Nature simulation

For a better understanding of the nature simulation and the interrelationships in farming, I have integrated some changes and a new window into the game.

The new window opens automatically when you are about to plant seeds or plants in the ground and displays the values of the soil and plants and the local climate in detail and graphically. The game analyses this information and points out possible problems (for example: wrong soil, too few nutrients, temperatures too high, etc.).

An exclamation mark means that it is not advisable to plant this plant here at this time. A question mark indicates possible difficulties (such as a longer growth phase and stagnation over a few days). A cross indicates that the conditions are completely impossible and a green check mark means that everything is fine.

You can usually rely on this assessment. If you want to know more, you can get detailed information about the temperature and light of the last few days on the right-hand side of the window. You can also see what nutrients and water the plant currently needs to continue growing (please note that several plants in the same field add up their requirements). For temperature and light, the plant's comfort zone is shown as a green bar.

Of course, you can also plant a plant if the conditions are not right. As before, the exception is the soil, which must always be suitable.

In addition, the amount of experience the soil has already gained is also displayed. This was previously only visible in the farm overview (CTRL/Control).
The exact germination period for the seed, which also depends on the soil type, is also displayed, as is the minimum growth period of the plant.

If you have already read the relevant book on the plant or tree species, you will be rewarded with further information on the flowering time, the possible soil types and the growth period. This information can also be found on the seed packets.
 

Feeling plants skill

I have removed the large speech bubble that was previously used for the "Feel plants" skill and instead the window with the detailed information is displayed. There are some additional details, such as how long the plant can tolerate the deficiency. If a tree and a farm plant grow together on a field, the tree is displayed on the right and the farm plants on the left.

If you also want to find out about self-planted ground cover plants, you also have to press the ALT key and then open the window as usual with the right mouse button. Since you rarely need this data in the game, I think this is a good way to further simplify operation (previously there were 3 regions on each field to be able to "address" the plants individually). In addition, it was rather annoying to always get the info mouse pointer on the pastures that you have planted with grass when you wanted to deal with the animals ;-) !

Game:

Trees now provide half the shade for the field when they are not yet fully grown.

The plant feeling skill can now also be used on planted seeds. The remaining germination time is always displayed.

The player's awareness requirements have been reduced in order to learn Sophie's Sense Plants skill.

In spring, the snow cover now melts faster or slower depending on the temperature and weather.

The plant overview (automatically displayed after the farm overview is shown) no longer uses the current values for heat and light, but instead displays the current deficiencies (from the previous day). The reason for this is that the display in the plant info window and the overview should match. During the day, the temperature and light can fluctuate greatly due to different weather conditions. It is therefore clearer to use the values from the previous day.

Tutorial

I decided to use the window in full even in the tutorial, although you don't have the skills to analyse water and nutrients precisely at the very beginning. However, I think it is important to understand how farming works in the game right from the start. This may save some people a lot of frustration :-) ! The Plant Feeling skill still has to be learnt in-game.

Remark:

The average values of the last few days in the new plant info window are set to the current climate values at the first start after the update. A progression therefore only develops after a few days.

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Patchnotes V3.07

Game:

Farm animals are now more intelligent in their search for water and automatically avoid salty sea water. They also prefer the water troughs placed by the player if they are in sight.

After some consideration, I have decided to reintegrate the option of caging large animals and pets. This is a bit unrealistic in the case of a full-grown cow, but let´s not forget it's a game ;-) ! In the case of pets, a note is also displayed that the animal must be re-tamed and possibly re-enchanted after being released again.

Unfortunately, there was no other way of doing this with the existing system. I don't think it would be worth changing the system for this one reason. In any case, this change means that you can sell all the animals that you have in excess so that you don't have to choose between killing your animals or spending the whole day feeding them ;-) !

During a cutscene in the sky fortress, the player is now placed in a new position so that the action feels more coherent.

During the day, the game now analyses exactly what is growing on each soil field every hour and will show which plants or trees are still suffering from a lack of water in the overview (CTRL/Control on the keyboard) when it rains, or whether the remaining amount of water in the soil is sufficient for the respective plants and trees on the field to grow. This does not take into account any magic water crystals or water channels that may be in place, as these release their water into the soil at night.
Fixed small logic errors in various places in the dialogues

In the intro of the DLC The Sky Fortress the picnic in the forest was forgotten :-) !

Fixed an umlaut error in one of Willi's speech bubbles

Wood's quest for more squirrels was not ended when handing in the materials. This has been fixed.

The purple mushroom could not grow on stone soil because it needed too much water. This has been fixed.

The display of the mature purple mushroom was incorrect. A seed was displayed instead. This has been fixed.

Melinda mistakenly had pots of purple mushrooms in her assortment, even though she doesn't know them (questline).
Maurice questlines from the DLC The Desert are now finished at the start of the DLC The Sky Fortress and the dialogues are skipped.

After the conversation with Liam in Sandheim, the quest hint regarding the magic mushroom spores is now deleted, as Liam no longer offers magic mushroom spores.

Voles and locusts will now appear in more locations in the world at the same time during a plague.

Dandelions should not be able to grow in pond water. This has been fixed.

The lupine had too strong an urge to reproduce, which has now been curbed.

A player chest has been added to the southern island in the DLC The Sky Fortress.

Starting map (these changes are only available in a new game):

In the DLC The Sky Fortress, a few ground fields in houses have been changed.

In the DLC The Sky Fortress, a small area of the southern fertile forest island has also been freed from the desert climate.

In the Sky Fortress DLC, an area around the NPC Drystan has been created on the northern island where no trees can grow so that he always remains visible.

 In the Sky Fortress DLC, a few keys have been replaced due to poor visibility on the ground.
Some blocked passages in the southern fortress of the DLC The Sky Fortress were passable from the side. This has been fixed

A  potion has been removed from a cave in The Sky Fortress DLC.

Some stables had a strip of rock on the side that was copied during construction. This has been removed.

Bugs:

A bug in a dialogue script of the Sky Fortress DLC could block the main storyline under certain circumstances. This has been fixed.

Battle companions could freeze in motion under certain conditions and were then useless until they were addressed or, in the case of the Dino, summoned again. This should be fixed.

Fixed a bug in the dialogues that caused Drystan to continue swapping with the player after the end of the Desert DLC.

Fixed a bug that caused the game to forget that Eleyne and Nira were already placed in Sandheim. This meant that you could not buy the incredible stables and the lion cub from Nira or Eleyne.

Lava was not cooled by frost crystals as intended in some cases. This now works as meant.

In the Sky Fortress DLC, an event trigger was "slipping" and you could unintentionally trigger it by walking close to the wall. This has been fixed (requires restarting the DLC)
The spell "Ice Mine" did physical damage in addition to ice damage, which was not intended. Now the spell only does ice damage.