Sprinklers and Plows

forman · 2021-08-06 13:39:23

I never thought much about sprinklers but it turns out a properly built sprinkler could water an entire farm with one bowl of water.

Needless to say, there is nothing more valuable and sprinkler systems should be built and carried from town to town.

They are very difficult to build.

Similarly, plows can turn a hardened row back into a tilled row without adding soil and also don't break down.

This means you don't need tons of hoes.

Not quite as good as sprinkler, but still amazing.

These two machines can completely change the game and I suspect it's the direction Jason wanted to go in.

Not sure why it never caught on, but there it is.

sigmen4020 · 2021-08-06 15:47:57

This thread makes me feel like I just travelled back in time. I almost forgot that this content existed. Not entirely sure why people suddenly stopped doing the long sprinkler/plow setups. Maybe it was too much effort to set it up for the reward, since kerosene is much easier to come by nowadays. May as well just use the diesel well I guess.

forman · 2021-08-06 16:30:39

main issue is stopping people from not using the sprinkler which is where fencing the well comes in

DestinyCall · 2021-08-07 07:27:37

I think the main issue is the huge initial cost of setting up the sprinkler system, in terms of time, resources, space, and planning. Optimal sprinkler set-up does not match the 3x3 farm square meta, so you have to completely reorganize all the farm plots OR build a separate sprinkler-based farm somewhere else that will be competing with the main farm. Since most people don't know how to run the sprinklers or don't have access to the kerosene to run the sprinklers, the sprinkler system is going to go un-used for large stretches of time. Even if you replace the main farm with a sprinkler farm, people will go make a new regular farm if they can't figure out how to work the sprinklers. And probably dismantle the sprinklers too. It just isn't as accessible and easy to understand as a normal farm layout.

It might work, if you could convince a dedicated team of veteran players to take over the set-up and be in charge of all the sprinkler systems ... which is basically what we have happening with oil-harvesting. New players don't gather oil. They don't have a clue where to even start gathering oil. Without experienced players in the village, nobody is going to do it. Sprinklers are not as advanced, but they are still very much end-game content and pretty niche.

And it is important to keep in mind that farming involves a lot of menial labor and generally doesn't require deep knowledge of the game. Basic farming gives new players something they can do to help the village thrive. It is hard work, but it can be satisfying. Most people learn how to farm without sprinklers. It would take a lot of towns adopting sprinklers to change that mentality and raise the general knowledge level to a point where most farmers used sprinklers correctly. And even then, most people will find it easier to farm the old fashioned way, since it doesn't require a specific set-up and it doesn't use oil. Might as well use that oil to pull more water out of the ground, rather than trying to force everyone to use sprinklers.

Realistically, your town will probably die out before you can save enough water to make up the initial cost of the sprinkler system. You could save some cost by using a truck to transport a sprinkler system from a dead town to a new village center. But it is still going to cost a lot of time and effort to re-design the farm to accommodate the bulky sprinklers.

Honestly, sprinklers would be so much better if they occupied a single central tile instead of having all this ridiculous piping. They could water the surrounding tiles in a 3x3 grid, so watering your farm plots would simply require placing down a sprinkler and adding a bucket of water into a reservoir. The activated sprinkler would keep adjacent tiles wet until the water "ran out" after a certain period of time.

No oil to run a pump. No tiles take up by metal pipes. Just a simple gravity-fed irrigation system. Like this:

I think the average player would have no trouble understanding "add a bucket of water when the reservoir is empty". We don't really need "sprinklers" at all. We just need a way to keep our crops wet. That should not require access to diesel engine. This is farming, not rocket surgery.

Last edited by DestinyCall (2021-08-07 08:01:34)

Coconut Fruit · 2021-08-13 20:27:25

Surely worth planting milkweed with sprinklers, since it's very expensive otherwise.
I can imagine a whole farm made of sprinklers. Yeah, making one big line is the most water efficient, but it looks ugly and isn't practical. 5 sprinkler pipes for every crop type could be enough (maybe a bit more for berry farm), it would reduce farming cost a lot anyways and farm could look nice this way too if well designed. Yeah, it would require tons of sprinkler pipes, but sprinkler pumps and plows can be moved, so no need to make one for every crop type.

