[FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Servinjesus1
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Servinjesus1 »

Hello!

I was wondering what the optimal herd sizes were, especially for pigs. I have yet to explore the other two, but after doing some profit analysis of the pigs, it seems the break-even number is only 15... is that small of a herd intentional?
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Dr. Bob
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Dr. Bob »

Servinjesus1 wrote:Hello!

I was wondering what the optimal herd sizes were, especially for pigs. I have yet to explore the other two, but after doing some profit analysis of the pigs, it seems the break-even number is only 15... is that small of a herd intentional?
I always assumed the milk and wool production and grass/hay use is linear with the size of the herd. Grass you can sell at the biogas plant as long as there's processing capacity there. The wool and milk should generate more than what you 'lose' on missed revenues from not selling the grass otherwise it's pretty futile and the prices should be changed. As long as it's linear and the gains are greater than the cost there's no real downside to large herds of cows and sheep if you can produce the amount of grass they eat. As a bonus you get the manure from the cows.

Pigs don't produce anything you can sell except more pigs (pork bellies). I've never kept track but If the timer only produces a single extra pig each time and the time doesn't get shorter but the amount of food they eat is linear with the herd size then a (very) small herd would indeed be the most profitable, although unrealistic. I only had pigs for a short while. Only to empty the feed I had stocked. I then bought 20 pigs and by the time the feed had run out I had 90 pigs and the timer had stopped. Oddly enough once I nearly had sold them all suddenly an extra pig appeared even with no timer running. They do produce manure too so if you can use that too because you can't produce enough slurry and cow manure that might still be a reason to have more pigs.

What are your findings with the pigs regarding reproduction vs. feed use?
Servinjesus1
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Joined: Thu Jul 06, 2017 12:44 pm

Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Servinjesus1 »

Dr. Bob wrote:
I always assumed the milk and wool production and grass/hay use is linear with the size of the herd. Grass you can sell at the biogas plant as long as there's processing capacity there. The wool and milk should generate more than what you 'lose' on missed revenues from not selling the grass otherwise it's pretty futile and the prices should be changed. As long as it's linear and the gains are greater than the cost there's no real downside to large herds of cows and sheep if you can produce the amount of grass they eat. As a bonus you get the manure from the cows.

Pigs don't produce anything you can sell except more pigs (pork bellies). I've never kept track but If the timer only produces a single extra pig each time and the time doesn't get shorter but the amount of food they eat is linear with the herd size then a (very) small herd would indeed be the most profitable, although unrealistic. I only had pigs for a short while. Only to empty the feed I had stocked. I then bought 20 pigs and by the time the feed had run out I had 90 pigs and the timer had stopped. Oddly enough once I nearly had sold them all suddenly an extra pig appeared even with no timer running. They do produce manure too so if you can use that too because you can't produce enough slurry and cow manure that might still be a reason to have more pigs.

What are your findings with the pigs regarding reproduction vs. feed use?
Reproduction seems to follow either an exponential or power relation, so it decreases quickly but kind of levels out around a minute. Profit per second, assuming you sold the pig you reproduced for 2200, is quite linear. Feed consumption (and straw) also follows a linear function. The rate is 12 pig seconds per kg (or, when you have 12 pigs, they consume one kilo (one digit) of corn/canola/straw per second.)

It's been hard to fit the reproduction rate perfectly since the counter has to round to seconds, but overall, the profit/second for pig reproduction and the cost/second for canola+corn consumption lines seem to intersect around 15 pigs. I haven't gone as drastically far as 90 pigs before, but I doubt I'd find a much different fit. I'd love to know what kind of reproduction time you had when you had 90 pigs, if you happened to catch it. (Oh, and reproduction speed is halved if you only have one grain)
ojczenasz
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Joined: Tue Jul 11, 2017 1:51 pm

Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by ojczenasz »

Hi,
Just a couple suggestions.
1. I'd be nice to have animal sounds when close to them.
2. Vehicle's horns should be adjusted appropriately to the distance - rather than being heard all across map.

Love the game, very nice.

