Farmers prefer to harvest over remove rotten plants

#1

Good day to you! I noticed in a recent play that the farmer chose to clear the field of rotten plants (silkweeds, in this case) while other plants were still harvestable, but rotting as she worked. I think she just went for whatever was closest to her. Obviously, this meant the actual harvest was smaller. I think she should prefer to retrieve harvestable plants first, then deal with any rotten plants, as there is less of a time pressure for removing rotten plants.

As a sidenote, even plants she was busy gathering continued to rot, which is a bit of a strange thing to witness. They still counted as properly gathered plants, but even so.

11:15 and then some.

Impressions of Alpha 4 Release 118
#2

i’m not entirely sure, but wasnt there a related discussion that @sdee was having about farmers, rotten crops and whatnot?

#3

I’m not sure either. I can’t remember, at any rate. I did do a search as well, but that’s never entirely foolproof.

#4

Personally I think this may be by design. During one of the live streams it was mentioned that learning how to get the most out of your crops was part of farming itself finding that balance between feeding your people and how many farmers you really need. I’ve found on several playthroughs that if I had two or three farmers I almost never saw anything rot.

#5

Well, I think that may be addressing a different issue. Indeed, I had one farmer too few for a large part of the game, which is why I promoted another just prior to the issue I’m pointing out. However, my problem is not that crops rot at all (which is what it sounds to me like you’re reacting to, but correct me if I’m wrong), but that farmers should probably focus on harvesting things that are still harvestable rather than removing rotten items first. If they do the harvesting first, you get more out of it in the end, because you can get more before those plants, too, rot. It’s just a suggestion to code some more common sense into the citizens’ AI.

#6

Sorry for my mistake I understand where you are getting at now. I usually have too many farmers which is why I haven’t noticed this but it sounds like the AI reacts to what is grown first regardless if it is rotten or not. I can see where that would be an issue.

#7

No problem at all :slight_smile:

It could be that, but I think it’s probably just what is closest. Although I guess if the farmer planting them comes from the same side as the farmer later harvesting them, these alternatives will be almost indistinguishable.

#8

In fairness, farmer pathing needs a bit of work anyway - just watch how they run all over the place making fields :wink: .

The rotting timer should probably pause whilst a plant is being harvested. I say paused, because the farmer may be interrupted, in which case it ought to continue.

#9

There was this discussion that I have now found, but there is no talk about rotten crops in there yet as far as I can see. So maybe that’s not the one you were thinking of?

#10

no… it was fairly recent (unless i’m just imagining things again)… but thats a great discussion! :smile:

#11

this one maybe? [A4 R120][Con]: Silkweed Rots immediately, Workaround Inside