[img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45087914/8a0129c087ecb129fdb0db14e792367e820e431c.jpg[/img] We are currently working on adding Farming to the game. Since we’re currently working on things, the details in this article may change, but the shape of the end-result feature should be quite similar. We recently added the ability for players to harvest seeds from nearly every flower, tree, and bush in the game and gave them the ability to plant those seeds and regrow them anywhere in the world. There were no rules as to where you can place those plants and they’d grow any place you put them, even if the heat and humidity weren’t right for the plant, and even if you planted it on stone. With this update, a lot of that changes. Some of the big changes: You can only plant seeds in soils. The soils have to be the right soils if the plant is going to thrive and not die. Even with the right soil, you’ll still need to make sure it gets the right amount of water and that the temperatures are conducive to it growing well. Those of you that have played the game will realize that changing the soils, and balancing heat and humidity out in the wild is challenging and/or impossible. So that’s where Farms & Gardens come into play. When you build a Farm/Garden on your Homestead, you can control all those variables. You can place the soil, invest the soil with additives to change it into other soils, and use ThermalMeters and HydroMeters to adjust the heat/humidity to make your “plant children” happy. Use your [b]Harvester[/b] to harvest a plant out in the wild, gathering seeds and in the process, get more information about the plant’s favorite soil, heat, humidity, and seasonality. Use your [b]Terraformer[/b] to dump soil that you gathered in the world into your garden bed. Then use a [b]Trowel[/b] to clear weeds, enrich the soil, clear plants and turn your plants into potted plants so you can decorate with them or sell/gift them to other players. Place a [b]ThermalMeter[/b] near your plants to adjust the temperature in that area to the right comfort level for those plants. Use a HydroMeter to do the same thing for moisture levels, making it drier for desert plants or wetter for tropical plants. Use [b]Calcium Fertilizer[/b] or [b]Ammonium[/b] to shift the pH level of your soil up or down, transforming that soil from one type to another, getting it to the right type for the plant. There are a lot of soil types, so keep shifting it from one to the other to achieve the soils you want. [img]{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/45087914/6932e27b1e928c8dfadb03d121cbafc41b9275a5.png[/img] And of course, get better at Farming! There’s a new branch of the Botany skill tree that’s dedicated to the Farming systems. It’ll help you get better yields from plants, unlock better versions of ThermalMeters and HydroMeters, increase the number of Garden Beds you can use, unlock some of the abilities mentioned above (like potting plants), and increase growth speed. [h2][b]AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING[/b][/h2] Later on, we’ll add things like hydroponics, greenhouses (including ones for outer space), growth and yield stimulators for your soil, raised beds to avoid pests (and the pests and diseases you’ll want to avoid) and more. But even just this first bit is quite a lot, so we’re focusing here and then we’ll enlarge after this gets a chance to settle.