Hefty load of problems getting farming to work (Cellianna resources)

[DaedaliusRE]

Hello everybody! I really have to apologize in advance because english is not my native language and I think that I'll have problems to explain what happened so far...so please keep that in mind : <

today I started working on the crop system in my game. I really have a lot of problems but was still trying to get it to work. And...it kind of worked. Yea..well..."kind of".

The last 8 hours I was sitting in the rpg maker and was eventing the mind out of a single event. So...this is the part where I will have problems with my english but I'll try my best:

1.

I made three event pages per crop, per stage:

- The first Page was there to make sure the crop will notice that I was standing right besides it. I had problems in which all the fields were watered at once even if I was not standing near them.

- The second Page was there to give notice the watering itself. Watered crops would have their variable (I planned to have one variable PER field and PER CROP. That would have made 31 variables for a single field, 62 for two fields and so on) risen by one to bring it to the watered stage.

- The third page was for the watered crops. At every "New Day" event within Celiannas ressource pack I wanted the same common event to check the variables to find out if the crop was watered. If that was the case, the crop would get to the next stage in growth

2. 

After hours I saw that my system was working. BUUUUT I was kinda screwed over by the fact that I couldn't get more than 99 event pages. So that destroyed my whole idea and now I'm back at square one again.

So...can somebody help me? Especially with Celiannas Tileset? I saw some tutorials for farming on the internet but the problem with those was that those tutorials would have nothing to do with all the farming utensils and their animations so I was more confused after the tutorial search than I already was.

Need hälp :' <

 

[mlogan]

I'm not sure I can help you with much up but as for the first issue (all crops being watered), I'm guessing you have a single switch set to "water them", so that when you are standing next to just one crop, it turns on the same switch for all of the crops. It would probably be best to use a self-switch to water, that way it only activates for that individual crop.

As for #2 and the 99 event pages, I have a feeling you are making the system way too complicated it you need 99 pages in a single event. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying here?

If you can post screenshots of your events it would be helpful. Also, when you say Celianna's tileset do you mean the Rural Farm Pack? If so are you using the script that came with it?

 

[DaedaliusRE]

I'm not sure I can help you with much up but as for the first issue (all crops being watered), I'm guessing you have a single switch set to "water them", so that when you are standing next to just one crop, it turns on the same switch for all of the crops. It would probably be best to use a self-switch to water, that way it only activates for that individual crop.

As for #2 and the 99 event pages, I have a feeling you are making the system way too complicated it you need 99 pages in a single event. Perhaps I am misunderstanding what you are saying here?

If you can post screenshots of your events it would be helpful. Also, when you say Celianna's tileset do you mean the Rural Farm Pack? If so are you using the script that came with it?

1. I already tried that. It was a good way to save a little bit more space but...I was handling everything way to complicated...so it didn't do much in the end.

2. Nope...you understood it perfectly. I was doing everything WAY to complicated. But that's why I'm here...I definitely need a better way to handle things x.x

3. already deleted the whole event and tried to find a new way to get farming to work. So there are no screenshot possibilities...

And yea! I mean the Rural Farm Pack. But...there is only the script for the pictures/Hud. You mean that there is a way to make the crops work with that? I really don't understand scripting at all...it just confuses me. Especially when there are no examples x_X

 

[Andar]

Then please give us a description of what the event is supposed to do - I can't even imagine what you where trying to achive, because even with a lot of options there is no way you would need more than a dozen pages on any event (in my opinion)

 

[mlogan]

Okay, this is what I would do. Keeping it simple is usually best, but sometimes hard to sort out.

Simply using self-switches will really make it easier on yourself. You can add in other things, but here I simply used the action button (so that the player has to "click" on the crop they want to do something to). By using the self-switches it will only affect this particular crop, but you can easily copy and paste to create fields of crops.









You can also add in a conditional branch so that say, they have to have the watering bucket before they can actually water the crop.