Kind of weird that it has never been done. People always do one big line for some reason

Coconut Fruit · 2021-08-13 20:35:37

DestinyCall wrote:

Optimal sprinkler set-up does not match the 3x3 farm square meta, so you have to completely reorganize all the farm plots OR build a separate sprinkler-based farm somewhere else that will be competing with the main farm..

It would be way easier to upgrade farms if people did 5x2 farms for most crops and maybe 5x3 for berries or something. For example on image below it would be easy to remove 5 middle berry bushes and put sprinkler pipes there. Just move sprinkler pump there whenever bushes need to be watered. Idk

fug · 2021-08-13 20:39:27

Probably the reason you don’t see it is due to the annoyance of oil. To use a sprinkler you need someone to give you kerosene and to get that you’re required to have both people willing to do the rigging process while also delivering it.

It just falls into a niche or too much actual work for new players to actively do it (they cannot fetch or produce the required kerosene) and the willingness of veteran players to do menial labor (random farming).

Not to mention the ease of screwing up the set up by walking over with a hammer to undo the sprinkler system. Unless you plan on encasing the entire farm (which will both add annoyance and look bad) it’s just not worth the hassle.

You’re welcome of course to prove me wrong and farm with a sprinkler system but in the end it helps neither new players who enjoy farming and on the other hand the hoops you jump over as a veteran player doesn’t make it truly worth the investment.

You’ll save water for sure, but only you and a select few other players on the server can use it too. However, if you just dump the kerosene into an engine and then a cistern the barrier to entry is basically just having played a single life if not less.

And of course this goes for the plow too. As fun as it is to minmax it will never truly be meta until the game is basically completely devoid of new players.

Coconut Fruit · 2021-08-13 20:45:39

I forgot that sprinkler pumps need kerosene. Probably not worth making anything smaller than 10 sprinkler pipes (didn't do the math). Ooof
Yeah, it just can't work.

Cogito · 2021-08-15 12:24:40

Sprinklers are done in straight lines because:

1. ploughs move in straight lines, as far as there is something to till, on one charge
2. sprinklers and pipes are very expensive to build, so any bends could have been used to make sprinklers instead

Milkweed is generally avoided because each harvest consumes:

1. a bowl of soil for each plant
2. a hoe use for each plant
3. a plough use per line
4. a bowl of water per line
5. a sprinkler use per line

For non-wild/farmable plants you only require the soil and hoe to establish the farm (you still consume the plough/water/sprinkler per harvest)

That said, if you need milkweed it is still more efficient to use the sprinkler, but that's why it's not that common.

forman · 2021-08-16 22:38:32

Sprinklers do consume one a kero fill
One kero fill in a pump is worth four buckets of water
But one kero in a sprinkler is worth 25 sprinkler uses

Last major sprinkler I built had 40 nozzles
This means one kero use would give 1000 watered tiles per kero unit

Thats obviously ridiculous and sprinklers could be longer if you wanted

The problem though is plows

I haven't tested exactly how they work yet but its 25 uses per kero fill

Not sure if that is measured per tile or per start/stop -- I think it's tile

If that's the case, plows are not at all water efficient better to use hoes

Gremlynn · 2021-08-16 23:51:49

Main issue I see with sprinklers is moving them. You need a hammer to disassemble them and baskets to move each part. Without a truck this would take many lives. Combine this with the dramatic push west and a sprinklers cost in steel.

Think about this. I dont have the answers and im too lazy to look them up.

1. How many bowls or water do you get from 4 buckets?

2. How many junctions(sprinkler heads) would you need to make to have the kero per kero use be more efficient than buckets?

3. Think about the potential of error with a charged sprinkler and noobs accidentally putting water into empty or already watered spaces.

4. How much iron would it cost to produce a profitable sprinkler?

5. How much time and kero(truck) would it take to effectively move sprinkler systems west for each fam?

6. Is that kero, for the sprinkler, plow, and truck worth the equivalent amount of water or iron? (Remember one bit of kero is worth 5 iron profit)

7. Can a sprinkler engine be moved while its full? If not that's a major risk factor in moving it, especially if the town died out due to lack of water, or someone griefing the wells engine.

