Sustainable pie making is currently a waste of food

colinmarc · 2018-03-05 21:02:15

Note: this math includes the upcoming berry tweak, where domestic bushes produce 10 berries worth 5 food each instead of 8 worth 4 each. However, I believe the conclusions are the same before and after the patch.

I set out with the goal of creating a hypothetical compact and sustainable farm oriented towards pie making; that is, one that draws only water (which is renewable) from the environment. It uses domestic berry bushes to create compost and make pies with. It would very much require a village obeying the fourth tenet (ONLY THE FARMER EATS FROM THE DIRT), but let's set that aside for now. How feasible is it, actually?

The Farm

The farm looks like this:

6 Domestic Gooseberry Bushes (you can substitute for wild ones in the area, since you get a bowl of berries in around the same time either way)
1 Plot that cycles between wheat and compost
2 Carrot plots (that take turns going to seed, so effectively one is always growing carrots)

From my research, I determined that:

1. Berry bushes regenerate fully in an epoch. You need 8 berries on a domestic berry bush to make a bowl of berries, or 4 berries on a wild bush to make a bowl of berries (why? I don't know). Therefore it takes 48 minutes per domestic bowl and 40 minutes per wild bowl. In the math below, I've rounded this up to one epoch, because bowls are limited and the farmer will be busy.

You get two extra berries per bush if you're very efficient about your bowls, but in practice I believe this to be negligible.

2. The wheat cycle, from wet seed to stumps to soil, is 12 minutes. The compost cycle is 4 minutes. Therefore you can produce three wheat per epoch per plot, and still have time to water it and the compost. (This actually takes exactly the same amount of time as a domestic bush does to grow a full bowl.)

3. The carrot cycle, from wet seed to soil, is 4 minutes (longer if seeding, obviously). With two plots and stored seeds, you can always have one plot growing carrots and one growing seeds, and never run out.

Three of the berry bushes are used to create bowls for compost, along with a couple carrots and the straw output of the wheat farming. The other three bowls and the wheat go to pies, and the excess carrots are food for children and old people (pies are only efficient for adults).

Pie Making

This produces the materials for three pies an epoch: 3 wheat, 3 bowls of berries, and roughly 55 carrots.

Note that this requires lots and lots of clay bowls; bowls for carrying out the wheat and for making compost. In both cases the materials can't be dumped, so if there's a backup in pie-making it results in a backup farming. This can be mitigated if the wheat sheaths are carried away to a dumping area before being threshed, but then the straw needs to be transported back for compost.

Output

Three pies is worth 180 food, or 270 if rabbits are added. The excess carrots, after you use three for pies and three for compost, are worth 250 food. So assuming pie production goes swimmingly, the production of the farm is around 520 food per epoch.

However, just eating the berries and carrots and not bothering with pies, compost or wheat nets over 700 food per epoch - significantly more. *And* it requires roughly half as much water, saving the water needed both for the wheat/compost and for the dough.

Conclusions

To be clear, pies have soft benefits. They take up significantly less space, for example. A pie with 90 food is worth 18 carrots and only takes up one spot. They're particularly useful with backpacks. But they also require a whole person just to spend all of their time making them. As such, I'm not sure I can recommend pie making at all right now.

If I can venture a balance suggestion: since domestic bushes have over twice the caloric value as wild ones, why can't you make two bowls from a full bush? Having the requirement be four berries on the bush, the same as the wild bush requirement, would also make that aspect much less confusing to players.

The bottom line, though, is that compost is hugely expensive, both in terms of time and resources. IRL, compost piles are generally made from food and agricultural waste, not food itself, and are renewable.

Last edited by colinmarc (2018-03-05 21:13:02)

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-06 04:05:56

Nice.

I guess in the future it might make sense to produce a batch of pies to take on a long journey somewhere, but as the game is now, if you can produce those pies, then you don't need to leave. And if you do need to leave, then just walk for ten minutes and you've found good land. There's no proper migration mechanic yet, but maybe Jason-God will introduce some kind of apocalyptic event or something.

Twinsen · 2018-03-06 05:11:56

Uncle Gus wrote:

...Jason-God will introduce some kind of apocalyptic event...

Simple enough, server wipes; however, i think this is more of a good thing than bad thing though.

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-06 07:19:58

I was talking about an event that would require migration. A server wipe would kind of be the opposite of that.

Tebe · 2018-03-06 07:40:25

An apocalyptic event requiring migration would be an environmental shift that causes milkweed in the whole region to cease bearing fruit, no matter if it's planted or wild. Or true of any crops - Carrots won't flower or bushes won't re-berry. It wouldn't be long before everyone would have to get on the move to greener pastures and merciful climes. I've thought about how this might look - Tribes desperately on the run with the remains of their villages - handcarts with tools and food, mothers carrying children, losing family to the wolves and bears on the way.

I imagine a really cool addition to a stage like this would be a kind of fire-horn. A long-lasting ember, like burning coals in a horn. A small tribe, one carrying the handcart of food, everyone with backpacks and baskets and babies, draining the bushes as they go, stopping occasionally to start a fire to cook the rabbits and warm the children.

Uncle Gus · 2018-03-06 08:46:24

You could have a creeping ice age.

Last edited by Uncle Gus (2018-03-06 08:46:56)

colinmarc · 2018-03-06 10:01:14

By the way, I was thinking about it and this problem can be stated even more simply. A bowl of domestic berries is worth 40 food, and a berry pie is worth 32. And you need two to make a pie sustainably!

Gauteamus · 2018-03-06 11:02:01

This will be fascinating to dig into, thanks for making the post, OP.

Could one aspect of sustainable pie farming be that it is less time consuming than the normal carrot farm?

At the moment we have a growing(?) group of people who knows how to reliably kick-start a carrot-farming community from scratch (I must confess I am not at all in that group yet). Could we imagine a new player technology emerging? What would be needed for say two young, well equipped mothers to fill their carts with goods from a functioning carrot farm, and go on a hike to find the perfect spot (in the pristine wilderness, or in the relative wasteland) for them and their offspring to start and run a sustainable pie-farm? Could you fit the necessary materials into two carts?

Last edited by Gauteamus (2018-03-06 11:03:16)

colinmarc · 2018-03-06 11:54:57

Gauteamus wrote:

This will be fascinating to dig into, thanks for making the post, OP.
Could one aspect of sustainable pie farming be that it is less time consuming than the normal carrot farm?
At the moment we have a growing(?) group of people who knows how to reliably kick-start a carrot-farming community from scratch (I must confess I am not at all in that group yet). Could we imagine a new player technology emerging? What would be needed for say two young, well equipped mothers to fill their carts with goods from a functioning carrot farm, and go on a hike to find the perfect spot (in the pristine wilderness, or in the relative wasteland) for them and their offspring to start and run a sustainable pie-farm? Could you fit the necessary materials into two carts?

I recommend doing that generally - it's the second tenet (IF THE LAND IS DEAD, LEAVE IT). In terms of what to take, I would recommend taking, in order of priority:

A hatchet
A firebow
A clay bowl or two
Any steel tools lying around

Also, your chances of survival go way up if you're clothed well.

As for whether it takes less time to make pies: no, I don't think so. Although in theory it would take less water.

Last edited by colinmarc (2018-03-06 11:56:37)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-03-05 21:02:15