Making Weeding Optional
Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2022 12:09 pm
In the next update to my addon, I plan to add a config option for weeding. I think this might be a good idea for CE and other BTW versions as well.
I actually really love weeding as a concept and plan to use it in my single player world. In multiplayer, however, the mechanic falls apart. If players are massed at spawn, but some players happen to be away, the crops will die if nobody is online to attend to them. This creates a janky situation where spawn players have to set up a second base just outside of spawn chunks in order to avoid accidentally wiping out their crops. My friends and I are currently doing this on our latest session, and I have experienced this on other servers as well.
In general, weeding puts chunk loading front and center, which I think is an unfortunate gamey thing to force players to think about so early in the game. It is also inconsistent--farming at spawn is way different than farming at an HC spawn. The always on spawn chunks mean that players have to manage their time away from the garden so as not to let weeds overtake it. This is balanced by the fact that plants still get to grow when the player is off caving or logging or exploring. I think this is a great dynamic (and possibly what FC was intending when he made the feature), but this balance is lost during HC Spawns because the crop chunks are not loaded. Instead, the crops will freeze in time if they are not babysat. Practically speaking, that means the player has to loiter or AFK around base while waiting for crops to grow, and weeding is just an extra chore on top of that.
In short, the feature isn't all that well implemented across the various ways to experience the game. I feel like giving server players an option to forego weeding might take a load off.
In my ideal world, HC Spawns will also be temporarily chunk loaded so that every survival experience can have the same level of convenience and consistency. Crops are not the only thing affected by an unloaded base--clay drying, smelting, cooking, and machines all function a lot worse outside of spawn, making gameplay away from home a lot less fluid.
I actually really love weeding as a concept and plan to use it in my single player world. In multiplayer, however, the mechanic falls apart. If players are massed at spawn, but some players happen to be away, the crops will die if nobody is online to attend to them. This creates a janky situation where spawn players have to set up a second base just outside of spawn chunks in order to avoid accidentally wiping out their crops. My friends and I are currently doing this on our latest session, and I have experienced this on other servers as well.
In general, weeding puts chunk loading front and center, which I think is an unfortunate gamey thing to force players to think about so early in the game. It is also inconsistent--farming at spawn is way different than farming at an HC spawn. The always on spawn chunks mean that players have to manage their time away from the garden so as not to let weeds overtake it. This is balanced by the fact that plants still get to grow when the player is off caving or logging or exploring. I think this is a great dynamic (and possibly what FC was intending when he made the feature), but this balance is lost during HC Spawns because the crop chunks are not loaded. Instead, the crops will freeze in time if they are not babysat. Practically speaking, that means the player has to loiter or AFK around base while waiting for crops to grow, and weeding is just an extra chore on top of that.
In short, the feature isn't all that well implemented across the various ways to experience the game. I feel like giving server players an option to forego weeding might take a load off.
In my ideal world, HC Spawns will also be temporarily chunk loaded so that every survival experience can have the same level of convenience and consistency. Crops are not the only thing affected by an unloaded base--clay drying, smelting, cooking, and machines all function a lot worse outside of spawn, making gameplay away from home a lot less fluid.