Thanks
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Dr. Bob
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Dr. Bob »

Servinjesus1 wrote: Reproduction seems to follow either an exponential or power relation, so it decreases quickly but kind of levels out around a minute. Profit per second, assuming you sold the pig you reproduced for 2200, is quite linear. Feed consumption (and straw) also follows a linear function. The rate is 12 pig seconds per kg (or, when you have 12 pigs, they consume one kilo (one digit) of corn/canola/straw per second.)

It's been hard to fit the reproduction rate perfectly since the counter has to round to seconds, but overall, the profit/second for pig reproduction and the cost/second for canola+corn consumption lines seem to intersect around 15 pigs. I haven't gone as drastically far as 90 pigs before, but I doubt I'd find a much different fit. I'd love to know what kind of reproduction time you had when you had 90 pigs, if you happened to catch it. (Oh, and reproduction speed is halved if you only have one grain)
I didn't really check on the pigs. I just wanted them to empty the feed/straw storages I had previously filled in anticipation of going to add pig farming to my activities but then I made the 'fork' of the game I mentioned here earlier in the topic ( viewtopic.php?f=942&t=113269&start=60#p890341 ) and I just bought 20 pigs so they could empty the storages again. I did nothing in between so it should be easy to reproduce. Start with no pigs, then just fill all storages to 100% with canola, corn and straw, buy 20 pigs and just let nature run its course. :biggrin2: You should end up with 90 pigs when they've eaten everything just as I did.

I suspect you are more the type who 'has a thing with numbers' than I am. I am interested in your findings but am not driven enough by them to go and figure them out myself. But that's always one of the nice things about games. People can find different goals in them to pursue to have fun with a game.
Neal121
Posts: 7
Joined: Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:42 pm

Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Neal121 »

Dr. Bob wrote:
Servinjesus1 wrote: Reproduction seems to follow either an exponential or power relation, so it decreases quickly but kind of levels out around a minute. Profit per second, assuming you sold the pig you reproduced for 2200, is quite linear. Feed consumption (and straw) also follows a linear function. The rate is 12 pig seconds per kg (or, when you have 12 pigs, they consume one kilo (one digit) of corn/canola/straw per second.)

It's been hard to fit the reproduction rate perfectly since the counter has to round to seconds, but overall, the profit/second for pig reproduction and the cost/second for canola+corn consumption lines seem to intersect around 15 pigs. I haven't gone as drastically far as 90 pigs before, but I doubt I'd find a much different fit. I'd love to know what kind of reproduction time you had when you had 90 pigs, if you happened to catch it. (Oh, and reproduction speed is halved if you only have one grain)
I didn't really check on the pigs. I just wanted them to empty the feed/straw storages I had previously filled in anticipation of going to add pig farming to my activities but then I made the 'fork' of the game I mentioned here earlier in the topic ( viewtopic.php?f=942&t=113269&start=60#p890341 ) and I just bought 20 pigs so they could empty the storages again. I did nothing in between so it should be easy to reproduce. Start with no pigs, then just fill all storages to 100% with canola, corn and straw, buy 20 pigs and just let nature run its course. :biggrin2: You should end up with 90 pigs when they've eaten everything just as I did.

I suspect you are more the type who 'has a thing with numbers' than I am. I am interested in your findings but am not driven enough by them to go and figure them out myself. But that's always one of the nice things about games. People can find different goals in them to pursue to have fun with a game.

I tend to sell all my pigs except for 2. I then fill the food supply and go back to my 8 fields im working on. After about 2 harvests I will return to 40 pigs. I only purchased pigs when I first started the game otherwise it seems the game sends it pigs like crazy.

I also noticed that sheep don't reproduce very fast
My cows are producing faster than sheep. I do have the sheep at 100% food a too.


