think that when you breed two Chickens with Wheat (or in the new update, Seeds,) one of them should just lay an Egg. However, this Egg would have the Incubated enchantment, which increases the hatch chance to 1/4.

UPDATED; Chicken Farming Improvements II; Incubator Utility

The Incubator would take in regular Eggs and puts the Incubated enchantment onto them after they are 'cooked' with direct contact with sunlight and Furnace fuel such as Coal or Charcoal. The Incubator would have a Chest-sized inventory storage for the Eggs that need to be incubated, and nine slots at the top for fuel.

The Incubator may be a bit of work at first, but can be easily automated when combined with Pipes and a Dispenser to create a system that automatically refills the Incubator with fuel and shoots Eggs out into a Chicken pen.

[GreenWolf13]

I could probably code this if you wanted. The wheat changes are pretty simple, as it is just a few class edits and new items. I'd say it would take me less than a week of on and off development to do this.

[Ani2]

I could probably code this if you wanted. The wheat changes are pretty simple, as it is just a few class edits and new items. I'd say it would take me less than a week of on and off development to do this.

Really? Cool! I don't suppose something this simple could interfere with anything important, could it?

[Ani2]

UPDATED;

Added improvements to animal farming as well as Wheat farming, such as Eggs being cookable into Scrambled Eggs, Cows having to wait before being re-Milked, and Sheep dropping a new meat, Mutton.

[Ani2]

UPDATED;

Added an idea for better Chicken farming just because of how freaking stupid it is right now.

[knight4linux]

Better Farming

since the sudden and unexpected Creeper-like blowing-up spree of Forestry

Haha, I found this very humorous. Since this post doesn't have anything specific to add to thread feel free to delete it, I just wanted to let you know that. But I do also think this is a wonderful idea & really hope to see it get as much support as possible. Seeing that we (& hopefully many many others for their own good) won't touch anything "He who won't be named" codes with a ten-foot pole, farming is an element that really needs some work. :)

[knight4linux]

Better Farming

UPDATE; Chicken Farming Improvements

You know what really sucks right now about Minecraft farming? The Chickens. The system was probably completely messed up in the Breeding Update.

Right now we have Chickens that lay eggs with a 1/8 chance of breeding true, and yet they can just stuff themselves with Wheat an breed true every time, without even needing to use up the extra nutrients and energy of producing an egg that needs to be looked after, (sorry if I'm being a bit over-sciency over all this).

So I think that when you breed two Chickens with Wheat (or in the new update, Seeds,) one of them should just lay an Egg. However, this Egg would have the Incubated enchantment, which increases the hatch chance to 1/4.

~Planning to add an Incubator utility to the plan that adds the Incubated enchant to Eggs when in contact with direct sunlight~

Ok so I felt it was stupid to just post that & then not anything of value. So I really think chickens would be an easy change and make the most sense to start with as far as animals go because the current use of throwing eggs at a wall (as much fun as it is) really isn't that realistic & produces just awful results. 1/8 chances (thought it was 1/11 chances, no?) just suck & make it not even worth it for me personally to utilize it in game. Now, we can breed them of course with wheat which is fine, but I think the incubator idea for making all the eggs develop into a chick is a great idea. However I would think it would need electricity (not that much) & wouldn't be able to just rely on the sun, as it does in real life.

I'll be keeping really close track of this thread & add anything I can think as a new idea or changes to existing. :)

[Ani2]

Haha, I found this very humorous. Since this post doesn't have anything specific to add to thread feel free to delete it, I just wanted to let you know that. But I do also think this is a wonderful idea & really hope to see it get as much support as possible. Seeing that we (& hopefully many many others for their own good) won't touch anything "He who won't be named" codes with a ten-foot pole, farming is an element that really needs some work.

Heheh, thanks X3

Ok so I felt it was stupid to just post that & then not anything of value. So I really think chickens would be an easy change and make the most sense to start with as far as animals go because the current use of throwing eggs at a wall (as much fun as it is) really isn't that realistic & produces just awful results. 1/8 chances (thought it was 1/11 chances, no?) just suck & make it not even worth it for me personally to utilize it in game. Now, we can breed them of course with wheat which is fine, but I think the incubator idea for making all the eggs develop into a chick is a great idea. However I would think it would need electricity (not that much) & wouldn't be able to just rely on the sun, as it does in real life.