Personally I dont see them as an issue, in a perfect system. But they also seem like high risk high reward tech. The potential for resource waste is there and the amount of time it would take to make and move a system like that is a cost as well. The potential for loss is huge and its a lot to expect the community to maintain a high tech system like that. Personally I think its safer to roll the old system. Its more portable, has lower loss risks and is less demanding in time, resources, and effort.

Last edited by Gremlynn (2021-08-16 23:56:33)

DestinyCall · 2021-08-17 00:37:26

It is also worth mentioning that making sprinkler pipes and nozzles requires running the newcomen engine. And the newcomen is a very water hungry machine. It costs a full bucket every time you run it. So if you make any mistakes or work too slow, you could easily use a great deal of water just making the parts to produce a sprinkler system. If the water debt is too high, you will not have time to earn back the cost before your family dies out or moves.

forman · 2021-08-17 02:38:08

1 kero + 40 nozzels ---> 1000 bowls of water

even if half is lost it's still way more efficient than kero into buckets

A bucket is 8 bowls iirc 8x4 = 32

32 vs 500 at 50% efficiency

sprinklers are just too damn good to be ignored

I imagine you can fit a 40piece sprinkler in two truck runs

And there is no waste really because valves, nozzle bodies and pipes can all be used for oil and engine making

There is not much else to do late game so the point is just mass produce pipes and injection nozzles

Which I've noticed a lot of people are doing anyways

Gremlynn · 2021-08-17 03:58:40

I think the main flaw is expecting efficiency from this community.

Laggy · 2021-08-17 14:29:49

No one uses sprinklers because they are easy to grief.

It's hard to use a sprinkler system because you must keep it locked up.

They cost so much iron.

They cost a lot of water just to make.

You need 2 engines.

Since sprinklers are in a straight line, it's hard to store the grown product. After the first harvest all the spots by the sprinkler are full, so no one wants to grow more because they can't pick and store it reasonably.

Shall I go on why sprinklers aren't used?

Sprinklers are badly designed.

Cogito · 2021-08-17 16:56:18

A plough uses one "charge" for the entire row, so 1/24th of 1/6th of a tank of kero.

Moving sprinklers is not super easy, but well worth it. Moving a single sprinkler requires 1/200th of a hammer, and 2 storage slots. With backpacks as intermediate storage this is 2/84ths of a truck's storage capacity (21 large items). You can't transport fueled ploughs nor sprinkler pumps, so they have to be emptied, and then they require 2 large slots for the engines, and 2 small slots for the plough kit and pipe. Altogether you can transport 2 engines, 1 plough kit, 1 pipe, and 37 sprinklers (1 pipe and 1 nozzle each) in a truck. Perhaps remove 2 sprinklers so you can fit a tank of kero. This assumes you have enough backpacks, it will be harder with baskets.

Sprinkler and plough systems become cost positive at about 4 plots, however the time to pay down the initial cost becomes much shorter with more plots. With a 30x2 sprinkler farm the water saved would very quickly compensate for the iron and water used to create the system (assuming you need that much food!).

The most important consideration is actually the time savings - with a sprinkler system like that it is trivial for 1 player to feed an entire village.

Storing the produce can be an issue, but that's an issue with normal farms. My technique is to create a lot of baskets with wheat, and to fill the baskets with produce while waiting for next crop to grow. Harvested produce goes into piles two tile above/below the farm plots.

forman · 2021-08-18 00:00:35

You can also create thread and rope with trivial water cost and even trees

I've considered doing a whole forest this way

Point being you can make a lot of slot boxes with minimal cost

Cogito · 2021-08-18 01:14:35

forman wrote:

You can also create thread and rope with trivial water cost and even trees
I've considered doing a whole forest this way
Point being you can make a lot of slot boxes with minimal cost

Now I really want to see industrial farming of all resources. Once you have 30+ sprinklers you can make a *lot* of resources really quickly, not just food. By far most annoying aspect is the soil and hoe uses for the non-renewable farm plots (trees and milkweed).

forman · 2021-08-26 08:11:14

Cogito wrote:

Now I really want to see industrial farming of all resources. Once you have 30+ sprinklers you can make a *lot* of resources really quickly, not just food. By far most annoying aspect is the soil and hoe uses for the non-renewable farm plots (trees and milkweed).

