Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Jesingle
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Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by Jesingle »

As someone who works at a winery, I’d love to see some options/changes in how grapes are harvested for consoles:

1. First off, it would be amazing to hire help to perform all aspects of mulching, fertilizing, harvesting, and pruning. Something I think would be very cool is if you could hire a vineyard crew to hand-pick grapes and see characters working out in the field.

2. Create contracts and receive bids to perform vineyard work. This includes AI contractors using their own equipment.

3. Plating different variety of grapes

4. Decide the soil type for grapes and have it visible between rows. Maybe you want dirt, or rocks, or freshly mowed grass. That go to another topic I’d like to see is yard/lawn grass as an option and not just wild grass or planted field grass.

5. An actual winery. I’m guessing there’s a reason why alcohol sales aren’t in base game and may have to do with rating. Maybe a winery mod.

I suppose I’d like to see an option for this game that is hybrid of farm sim and city skylines. Where you could build your farms or vineyards and designate them to operate automatically or if you so desired or you could be 100% hands on.
Kimpak
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by Kimpak »

#1 can be done using CoursePlay if you're on PC. I believe there is also a hand picking mod.

#5 there are winery mods for PC but not on modhub.

The reason for #5 is so the game can keep an E for everyone ESRB rating. I too would enjoy a more fully fleshed out vineyard option though.
Crashmac
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by Crashmac »

It's a shame really, there are so many aspects of the game that would really be improved by having a useable helper/AI. Crops like grapes, sugarcane, poplars are introduced with much fanfare and then never fully optimized or even looked at again by Giants unless a modder is willing to do something with them.
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UncleRico
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by UncleRico »

Crashmac wrote: Thu May 18, 2023 1:00 am It's a shame really, there are so many aspects of the game that would really be improved by having a useable helper/AI. Crops like grapes, sugarcane, poplars are introduced with much fanfare and then never fully optimized or even looked at again by Giants unless a modder is willing to do something with them.
Look at potatoes and sugar beets, they’ve got a track record of abandoning new exciting features.
Totenfarmer
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by Totenfarmer »

This is Giants in a nutshell, they do everything half assed and depend on modders to improve the game.
One example is the presicion farming, new players might think this is something new and groundbreaking, but did you know we had a mod for FS13 and FS15 that did what PF does and more, you even had to irrigate your fields, PF is a cheap knock of of this. Take a look at their seasons; you can plant any crop anywhere with their version of seasons..again half assed work, it's their trademark.

Don't get me wrong, I do love FS, but I can assure you that if I was restricted to playing on console I wouldn't play it at all..which is another half assed project by Giants, no way to to re-assign keys, no steering dead zone adjustment etc. Never ever think Giants will do things proper, they haven't done it since I started playing FS11. The only thing that keeps players interested is the high modding ability.
Ashtooth
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by Ashtooth »

Unless modders can perform miracles, you better not get too excited for any more depth to vineyards.
Giants developers do the bare minimum work, and then ride on the success of the more talented modding community.
Disclaimer:
This name has been brought to you by the creative geniuses of the generic brand name....lizard.
LittleWatt
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by LittleWatt »

As clunky as the grapes and olives are to manage, being built around the fences, don’t expect any AI help. Especially on console. Fences and other collision items, like the edge of the map, already cause enough problems for the AI. Can’t reasonably expect the helpers drive between fences. Once grapes and olives are placed, the field isn’t even a field anymore. I think a major overhaul would be needed for the AI to work grapes/olives.
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UncleRico
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by UncleRico »

LittleWatt wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 8:02 am As clunky as the grapes and olives are to manage, being built around the fences, don’t expect any AI help. Especially on console. Fences and other collision items, like the edge of the map, already cause enough problems for the AI. Can’t reasonably expect the helpers drive between fences. Once grapes and olives are placed, the field isn’t even a field anymore. I think a major overhaul would be needed for the AI to work grapes/olives.
Actually in my experience courseplay handles the jobs quite well for what I’ve messed with grapes (never done olives) so it shouldn’t be to big of a jump for them to make it work
bench_007
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by bench_007 »

Totenfarmer wrote: Sat May 20, 2023 9:37 pm Take a look at their seasons; you can plant any crop anywhere with their version of seasons..again half assed work, it's their trademark.
Isn't that an option you can turn on and off?

