CROSS-CONTENT DISCUSSION: Harvesting

Post by **rbroab** » Sat Feb 16, 2013 3:50 am

@chucksteel could Rivet City caravan crops to Megaton?

Post by **WizardOfAtlantis** » Sun Feb 17, 2013 8:19 pm

Just how flat of a space do are you looking for? Next to Megaton, there is that wonderful little "mini-valley"/pocket of space that is diagonally between Megaton and Vault 101, bordered by the back of the ruined houses at the south edge of Springvale up towards where the merchants hang out outside of Megaton and the rocky "cliff" at the edge of the road that borders the front of Vault 101.

Maybe there are rocks there, but couldn't they be taken out and the land leveled a bit? Farmers would do that anyway...with all the explosives in the wasteland, even bigger rocks wouldn't be difficult to take care of, like clearing stumps of trees.

There's even the water tower there, which would make sense in that it would be used for the irrigation of the plants once it was put back into working condition. The area is close to Megaton and not facing the areas with higher Raider concentrations (i.e. further north, east, and south). Even could be covered by Megaton's front-gate sniper (can't remember his name...).

Plants on top of all the space in Rivet City makes all the sense in the world.

Post by **walrus2517** » Wed Feb 27, 2013 8:30 pm

I really like the idea of harvestable native plants placed throughout the CW, but the idea of making what I'm guessing would be fairly large edits to include farms in or around the majority of settlements just seems like it would cause more problems than it solved. I like the idea others have mentioned about a large scale farming operation on the Rivet City flight decks with caravans taking the food to the various settlements. I added a similar idea to my FNV mod with Camp Golf supposedly providing food for the NCR throughout the Mojave.

Also, to clarify the request for "trees", RTS for NV requires 50 trees within a certain radius to create a lumber camp, so that is what he was asking for. Obviously RTS functionality shouldn't be a concern for the TTW team though. :)

Post by **chucksteel** » Thu Feb 28, 2013 3:43 am

Walrus,

I've killed the idea of proper farms, It sounded good at first but, when I went to implement it it just felt forced and, wrong. I've moved on to a subsistence based system with foraging. there are already hunters in FO3 (Be it there likely hunting people. :) )

It's just going to take me a long time to place plants randomly in believable places and, ways through out the DC Wasteland.

I'm not even going to add the farm to the flight deck of rivet city even though I think it is a good idea. If someone wants to mod it there more then welcome too!

Post by **ElvenScoundrel** » Thu Feb 28, 2013 10:03 am

AFAIK, you don't really need flat terrain to grow crops, and there's enough empty space around Megaton to grow crops. OR, you can make a new interior cell that's essentially a greenhouse or hydroponics bay, which also makes some modicum of sense, considering Megaton has working pipes. Same with Rivet City; it has enough space for them to build a greenhouse or hydroponics bay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydroponics This is probably Megaton and Rivet City's best chance of growing crops, since fertile soil is not AS needed when doing hydroponic farming. Canterbury Commons should DEFINITELY, WITHOUT A DOUBT have a rather large farm. IN FACT, IIRC, there's a big plot of farmland just before you get to Canterbury Commons, where a Yao Guai usually spawns that could be used as a massive farming field, which makes sense for the Commons to have, seeing as it's the trading hub of D.C. Add one of those ramshackled barns and a bunch of maize and mutfruit, and it makes logical sense to imagine that Canterbury Commons sells their crops to Megaton and Rivet City.

Post by **chucksteel** » Thu Feb 28, 2013 12:45 pm

I know you don't need flat land to grow crops, my biggest issue is game aesthetics. Farms do make scene from a realism standpoint but they really just don't work when added, they feel forced and out of place. This is why I choose to go with a subsistence based foraging system. Your more then welcome to mod in farms to TTW but, I'm not going to add them by force just for Realism sake.

Post by **chucksteel** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 1:17 am

Yes when I finish adding the plants the update would be integrated into TTW.esm. I do agree with your post, not having something forced on the individual player is for the best. I already decided to not include farms. I'm only adding random plants.

Post by **JimmyFraska** » Fri Mar 01, 2013 7:09 am

The suggestions for Rivet City have been very good. As for Megaton, I saw a mod not too long ago that added a pen with more brahmin. Even if you weren't to add crops, a pen with two or three extra cattle in it would get the idea across well enough.

Post by **Befo** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 12:45 am

Chucksteel, you asked for recommendations on plants that are in FNV that could make it over to DC. Here are a few.

Pinto Bean Pods: I grow these in North Carolina so I see no reason you couldn't grow them in DC.

Coyote Tobacco: Again, we have grown tobacco in NC, and it was a staple Virginia crop for a long time, so I see no reason to leave it out.

Broc Flower and Xander Root: neither of these have a real world counterpart that I can think of (or find on Google or the FO wiki) so these two could be acceptable in DC. Neither have a real southwest feel like cacti, so I think it would be OK. It would also allow healing powder to be crafted in DC, early on when it would be useful. The Xander Root in particular would work, since the wiki mentions it is turnip-like, and turnips are a common garden vegetable.

Fresh apples, carrots, pears and potatoes could all be found in DC, though I realize these aren't harvested (although there is an mod that adds a harvestable apple tree to the Megaton house, so I imagine it would be possible to do apple trees).

Pinyon Nuts could be included, as pine trees are across the nation. Again, I realize this isn't normally a harvest item, but it would fit in DC, Oasis, Point Lookout, Jamestown, anywhere there are trees.

Although I am not a modder, I am pretty sure a tree or plant model could be made into an activatable item, like other modders have done with coffee urns and fire hydrants...if that is an option you want to consider. It may be more in the realm of an addon mod, however. If that is the case then the non-harvestable things I mentioned could at least go into the lists. /shrug

Post by **JaxFirehart** » Wed Mar 06, 2013 1:27 am

I have no objection to any of this. It all makes sense to me.

Coyote tobacco is not the same as east coast tobacco, coyote is more west, southwest. The model is similar though, coyote has that stalk in the middle which would need to be removed.

Thanks for your input, that's valuable information.