 

[Athryl]

I have used this tutorial in the past for farming events...it does have the potential for a LOT of event pages though depending on the number of crop choices you allow and how many phases each one has.  It sounds similar to what you were already doing, but mostly uses 2 variables per plot.  It works well, but necessitates not going overboard on options.

 

[DaedaliusRE]

@ Andar:

Well I just want to make all the different crops grow ingame : (

There are 31 different kind of crops (well 25 crops and 6 different kind of trees) and I want to make events with a seemingly simple goal:

1. use your hoe so I can make a field ready for ALL the different seeds.

2. The seed which was planted should grow as I water it and time (ingame days) passes

3. The planted crop has to go trough the three different growth stages (so this means three different pictures for the crop. SIX if you keep in mind that you can water them which changes the ground color)

4. Everytime I am using the watering can/sickle/hoe I want it's animation to be played. that makes things even more complicated.

That would be no problem at all if there would be only corn for example. But that is certainly not the case. Soooo many crooops. I don't know how to event it when I want that every kind of crop can grow on any field that I used the hoe on : (

@Mlogan:

Yea I wanted to try that too. But the problem is that there are 31 different kind of crops within the Rural Farm Pack. So something that simple wouldn't work with all those crops. 25 Crops (without the trees) which have (without the seed phase) three different growth phases. And every one of those has another picture with watered ground. So that makes 6 different pictures per Crop. Multiply that by 25 and you have 150 different crop stages within ONE event ID : <

@Athryl:

Yea I used that one too...that tutorial was the exact one I used actually! : )