Anyways I didn't knew there was a precision farming mod in fs15 but even if there was one, they had to remake it for fs19. The fact that they made it with the help of universities and other partners shows that it isn't a cheap knock of. That being said I agree that the addition of vineyards could have been better done (the cultivating between rows looks odd with te grass that keeps standing) and ofcourse the AI workers. They, in general, still have a long way to go
Last edited by bench_007 on Thu May 25, 2023 1:25 pm, edited 2 times in total.
LittleWatt
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by LittleWatt »

Course play has no bearing on consoles.

Olives are a bit easier to manage. Less steps, and generally feels more forgiving between machines and fences. The yield is less, but value is higher.
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UncleRico
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by UncleRico »

LittleWatt wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:09 pm Course play has no bearing on consoles.

Olives are a bit easier to manage. Less steps, and generally feels more forgiving between machines and fences. The yield is less, but value is higher.
But it’s built into their game. Which means it’s just simply wether or not they choose to build it in, the capability is there.
Totenfarmer
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by Totenfarmer »

@bench_007: You can turn seasons on and off, but even with it on you can still grow sugarcane in Canada if you wanted to, they didn't make it possible to use GEO mods like Realismus did with their seasons mods for pevious FS versions. Some modders have made custom crop calendars with their maps, but it's still not on the same level as the Seasons mod from Realismus.

It doesn't really matter if they made PF in cooperation with universities, the "SoilMod" made by Decker ( the guy who made ""FollowME" and also was part of the Cattle and Crops dev team I believe ) was miles ahead, almost ten years ago. PF wasn't a bright idea from Giants, SoilMod was so popular that it couldn't have passed under Giants radar.
Generally it's not a bad idea to implement things from a mod, but when Giants does it it is always half-assed, it's like they are allergic to doing things properly and with good quality.
bench_007
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by bench_007 »

@Totenfarmer: Don't get me wrong, I also liked Realismus Moddings season better then what Giants made of it. To be more specific on the GEO's: I don't mind that you are able to plant sugarcane in, for example, Canada as I guess some people would want to cultivate every crop no matter where. I personally just won't grow those crops, even if the game lets me do it. Then again certain features I do miss like the fact that patches in your crop would wither because of bad weather, or that animals would die if you didn't fed them. I can only ask and hope that they bring back some more in depth features around seasons. In their defense they make new features always "half-assed" to try and make everybody happy (like I said some people probably want to harvest sugarcane, no matter the map) and to not make new players feel overwhelmed. Then in your defense they indeed are very slow (perhaps too scared to mess it up) to bring additions, other than vehicles, to the game. Thank you though for learning me about "SoilMod". Also, can't get my head wrapped around why "FollowMe" isn't base game yet. Guess Giants likes to let Decker remake it every new franchise so we don't complain about how bad they implemented it hahaha.
Last edited by bench_007 on Wed Mar 20, 2024 9:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
LittleWatt
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Re: Future of Grape maintenance/harvesting

Post by LittleWatt »

UncleRico wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 5:54 pm
LittleWatt wrote: Thu May 25, 2023 3:09 pm Course play has no bearing on consoles.

Olives are a bit easier to manage. Less steps, and generally feels more forgiving between machines and fences. The yield is less, but value is higher.
But it’s built into their game. Which means it’s just simply wether or not they choose to build it in, the capability is there.
I hear ya. They must not think consoles are capable of running it. I mean we get massive performance drops with other AI functions. Like drive here or there. We can’t even have more than 6 workers or 200 bales. Lots of considerations have to be calculated for consoles.
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