This may be a unrealistic element to the game!

[ScarDominator]

I bought the game on Steam a couple of days ago and I loved the realistic elements of the game. As it is a game it does have some unrealistic elememts in it and I am okay with them but I think there is one unrealistic element to the game and that is irrigation. For what I know plants need water to grow and water a one of the most substancial part of plant growth. I just wanna know why didn't they add irrigation in the game too? That would make it more realistic and fun to play.

[eric21]

Not all farms have irrigation, depends on the region, crop type and what the farmer wants

[Husqvarna TS 352]

Well in Australia if you don't irrigate you don't get any yield. That also depends where you are, but as a general rule. But I guess a place in Europe (because they get much better rainfall) wouldn't have to. It would just be a waste of money.

[ScarDominator]

But still! They should have added irrigation system...

[W1der]

This has been discussed before ... others share your opinion!

[Husqvarna TS 352]

....Should....Should....Should....Should....Should

[DirectCedar]

To add to Eric's comment...

It is exactly right that irrigation is not universal. In fact worldwide it is a pretty small pocket of total arable acres. The United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization estimates about 16% of the world's farmland is irrigated. Irrigation is very expensive and makes sense for high value crops when the right water resource, climate, soil, labour, and markets are all in the same place at the same time.

Aside from that, it would take a pretty major tweak of the game system to make irrigation work in a meaningful way. An irrigation system wouldn't mean much without a weather system and a soil moisture system and probably some sort of agronomy system. Different crops have quite different water requirements at different growth stages, which are also very dependent on the weather. Presently the game has a virtually-meaningless weather system, and doesn't even have a way of remembering the previous crops grown on a field.

It doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun. It's just not as universal a feature of agriculture as some would think, and it is likely a much bigger deal to implement than many realize.

[ScarDominator]

To add to Eric's comment...

It is exactly right that irrigation is not universal. In fact worldwide it is a pretty small pocket of total arable acres. The United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization estimates about 16% of the world's farmland is irrigated. Irrigation is very expensive and makes sense for high value crops when the right water resource, climate, soil, labour, and markets are all in the same place at the same time.

Aside from that, it would take a pretty major tweak of the game system to make irrigation work in a meaningful way. An irrigation system wouldn't mean much without a weather system and a soil moisture system and probably some sort of agronomy system. Different crops have quite different water requirements at different growth stages, which are also very dependent on the weather. Presently the game has a virtually-meaningless weather system, and doesn't even have a way of remembering the previous crops grown on a field.

It doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun. It's just not as universal a feature of agriculture as some would think, and it is likely a much bigger deal to implement than many realize.

Hmmm. Nice answer. I hope so they add it in the future though. It would give a more realistic feel.

[DirectCedar]

Thank you for your polite response. It probably seems silly to say that but I've observed this forum become very impolite at times recently and it is nice to know that people can still have respectful conversations.

I agree it would be a neat thing to see in the game at some point. Personally though I'd rather wait a few years so the developer has time to implement it realistically, rather than for example the silly way that Pure Farming did it by dragging a water trailer across the field.... that represents field-scale irrigation the same way that a water pistol represents a firehose.

[thumbwiz]

A tweak that they've had a decade to implement, so it doesn't appear to be important to the devs.

[ScarDominator]

Thank you for your polite response. It probably seems silly to say that but I've observed this forum become very impolite at times recently and it is nice to know that people can still have respectful conversations.

I agree it would be a neat thing to see in the game at some point. Personally though I'd rather wait a few years so the developer has time to implement it realistically, rather than for example the silly way that Pure Farming did it by dragging a water trailer across the field.... that represents field-scale irrigation the same way that a water pistol represents a firehose.

True

[TaintedBlackCat]

I wish we didn't have to irrigate in Australia..rain, rain what is rain? Forgot what it looks like..that's the wet stuff right? Falls from the sky?

[pingu]

One may think that in general only hotter/dryer climates requires irrigation, but that is not true. Even up here in southern Sweden I see irrigation. That despite that we on average get between 500-1000 mm rain/snow per year. The farming season is short. Down south in Sweden the sowing of spring crops is usually done in March-April, and harvest of grain crops starts in August. If there are weeks of less rain in April-May, irrigation could be needed to get the things going before the long Summer days when the Sun is up for almost 18 hours per day. So irrigation is one of all those basic farming activities I would have liked in FS before getting new graphics and more licensed brand names.

[cmdrbyron]

Here's a lateral question - what would you be willing to give up in order to have this added to the game? Each new element brings with it a significant resource cost, both in terms of end-user hardware and on the developer side in terms of development and support. Sometimes, trade-offs have to be made.

Back to the main thread - beyond that laid out by DirectCedar, how would you see this implemented from a front-end (user) perspective? As far as I am concerned, this would effectively be "another" stage of fertilization (gameplay effect = increase yield, applicable at the largest number of stages), with very little added gameplay-wise, aside from purchasing either a placeable irrigation system, incurring an additional "invisible" cost (akin to the existing "Property" costs already captured each day), or having to buy various tools/elements that have to be manually dragged around and setup on each field?

Now you have to ask "how many players will actually take advantage of this?", and "is that number sufficiently large to warrant the application of time/effort by GIants?"

[thumbwiz]

Iceflames was able to implement this in their first farming game and have it work along side the weather.
As with plowing and fertilization, it could be an optional element for those that are not interested.
You shouldn't have to give anything up in order to have this added. There are games that do much more than this one with no problems if they're optimized.