I'll be keeping really close track of this thread & add anything I can think as a new idea or changes to existing.

Okay, thanks!

Also, with the electricity required with the Incubator, I guess you do sort of have a point. With the whole Egg Incubation idea in general, though, basically the entire point was with realism though...

But in Minecraft I guess it is quite easy to go too far with realism. I suppose at least some form of additional requirement would make sense. Actually, forget power, how about instead use standard vanilla and modded furnace fuels? It adds at least two additional requirements - the fuel and the fact that you need to put it in manually - but can still be automated with the use of pipes. Thanks for the heads-up about that though!

[Ani2]

UPDATED;

Added the basic idea for the Incubator that adds the Incubated enchantment to Eggs in exchange for direct sunlight as well as fuel like Coal.

[GreenWolf13]

Okay, here's what I can do.

Wheat Changes: I can make it so that wheat plants don't drop seeds, and instead only drop wheat. I can also add flour and the ability to get seeds from wheat stalks. I could also probably make it so that you need to use flour to make bread, cakes, etc... But that would require more base class edits than I am willing to make right now. It would also make the chances of incompatibility with other mods higher.

Egg Changes: Making eggs cookable should be easy. It is just a matter of adding a nee item and a new smelting recipe.

Chicken Breeding Changes: Changing the way mob breeding works would be difficult. For now, I'll leave in the vanilla system, but add the incubator block, which allows you to hatch eggs into chickens with 100% of success. Eventually I'll change the vanilla mechanics, but for now I'll leave them in.

Cow Changes: This should be relatively simple, although it requires base class edits.

Sheep Changes: This should also be simple, although it also requires base class edits.

[Ani2]

Okay, here's what I can do.

Wheat Changes: I can make it so that wheat plants don't drop seeds, and instead only drop wheat. I can also add flour and the ability to get seeds from wheat stalks. I could also probably make it so that you need to use flour to make bread, cakes, etc... But that would require more base class edits than I am willing to make right now. It would also make the chances of incompatibility with other mods higher

Ah, fair enough.

With the recipe change though, is it possible to make it so that Cake and Bread can be made of Flour but don't need to be? I think that would, in fact, be even better than my original proposed idea.

Egg Changes: Making eggs cookable should be easy. It is just a matter of adding a nee item and a new smelting recipe.

Cool.

Chicken Breeding Changes: Changing the way mob breeding works would be difficult. For now, I'll leave in the vanilla system, but add the incubator block, which allows you to hatch eggs into chickens with 100% of success. Eventually I'll change the vanilla mechanics, but for now I'll leave them in.

Okay! However, will the Incubator still require sunlight and Fuel, or at least just fuel, or will it be for free?

Cow Changes: This should be relatively simple, although it requires base class edits.

Sheep Changes: This should also be simple, although it also requires base class edits.

Okaly dokaly.

Well, over all, it seems to be going okay!

All that is really important is the new Wheat system and the Chicken Incubator, but the other stuff can wait, so it isn;t that urgent. But anyway, thanks!

[GreenWolf13]

I can definitely make it so that flour can be used to make cake and bread, but it doesn't need to be. I could probably do some clever things with the ore dictionary to make it so that other mods that use wheat in certain recipes could use flour as an option. The chicken incubator will definitely require fuel, and I might set it up so that it can use IndustrialCraft 2 EU/t, Red Power 2 blutricity, BuildCraft 2/3 MJ, or Universal Electricity if you have one of those mods installed.

[Ani2]

I can definitely make it so that flour can be used to make cake and bread, but it doesn't need to be. I could probably do some clever things with the ore dictionary to make it so that other mods that use wheat in certain recipes could use flour as an option. The chicken incubator will definitely require fuel, and I might set it up so that it can use IndustrialCraft 2 EU/t, Red Power 2 blutricity, BuildCraft 2/3 MJ, or Universal Electricity if you have one of those mods installed.

Sounds good!

[Ordeth]

Sheep Changes: This should also be simple, although it also requires base class edits.

Wouldn't you just be able to extend the sheep class and override its drops?

[GreenWolf13]

Wouldn't you just be able to extend the sheep class and override its drops?

Possibly. That's probably the way to go if I want to maintain compatibility.

[Ani2]

Whatever you do, don't go asking me about programming X3