Im sad about not seeing a reply from someone in giants about tool sizes. I'm starting to get tired of the game because of how long it takes to cultivate that million dollar field. And then seed it. I'm trying to avoid using the computer driver since it gets stuck on something so easy and im... Cheap... Trying to save every penny lol.
jws338
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Re: FS 18

Post by jws338 »

How do yo set difficult level?
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Dr. Bob
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Dr. Bob »

Neal121 wrote:
Im sad about not seeing a reply from someone in giants about tool sizes. I'm starting to get tired of the game because of how long it takes to cultivate that million dollar field. And then seed it. I'm trying to avoid using the computer driver since it gets stuck on something so easy and im... Cheap... Trying to save every penny lol.
In this case, as in real life, you make more money by spending some money. More paid AI workers means you can produce (much) more crop over the same time period compared to what you can produce when driving all equipment yourself. Yes, the getting stuck issue is annoying and should have the highest priority for fixing but by selecting where and when you start workers currently you can reduce the number of collisions somewhat.
jws338 wrote:How do yo set difficult level?
Apparently in FS18 you can't anymore. The question should therefore probably be why we can't set a difficulty level anymore.
jws338
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Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 2:57 pm

Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by jws338 »

The Bad:
I don't care for the layout. This doesn't look like a farming community. This looks like Arizona. FS17 is a farming community. The the helpers when harvesting still do not use the full width of the machine just like FS16. Where are the larger tools (cultivator). This alone might keep me from using FS18. When buying a tool it should show hp needed. Need much much better instructions. If no room in game put them on your website.

The Good: Goto feature. Farm animals.
Neal121
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Neal121 »

jws338 wrote:The Bad:
I don't care for the layout. This doesn't look like a farming community. This looks like Arizona. FS17 is a farming community. The the helpers when harvesting still do not use the full width of the machine just like FS16. Where are the larger tools (cultivator). This alone might keep me from using FS18. When buying a tool it should show hp needed. Need much much better instructions. If no room in game put them on your website.

The Good: Goto feature. Farm animals.
I agree on the larger tool issue. However by what I keep hearing, they want us to focus on using AI helpers instead... This sounds like an excuse to not adding more tools.

And Arizona farms do exist so I don't see any reason to not move into a new atmosphere. They have been using the same atmosphere for many games, time for a change. I do wish they would make more than 1 map though, even if they charged for it like a dlc.

The game is good. But not as good as 16 though. 17 is great for its mod community but we don't have that for mobile land.
jws338
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by jws338 »

I use the AI all the time but they don't always use the full width of the tools. The harvesters are the worst. I can do twice as much in manual than the AI. I still need a large cultivator to go with the planter. there is no way the largest cultivator would keep up with all the fields on the map. With only 75 tools I do not like it. I would like a second map if you finished the first one. Once I finished the map of FS16 I waited for 18. Not thrilled with 18, bring pos 20!
Last edited by jws338 on Tue Jul 18, 2017 5:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Dr. Bob
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by Dr. Bob »

OK Giants. Forcibly switching the graphics settings to low is NOT A PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT as you claim in the description with the latest update and it is EXTREMELY ANNOYING! So you now forced me to uninstall the game because I cannot re-install the previous version over the newer one. And now the game needs to download the game data from the servers again which doesn't work. It shortly says downloading from servers 0MB or something similar, then switches to "Starting" but also shows a notification with an exclamation mark which usually doesn't mean anything good and then nothing happens. Thank you for wasting my precious time with this worthless 'update'. There is only ONE person who decides at what graphics setting I play the game and guess what... that's nobody from Giants.

So please undo this ASAP and never EVER again deny your customers their freedom to choose this setting. Also please fix this failing download issue.
jws338
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by jws338 »

iPad user. How are you suppose to use the Stilla 460 Fertilizer with AI helper when it dosen't fold up at the end of the row. Gets stuck everywhere. Have to use it manually. Any suggestions?

John
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x Lethian x
Former GIANTS employee
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by x Lethian x »

jws338 wrote:iPad user. How are you suppose to use the Stilla 460 Fertilizer with AI helper when it dosen't fold up at the end of the row. Gets stuck everywhere. Have to use it manually. Any suggestions?

John

Hi John!

On what field are you using the fertilizer on? Is the helper getting stuck on any trees while doing this?
How to report a BUG | How to post a log file | How to upload images
jws338
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Re: [FS18] Feedback/Discussions...

Post by jws338 »

This is on one of the starting fields and it got stuck on train tresel. The span when sprayers are open are half of the field. It really need to close the sprayer to make a turn. Actually it is too large for the game. You won't give us a larger cultivator but give us a supper large fertilizer spreader. I stopped using it for now.
Thanks John
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