But as I said above: 25 different crops (without trees~) seem to be way to much : < 

~~~EDIT~~~

Is there a way to change the appearance of an event by the number of a certain variable? When this is the case I think I have another way to tackle this farming problem!

 

[mlogan]

In the move route command, there is an option to change graphic. If you could use that in exchange with the self-switches, it would really help to keep things simple. Haven't tried it yet though.

Edit... Hmmm, doesn't look like that would work as if forces you to choose a whole character graphic. So unless you reworked all the crop tiles, it would still be pretty complicated.

Edit... Sigh, I was on the verge of working something out, but my computer died and it seems Steam did something to the file format. Joy.

Edit: How about this?







Then all you would need to do is change the graphic for the different crops.

 

[DaedaliusRE]

In the move route command, there is an option to change graphic. If you could use that in exchange with the self-switches, it would really help to keep things simple. Haven't tried it yet though.

Edit... Hmmm, doesn't look like that would work as if forces you to choose a whole character graphic. So unless you reworked all the crop tiles, it would still be pretty complicated.

Edit... Sigh, I was on the verge of working something out, but my computer died and it seems Steam did something to the file format. Joy.

Edit: How about this?

Screenshot 2014-06-01 12.54.00.png

Screenshot 2014-06-01 12.54.09.png

Screenshot 2014-06-01 12.54.18.png

Then all you would need to do is change the graphic for the different crops.

I think I know what you mean but on the other hand I think that it's not really an option for those graphics.

For example: The marked crops seem to be occupying the walk down and walk left animations. So I would have to let my crops walk...that would be perfect for an horror game but not for an Rune Factory/Harvest Moon kind of game. OR I'm way to stupid and there is an easy way for that. That could be possible too since I didn't touch the rpg maker for like...2-3 years and therefore are kind of rusty in its handling..

ARGH I don't know. I'm so confused...

~~ edit ~~

Don't really know how to resize my images...meh.

 

[mlogan]

No, if you look in the move route commands I set up, I set them to "turn left" and "turn down". That's why it works.

 

[DaedaliusRE]

No, if you look in the move route commands I set up, I set them to "turn left" and "turn down". That's why it works.

Wow...I don't understand how it works but it works *-*

But how do I make the crops stay watered? When I take the "Control Self Switch: B =ON" command away (because I don't want the crops to grow to the next phase in an instant of course) it goes back to the unwatered stage. Sorry for all those stupid questions...but this farming stuff really creeps me out. Especially after I found a post of Celianna herself on steam stating that: it's EXTREMELY easy to make a farming game. It doesn't take more than a day to just event all the plants, within a week you already have something working. Seriously, it's easy"

Not more than a day...at my rate it will take a freakin month or even more just to get one farming field ready... :' (

 

[mlogan]

It depends on how you want the growth to work. I set it to grow after a certain amount of time using the wait command. It wouldn't work to do it longer, because you can't move until the wait command is up.

I would try to find a way to set it to a timer that would allow you to move around. I don't know if there is a script that could do that for you or how complicated it would get with so many different crops.

 

[Mouser]

Wow.

Not more than a day...at my rate it will take a freakin month or even more just to get one farming field ready... :' (

Remember, all you have to do is get one event working. After that, you just copy/pasta it for the rest of the field(s).

 

[Shaz]

If you want an event to show 1 of 31 different images, based on the value in a variable, just have 31 different event pages (or 32, so you can have a "nothing is planted here") - each one with the variable as a condition (set to a different number), and the corresponding sprite.

 

[DaedaliusRE]

@Mlogan:

I've given up. Even when I use your idea, the plants reset (lose their watered sprite and go back to the unwatered version) when I leave the area and come back. Guess I'l just get the focus on the monster hunting and have the NPC's farm for the visual effect... x_x

@Mouser:

Yea...I know. But getting this one event to work properly is hard enough...x_X

@Shaz:

Well...there are 31 different kinds of growable Plants/trees. Every one with at least 3 different growth phases which come in two versions: Watered and unwatered.

So for the 25 normal plants alone (no trees) it makes 150 different sprites (that's the word I didn't remember this whole time btw xD), not just 31...that's the main problem I think.

 

[Shaz]

Do watered/unwatered come with different sprites?


That's a possibility of 31 x 3 or 31 x 3 x 2 sprites that you need per event.


I'd be writing a script for that many possibilities

 

[DaedaliusRE]

Do watered/unwatered come with different sprites?

That's a possibility of 31 x 3 or 31 x 3 x 2 sprites that you need per event.

I'd be writing a script for that many possibilities

I would rather say 25 x 6 because there are 25 different plants (I let the trees out of this. I would make special land plots for them, so they are no problem) with 3 growth stages and two different sprites per stage (watered and unwatered)...so that would accumulate to possibly 150 different sprites per event.

Sadly I don't know anything about scripting so that's no option for me : (

But there HAS to be a better way since Celianna herself said that it shouldn't even take a whole day to event all the crops x.x

 

[Athryl]

Perhaps she meant without letting the player choose what to plant each time?  I could see it being quick and easy if the plots are already determined (like you can only plant corn here and only green beans in this other plot, etc.)...but that's not how I would want it done and I am guessing not you either.

It'd still be time consuming but perhaps break it up with a "Fruit Garden" and "Veggie Garden" ?  Hope someone has more input cause a farming game has been on my to do list for a long time!

 

[DaedaliusRE]

Perhaps she meant without letting the player choose what to plant each time?  I could see it being quick and easy if the plots are already determined (like you can only plant corn here and only green beans in this other plot, etc.)...but that's not how I would want it done and I am guessing not you either.

It'd still be time consuming but perhaps break it up with a "Fruit Garden" and "Veggie Garden" ?  Hope someone has more input cause a farming game has been on my to do list for a long time!

Yea...I already thought of that idea too. It would be a lot easier and (even for someone as mental as me) possible if I would determine that certain crops can just be sown at certain places. But that would be hart to implement because...it's just so far fetched : /

 

[Mouser]

But there HAS to be a better way since Celianna herself said that it shouldn't even take a whole day to event all the crops x.x

She may have meant 24 hours of working on the events.