I got up to 40 piece and have been moving it from village to village

There's actually more around but larger than 40 starts becoming unmanageable

The main thing is the valves because pipes are pretty easy to make

If you use a plow, you don't need soil except for berries

plows work on hardened rows

I did 160 maple trees at one ginger village way east now

forman · 2021-08-26 09:24:01

Cogito wrote:

Now I really want to see industrial farming of all resources

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … p?id=10596

sprink5

Cogito · 2021-08-26 13:53:08

forman wrote:

Cogito wrote:
By far most annoying aspect is the soil and hoe uses for the non-renewable farm plots (trees and milkweed).
If you use a plow, you don't need soil except for berries
plows work on hardened rows

You have to make the hardened rows before you can use the plough on them. You can't run the plough on an empty tile and have it make furrowed ground.

So for all farm plots you require an initial investment of 1 soil and 1 hoe use, to make the first tilled row.

Wild plants do not leave a hardened row behind when you harvest them, so every harvest requires a new investment of 1 soil and 1 hoe use. For trees this means chopping the tree down.

Most crops only require that initial investment, but milkweed in particular is very expensive to farm in comparison.

forman · 2021-08-26 14:12:06

The initial investment is a pain yeah

You get seven bags of soil per compost and three bowls per bag

I know I have 40 sprinklers so I push a compost on the left and right of 3 10 tile intervals for each row

6 compost for one row iirc if you think about it its not that bad, only takes a few minutes to set up the soil

DestinyCall · 2021-08-26 19:58:06

Combine infinite farm with infinite road. Use wild soil and gathered water. We could have miles and miles of food.

Cogito · 2021-08-27 09:49:14

forman wrote:

The initial investment is a pain yeah
You get seven bags of soil per compost and three bowls per bag
I know I have 40 sprinklers so I push a compost on the left and right of 3 10 tile intervals for each row
6 compost for one row iirc if you think about it its not that bad, only takes a few minutes to set up the soil

This seems pretty reasonable.

My solution is to primarily farm renewable crops. No berries, trees, or milkweed. That way, after the initial set up, it's just a small amount of water and kerosene to produce amazing amounts of food.

That said, once you have a lot of food, setting up a secondary tree farm is a good use of sprinklers (you will need about half a hammer to move the sprinklers there and back). I would do milkweed in the same plots as my main farm, and do all of them at once. I would make sure there was enough compost to redo all the plots after the milkweed run. Alternatively, allocate the last 4/8/12 plots as milkweed and replace them each cycle. I've never worked with more than ~16 sprinklers at once so it didn't make sense to farm too many different crops at once - just cycle through as fast as possible.

NoTruePunk · 2021-08-29 00:27:10

Numerical breakdown on plows:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … p?id=10199

Breakdown on sprinklers:

https://onehouronelife.com/forums/viewt … p?id=10201

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2021-08-06 13:39:23

Sprinklers and Plows

#2 2021-08-06 15:47:57

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#3 2021-08-06 16:30:39

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#4 2021-08-07 07:27:37

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#5 2021-08-13 20:27:25

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#6 2021-08-13 20:35:37

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#7 2021-08-13 20:39:27

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#8 2021-08-13 20:45:39

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#9 2021-08-15 12:24:40

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#10 2021-08-16 22:38:32

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#11 2021-08-16 23:51:49

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#12 2021-08-17 00:37:26

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#13 2021-08-17 02:38:08

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#14 2021-08-17 03:58:40

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#15 2021-08-17 14:29:49

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#16 2021-08-17 16:56:18

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#17 2021-08-18 00:00:35

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#18 2021-08-18 01:14:35

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#19 2021-08-26 08:11:14

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#20 2021-08-26 09:24:01

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#21 2021-08-26 13:53:08

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#22 2021-08-26 14:12:06

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#23 2021-08-26 19:58:06

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#24 2021-08-27 09:49:14

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

#25 2021-08-29 00:27:10

Re: Sprinklers and Plows

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