Crop Growth During Missions

[Faelandaea]

I know I saw this on these forums, and I checked the few mission-related threads I see here on the first couple pf pages, but the answer eludes me, so I apologize if this has already been answered.

Has it absolutely been VERIFIED that your crops, etc. "freeze" when you are doing missions? I am running a let's play series for FS17 on YouTube, and we planted Radishes in our 3 starting crops, but it seems like it is taking literally forever for the first crop we planted, which was actually a few streams ago, to even start growing. We've been doing a lot of missions to get money to get high-end equipment, and I am wondering if the missions are stopping my own farm's growth.

If so, then my feedback for Giants would be to change that. I am now at an impasse. I promised that the entire series would be done real time. NO time advancement. So I am at a stage where there's really nothing to do at all except pass the time doing missions until my own crops grow, but if my own crops "pause" while I am doing missions, then it's not a choice - we have to absolutely accelerate time, which defeats the purpose entirely of running a real time simulation series.

Before I start the next stream, which I promised viewers a definite answer on this, I'd like to know what exactly IS the definite answer on this?

[Faelandaea]

So I am not the only one seeing this then? it stinks, because I seriously need something to do while waiting for crops to grow.

Welp -- I guess despite my promise to viewers, we're going to have to accelerate time, which is just a complete waste of actual game-time, as I wanted to utilize the time efficiently. When you accelerate time, you also accelerate all of your equipment's age, thus driving yourself into maintenance costs, etc. It's essentially the same as sitting around on vacation while you have millions of dollars worth the stuff just rusting around you.

[TopSoil]

I was guessing this had to do with radishes specifically. I hadn't thought that it might be mission related.

What I have found is that when I plant one field with a normal crop and one field with radishes, the radishes don't come up as fast as the first stage of the normal crop. Which is 100% counter to what it should be, as radishes are meant to be fast growing so you can use em as fertiliser.

Maybe it's mission related - I do a lot of them while waiting for crops.

[kwaka]

Try looking at the in game clock before and after the mission.
Maybe this will give you an answer.

@ above. Believe radish and grass have different growth stages compared to others.

[Faelandaea]

It's not just radishes, though. I also tested this on my sandbox and it is appearing that ALL activity on your farm relating to crop growth freezes as you do missions. It appears to also freeze AI workers also.

I understand that some folks may want missions to be a primary game activity or main money-maker, but for the purposes of my stream and my gameplay style, it was supposed to be filler activity so we have something to do while waiting for crops to grow or something else to progress. It's too bad we won;t be able to get any word from Giants on this, as I would love for them to consider taking that bit off. There's got to be a way to let time continue while we do missions.

In another sense, the missions also, using this form of thought process, also dig into the realism of the economy around you. "Hey, my loan is due and it has a lot of interest." "No problem. We'll just freeze time for you so you can do this mission. We called Q from Star Trek to make this happen. Have fun with the mission. When you get back, it'll be as if you never left so you can pay the loan instantly."

In FS15 - I was always hating to fast forward time just to get something done. With the mission system, I was looking forward to always having something to do without having to mess with the clock. Now that it appears I am not the only one seeing all of this, I am hoping that Giants finds a way to give us such an option in the future.

[wildberry]

This is PC?

For me, on PC-Steam, my AI helpers do continue working and finishing their jobs as usual. However, I had sunflowers planted and after just replying in another thread on this subject it got me thinking back to that as I was doing missions without speeding up time, but it took like 3 ingame days to grow on normal growing speed (although playing on hard the slow growing was taking too long for me, I would've bought a patience simulator if I needed it )

[ricolarules]

My AI workers continue working while I do missions. [PC]

[W1der]

So I am not the only one seeing this then? it stinks, because I seriously need something to do while waiting for crops to grow.

Welp -- I guess despite my promise to viewers, we're going to have to accelerate time, which is just a complete waste of actual game-time, as I wanted to utilize the time efficiently. When you accelerate time, you also accelerate all of your equipment's age, thus driving yourself into maintenance costs, etc. It's essentially the same as sitting around on vacation while you have millions of dollars worth the stuff just rusting around you.

Thank you for helping me understand, why I like to play with the time on x1 ...
For me it just felt the right way to do it ... but I guess, this is exactly WHY it felt right ...

[pest0n]

When you've entered a mission you can press escape and see that the mission turn down the clock to real time but I don't think it touches the speed on growth IE Slow, normal, fast.

I had x120 on and I got damn worried when I entered a mission which was plowing ~30-40 min real time duration and my crops would've gone to waste so I checked the menu and it had turned it down to real time.

[W1der]

The thing I get stuck with when trying to decide weather I like this or not, is the "time relativity factor" in the game ...

If you have your growth speed set to the fastest ...
Doing a mission for an hour (or several of them for several hours) ... days/weeks has passed (converted to "real time" when you return to your farm) ...

[wildberry]

I always made sure to have time set to 1 when doing missions. So you're saying if you set it to 120x it stays that way doing missions? EEK

[pest0n]

I always made sure to have time set to 1 when doing missions. So you're saying if you set it to 120x it stays that way doing missions? EEK

No the opposite.. If you've x120 on it changes it to x1 the moment you start your mission

[pest0n]

The thing I get stuck with when trying to decide weather I like this or not, is the "time relativity factor" in the game ...

If you have your growth speed set to the fastest ...
Doing a mission for an hour (or several of them for several hours) ... days/weeks has passed (converted to "real time" when you return to your farm) ...

Crops do still grow but time is changed to x1 (real time) so it doesn't add the time to your game when the mission is done, it just goes on like you've played it normally on x1

[wildberry]

Thanks for the clarification. I personally prefer the time on 1x when doing missions. But should be an option that if player has it on 120x it should be able to stay on that.

[Gazer75]

Crop growth is paused when doing missions. Check the settings for crop growth speed during a mission and you'll see it is set to paused and not possible to change.
I think it might be so that you do not get a messed up field during the mission. Getting a growth cycle in the middle of a mission might break something.

Really disappointed by this as I hoped to do mission while waiting for my crops to grow...