Making the game more in depth on the animal side.

[Josephrl1989]

Hey everyone.
So I have been playing this game since fs13 and I am always let down why animals are not more interactive? I think it would be great if you just want to make it purely a sheep or cattle station and have 20,000 sheep or a few thousand cattle if you choos to and make it more interactive based on say australian farming.

Do some ideas so you get the gist of what I am saying.

Animals in paddocks.
having sheep in paddocks and have stocking rates on the paddocks, you have to rotate the paddocks otherwise your animals lose condition.

Shearing.
make the wool growth over 5 or 10 game days and have an upgradeable shearing shed so you can add in more stands and you can be involved in the shearing or it is automatically done over a period of time depending on the size of the shed to how many sheep. Also crutching, every 3rd cycle you have to crutch sheep otherwise their is a chance of decreased quality of wool.

Yard work.
Out in the yard you can drench, jet, mark, and other important jobs involved in farming sheep. They have put a high involvement in the crops but other than feeding and watering there is not a lot to do with the animals. All animals have there own jobs and different ways to do them ie train and sell horses or have competitions to go into with them. Cattle either have a interactive dairy and a feedlot or paddock and breeding. Also in online have a map with multiple farms and x amount of owners per map with ability to all work together or work alone and sometimes one action affects somthing else such as spray drift or putting a weir in will affect flow down stream.

Just a few ideas. If anyone has anymore ideas please post them and maybe someone will see our ideas and put them in.

[emz]

Yes, yes and yes. The game has incredible depth to the farming aspect but all the animals and work with them feels shallow. Every day is different when you have a farm with animals and the game lacks this depth big time. I know it's called Farming Simulator but keeping and tending to animals is a huge part to farming, not just the field work and fancy machines.

All the things you suggested in your post sound nice, even though I haven't had any sheep yet. One thing I'd like to see is a more in depth animal health and vet services for them if necessary. Real money sink in real life. I'm easily into the little details and don't know if something like this is too much for most players.

I've mentioned some of these in a another post but here we go...

- More interaction with the horses. Now they just walk straight at you and walk away when you want to brush them. And it looks ridiculous when they walk through each other.

- An option to lead a horse from the ground and tie it for brushing/washing could be nice. Also I'd love be able to tack up a horse before riding.

- Mucking out. Horses poop, a lot most days. Individual stables for each horse and putting them out in the pasture each morning.

- I mentioned health before and that also means shoeing. The horses have shoes on but atm you don't need to shoe them again. This could mean that shoes would wear more if you ride on asphalt rather than and dirt trail/grass.

[Josephrl1989]

I havnt gotten to having animals in this game yet because lack of money in game sort of thing but yes exactly noticing an animal is injured or sick, and maybe you can diagnose yourself and treat somthings like an injured foot or cut limb but have to get the vet to come out of you can’t figure out what it is,
Or you cannot treat it because farmers can recognise and treat a wide range of animal problems. Dairy cows and wool sheep are not the only use for them either put in an abattoir to sell to or a sale yard to buy/sell at auction. This could work really well if they put in the seasons or weather. Also make it so you can irrigate crops or rely on rain and sometimes it doesn’t rain and your crop is affected or completely fails and as for irrigation you have allocations and you cannot go past that otherwise you are fined and lose money as well. And also pasture grazing. We have rideable horses now we can muster and move cattle and sheep and pigs.

[VAGamer]

I would like to buy animals at younger ages and raise them to maturity, with prices changing over time. Buying generic animals at one price and selling at a reduced price just seems bad business.

Another useful addition would be buying different kinds of cattle, to include dairy cows and beef cattle.

As a stretch goal, would like to buy buildings like cheese factory to use the output of my animals.

[Josephrl1989]

VAGamer. I noticed just on a quick passing glance that they have brahmans in the game and they are not traditionally purchased as milk produces. I don’t know if they are used as milking stock in India or not or weather they are in the game. That is a good idea too having somthing like a dairy factory that you can buy to make more money from your animals and you could be able to milk sheep and goats if they introduce goats and also you own a bakery. Or have onfarm market to sell produce instead of all to the silos and shops.