Do you focus more on farming or farm management?

[Farmercaseih]

I do everything myself except for the land roller which I set on courseplay. I only do it because I am usually planting at the same time.

[blue_painted]

I use the same routine as the East Anglian farms I worked on as a youngster, except I'm now the boss -- the farmer (me!) does pretty much everything on the farm, except in summer/harvest when I have a lad come in to drive corn-cart (Courseplay with "old mode 2") and help with loading bales (autoload!). The other non-farm jobs; grain lorry taking my grain to be sold, milk tanker collecting for the dairy, fuel lorry refilling the tank I run on courseplay. Once in a while -- specially if I've messed up my timing or maybe if I'm starting a new farm -- I might hire in contractors to lime/fertilise the fields or maybe heavy-plough in a failed crop.

[Noraf]

Do most myself, but like to hire a hand or two during harvest, so I can keep the combine running.


CoursePlay to the rescue. Though AutoDrive should be able to do carting too

[Leicesterlichtie]

I tend to do everything on the farm as nobody likes me.

Have only ever used helpers when a crop in a large field is on it's final harvesting state. Apart from that i'm a sole farmer, never having got to the point where I've bought too many fields to work.

[Luftkopf]

I’m a heavy CP user. I get almost all the fieldwork done for me, while I manage logistics, and look after the animals.

I like chasing the harvesters, dumping the crop in the silo, and getting back before the harvester’s full again.

[Miketeg]

It really depends on the map I choose. On a 4X map, I will let workers do all the plowing, cultivating, sowing, fertilizing (solid fert) and harvesting (+mowing).

I will take care of baling, foraging, spraying, putting manure / slurry

I try to do transport by myself, I found it pretty relaxing driving on these long road.


On a smaller map, I will do 80% myself. Usually, I let worker do plowing + cultivating and i'm doing all the rest.

[bossmanslim]

With seasons, unless I want to be super bored, farming. Maybe once the farm gets big enough and courseplay gets better, I'll do farm management.

[EURO_FARMER]

Farming not farm management, I like playing as a real farmer.
I use Global Company and its Horse Helper, I also use GPS and Follow Me.

Horse Helper : Always.
GPS : Frequently.
Follow Me: Only when I want to move multiple vehicles.
CoursePlay: No way, I don't like to babysit a robotic farm.
AI Helper : No way, they are not helpers they make mess than help !!

No matter how big a map is, small, medium, big, extra large, no matter if it is X4 or X8 map, I work alone. Sometimes some tasks feels quite boring but I refuse to give up

[MrSquealypig]

Depends if I had a hard week of real life work, then I'll run workers while napping/being lazy on the couch.

But if I want to ENJOY the game, I have to use the equipment myself.

Except plowing of course.

[Bryan83]

Depends on the season for me. During the hectic planting and harvesting seasons, I'll hire workers to run a lot of the tasks while I work in the support roles. Things like bringing seed and fertilizer out to the machines. I might also use a worker for the first spray, depending how busy it is, but usually I'll do the herbicide and fertilizing myself. And being on console sans CP, of course I do transport/logistics, animal tending, silo leveling, baling and forestry myself. With the big fields on Welker map, when it comes to mowing/tedding I'll run one tractor and hire a worker on a second just to get it done.

[RedJester]

With the big fields on Welker map, when it comes to mowing/tedding I'll run one tractor and hire a worker on a second just to get it done.

Got to use workers on Welker map. I downloaded it and I liked the layout and textures and everything about it ,but, good golly the fields are just huge. As much as I liked the parts I mentioned it just was not for my play-style preferences and I moved onto different map.

[SJ_Sathanas]

It a funny you should ask this question now as I'm wrestling with the question of wether to stick with 19 or 17.
I think the palceables and landscaping system have turned FS more into a management game. In FS17 I can happily plough a medium field with a little 3 furrough, or spend a day loading bales manually, watching the clouds roll by and taking in the atmosphere. In 19 I enjoy the possibilities of extending a small yard into a large, multiple live stock enterptise and managing contracts on multiple fields but the farming basics? Meh, kinda tedious.

[wbthacker]

At first I did all the farming. I play with keyboard, and steering with WASD is pretty awful, so I started using helpers to do most of the field work.

Then I discovered Autodrive and used it to automate most of my on-road trucking. I built a path network that connects all silos, sell points, and garages. Also handy for moving tractors and implements between distant fields.

Then I found FollowMe and I use that to automate lots of things:
- baling field borders. I drive the mower. The tedder tractor follows the mower, the rake followers the tedder, the baler follows the rake, and the self-loading bail wagon follows the baler. Set the cruise control on the mower so you don't outrun the baler (which will be the slowest link in the chain) and you have a beautiful work train. This was especially good for mowing field borders, where the hire hand is useless.

Then I found Courseplay, and now the game is entirely about Farm Management for me. I use all three tools in concert. For example, to combine a large field, I use Courseplay to build a course entirely of clockwise headlands rows. The combine spirals its way to the middle of the field, with its output pipe pointing away from the crop. Then I use FollowMe on a truck or tractor with a grain cart, setting it to follow the combine about 8 units ahead and 10 meters offset right (both are relative to the truck, not the target combine), and the truck nicely follows the combine all around the field, collecting grain almost continuously. All I have to do is check back periodically to see if the grain cart is full.

(I know both Courseplay and Autodrive have functions for unloading combines, but I have little luck with them. FollowMe is simple and robust.)

To me, this aspect of modding -- being able to change the whole nature of the game play from driving tractors to farm management -- is the the best part of this game! Sometimes I still like to get in a tractor and drive it, but my main objective is keep multiple tasks running so as to maximize the farm's rate of profit. At peak times I'll be running three harvesters and grain carts, a plow tractor, a planter tractor, and a mowing team, all automated. I rarely increase the time scale past X1 any more, because there's always something going on.

[iwan073]

I like the management part. Let my workers do most of the work

[CaptGoodvibes]

Hi, new console player(PS4) and first post. I freaking love this sim!!!

I've launched a couple different maps to cover small and large farming and settled on two Alien Jim maps for now, Sussex and Washoe. For large jobs, I hire workers and honestly, field 1 on Washoe Nevada is just too big to enjoy even with workers--too many silo trips--for instance.

I feel Sussex Farms is just about perfect for a small farming operation with just three tractors and some other equipment to support animals and the two fields.

I live in Nevada and Washoe nails it! So I'm having a ton of fun there making hay and trying to pull 280,000l of grass around on the dirt roads hahaha!!!

In all cases, I let workers sow and lime. I do just about everything else except running the harvester on a huge field where I have to drive a 60kl tipper...

EDIT, spreading manure is a guilty pleasure lol