They should either take away the word 'simulator' or take away the cows.

[kevthedev]

The cow part of this game couldn't get much worse to be honest but it wouldnt take much to make it much better
Simple things like being able to put the cows in any field owned and move them inside for milking would make a huge difference.
In the 'real' world they get to graze all summer which saves food and money. You still feed them but not anywhere near as much as the winter.

I love this game but i find animal husbandry to be extremely boring.

What would you change if you could?

[Dezza69]

Make a mod (or a map) to suit yourself - that's what I do (on PC/Mac).

With FS17 (and the Seasons mod), I made a GEO using climate and animal data for East Gippsland (a dairy area in Victoria, Australia) and modified Goldcrest Valley with a few luxury's like bigger silo capacities and an enlarged cattle area. The Seasons mod changes the amount of food consumed to resemble more what you described with summer grazing (on PC/Mac), and you can further change for more local conditions.

I agree with you about the base game not being the best for animal husbandry - but it will improve as the modding community gets going to increase some realism and, that Seasons mod certainly is a game changer that makes it more interesting as you need to plan for the upcoming season and associated weather changes... So excited that it's coming at some point for FS19.

Wonder if some clever modder is able to create a mod for herding/transferring cattle between grazing paddock and dairy for milking as you suggested, that would be pretty cool - especially if the dog helped.

Happy Farming!!

(edit: grammar, spelling)

[Juls]

In order for sheep and cattle to be more realistic the playable field needs to be dumped in favor of fencing equiptment and associated machinery to build fences. Then have placeable yards, milking sheds, sheering sheds. And finally dynamic feed in the field you made so if you have too many animals you run out of grass and you need to care for your grass by fertilizing and moving animals to different fields when feed runs short, or feeding the animals hay etc.

Pipe dreams really

[FarmingRemasterd]

some people just arent satisfied with a year and a half of endless work on making a game......

[pcdoc]

No, nor are we happy with endless bugs!

[NickD94]

Not many bugs on console then again pc there are so many types of pc.

[throsbi]

nothing needs to be dumped. I have played maps in the past where theses things was possible within the limits of the mods made to do it.

would be nice to see the options to add this to the game.

Maybe its possible with the placeable system. say place a pasture where you can move the cows. Think we need beef cattle first.

Maybe placeable breeding sheds.

idk maybe the api has a way you could disable the automatic offspring and only get that from maintaining the breeding barn.

going to be interesting to see if modders take the game in this direction.

[redglasses]

Seasons will fix a couple of those bugs, but if you wanted to move them into a field you would need that field to be fenced in, which to my knowledge none of them are

[Corstaad]

Grazing in my parts of the country is unrealistic. Land is just to much money to be used for rotationally grazing. The only people that do it is for cow calf operations.

[Procobator]

I feel the “simulator” is in the title of the game as a marketing tactic. If they were to use the word simulator somewhat honestly in the title they would have to replace “farming” with “tractor driving”.

[cr41g_1965]

the game is not, has never been and probably never will be a "simulator"... it is ARCADE at best

[DirectCedar]

I feel the “simulator” is in the title of the game as a marketing tactic. If they were to use the word simulator somewhat honestly in the title they would have to replace “farming” with “tractor driving”.

BING! I don't know how many times these exact words have drifted through my head.

My youngest calls it "Tractor Movie" and she is dead on. We still love it and play it a lot. But it's a Tractor Movie.

[K Money]

Just for giggles, you could move your cows from one pasture to another now and then, load them into a trailer and unload them again at the next pasture? I have no idea if it works the thought just sprung on me

[hun3]

Question: If I leave my horse outside the horse pen...would they still progress?

[cmdrbyron]

I think too many people are trying to apply a specific interpretation of the word "simulator", and some taking offence at the use of the term in the title of this franchise (case-in-point, title of this thread).

I would offer that the term "simulator" is in fact appropriate for this title. It does in fact offer a simulation of many farming-related aspects, where the simulation is the interaction of multiple models depicting RL machinery, environments and processes. What it does not offer necessarily, is a high-fidelity, emulation of said aspects (aka "not perfect"). I think too many are drawing analogies to the more prevalent flight simulators, which, within the entertainment industry, also make several (often critical) compromises in the interests of maintaining the desired level of accessibility and entertainment. As an example, lift forces are generally condensed to point vectors applying torsional moments to the structure at centroidal areas, vice reality, in which to recreate truthfully, you would need to run Computational Fluid Dynamics and Finite-Element Analysis across the entirety of the surface (at minute increments) of the aircraft. In short, the lift forces are "averaged" in-game. This is done to provide a smoother experience to the user in near-real time, with lower-end computational resources.

As one who works in the wonderful world of modelling and simulation, I would offer that nothing is "black/white" when it comes to the employment of the term "simulation". The term in and of itself is a generic term, not a specific one, often defined as "an imitation [or representation] of object(s)/environment(s)/process(es), through characterization in various fashions and to varying degrees, and of their interaction with others" (paraphrased). What many of you seem to be confusing is the fidelity (how accurately does it reflect reality) of the individual models used within (such as the workflow associated with/behaviour of cows, in this case), vice the simulation writ-large (the overall game).

So now, I pose a question to OP: What are you willing to give up performance-wise, in order to have the game engine track each cow as a discrete live/automated entity within the world? Would you be willing to trade the ability to hire helpers for it? Would you be willing to trade soil mechanics, cellular resolution (recall, FS19 breaks up the map into 1m x 1m cells) or what about traffic? Sure, none of them may meet your definition of "awesome" to begin with, but these are all things which consume (and thus, compete for) computational resources, which are limited. I am specifically not going to discuss the business-related aspects of "Console v General PC v High-End Gaming PC", because the overall constraint (that of finite computational resources) remains, albeit to differing levels.

Now that you have decided on your own answer, what about the rest of the community? How many would agree with you? How many would disagree with you?

All that being said, if this particular nuance is offending you as much as it appears to be (you created a thread about it), I would offer that Giants has done a pretty good job everywhere else

TL;DR No model/simulation is perfect. The best ones are "good enough" for their purpose.
Translation FS19 is an entertainment-product, based around farming. It is NOT a high-fidelity emulation of RL farming.