Farms relocation

Your last point will, I didn't think of. And that's why I took to the idea so much snate... Its just something that sounds epic... Now, here comes the wall of text:

Sorry about taking so long to actually get my opinion stated clearly. I was at work, so didn't have time to type a full message. 

Now, it seems, like sret said, that you are still very focused on the efficiency side of things, or how difficult it will be to dig around the caves. Once we get to the stage of building the relocated farms, we won't NEED to have a ton of food being produced. At the moment, our farms sit idle for a large percentage of the time. I have only ever harvested the farms when I was looking for immediate wheat, to breed the cows, to get leather, so I saved iron on armour. Also remember at the start... A small mushroom room is enough to keep us fully sustained. We don't even need a room. Just plonk a dirt block on the floor in any of our large rooms, whether it be the throne room, or the dome, or more to come, then bonemeal your mushroom, and you're set to go with a few more mushroom stew. To sustain us, we don't require all the fancy, high efficiency, low maintenance, auto harvest, overproducing farms. We need a few animals (cows, chickens, and sheep... Pigs are just there cause they can be, and aren't necessary), and a small easy supply of wood. We've got a large number of chests made, and with a few harvests of our tree farms, our wood stockpile will grow rapidly. 

So, there's the point on efficiency. 

For ease of digging... When has that ever stopped us? And why should it. The masses of stone... Pfft! Easy. Caves? Meh, ignore them. This will be dug in a similar fashion to the dome, bottom up, so holes into caves can be plugged easy, and reduce our digging. It's a case of, deal with it. We began this project knowing caves and ravines were inevitable, and let's keep going with it. 

Whilst I can picture everything you want to add, and how, it seems too "modern". I saw the picture that blackwind? Linked us to... I can see exactly what you want to do with it, but it seems more like an industrial, bright shopping centre type of thing. (ok, not the best description, but I hope you get the picture). 

So far in our city, the only natural looking places are the lava river (now destroyed by water), and the caves which haven't been patched up. 

Maybe I hadn't explained myself well enough in the original idea, and what I myself see this turning into. A large underground lake, naturally carved out, rather than something looking like the handiwork of diggers. Dark, murky waters (mobs don't spawn in water) surround the island. It seems I really don't need to explain myself. 

Maybe think of golem's lair? I can barely remember reading the book (the hobbit it think), but that conjured up an image of what I was thinking of. I'll need to go over it again, but you get the picture... A pitch black, massive underground lake, with the only light being on the island itself. You have to take a boat over the black waters to arrive on the island. Hopefully, we can make it so that no torches are needed to keep mobs from spawning. 

Now, this is an idea that I really love, and really want to see it go through, which is why I'm still arguing the case. However, this is my personal opinion (one obviously shared by a few others), and if a large majority of people don't like the plan we've had for ages, and don't like what I'm saying, then I'll back down... 

I encourage everyone to put in your opinion (as intellectual as possible, rather than just "I want to do blah, we should do it"). We don't need any decisions as of yet, so we have plenty of time to discuss, and debate (note debate, and not argue... We're all friends here, all here for the same thing)

How about, we have wheat-and-everything-else farms on top but have underneath the island have big farms. Now that you're explaining it more it sounds more amazing but we want to make sure we have enough whatever.

We can maybe fit some animals under. But seriously, we don't need too muc to keep us sustained anyway. Have a row of melons, and a plot of wheat, and I swear we will be perfectly fine

I just think an essential quality of an "epic farm" is that it also work epically well as a farm. I don't see overproduction as a problem in any way, shape, or form...I see it as a big part of what makes it an epic farm. A farm that takes an awful lot of time and effort to build, but which has such a paltry yield that we have to talk about how we're gonna stockpile ahead of time and otherwise economize to compensate for that, doesn't seem like a project worth ripping out our current farms for. A sufficiently large surface area to match or improve our current yield is gonna take an enormous cave chamber to surround with the kind of ambience you're talking about. We're talking about something like a 100x100 open-pit quarry that then gets similarly-sized side chambers excavated out in all directions. Finding a suitable surface location will be difficult, finding one that doesn't also have an abandoned mineshaft or astrodome-sized cave system underneath it will be doubly hard. Finding such a system close enough to the rest of our city that the growing area isn't in faraway unloaded chunks once we finish building it is gonna be essentially impossible. ESPECIALLY if we surround it with a sufficiently large underground lake, as that will preclude us putting other facilities next to or over/under the farm plots themselves. Unless the chunks with the animals and fields are loaded, the wheat won't grow, the baby animals won't mature, and the whole thing has been a collossal waste of time and effort. The reason we put the farm so close to the rest of the city in the first place was to avoid this problem.

It would be far easier to improve the aesthetics of the current farm, at least enough that people are no longer talking about removing the current farms entirely.

Why can't we have both?

EDIT: Yes, I too am thinking of that little girl in that taco ad.

Of course the island in the lake doesn't necessarily have to hold a farm, you could just as well put a garden there, or some palace thing, or something.

If anything we need a farm area that uses more vertical space than horizontal space, that way we could hold more without worrying as much about chunk unloading.

I thought tacos too again, im at work. I'm off in just over 2 hours...

It seems that SW, your focusing mainly on the farms part of the equation... Expect another post when I get home

Am I right in assuming you're going to talk about the whole feel and effect of the kind of farm we build?

I've just had an idea, and I hope it will make everyone happy, it might need a bit of work though.

I've mentioned a couple of times about the idea of building small aesthetic rooms into some of the tunnels, I always thought it would be something to do towards the end of the project, but as we seem to be talking about something in the future I decided it to mention it.

Basically, instead of/with these rooms, which would be pure eye candy, we could have small farms, maybe just for food, maybe for other stuff, not that I'm sure how to incoroprate it though, all I can think of off the top of my head are mushroom caves or something, but I'm sure we could figure it out, that way the island can be as small as possible, and people would always have a steady source of food nearby, also people who work their often could design it to suit their needs a bit more (I dunno who works in the mines most, but whoever it is could build a room kinda near the hub maybe, and put both stuff he'll need, and stuff everyone will need in there). The rooms could even contain a quick chest of supplies, like the one in the store room maybe, but maybe with some blocks as well, for quick repairs.

The other thing I thought, although not as good in my opinion, is to have the farm hidden underneath the island/lake, with a semi secret entrance in the shephards hut or something. While this would solve the space issues, it wouldn't fix the proximity issues, so I dunno about it...

Am I going a bit far with this, or do people see it as a possible solution?

That would be a great idea, have hidden wheat farms hidden around the city, especially in high traffic areas.
Imagine this - Excuse me just gotta get some food *presses button* *entrance opens* and bang 2 minutes later he has food.

Lol that's really cool, I also just had a thought regarding trees, a kind of mini stone garden with a triangle of birch trees in it, then a hidden chest for saplings, looks good, and 3 trees will be plenty for most people, also, birch is always easy to cut down because it doesn't grow as big.

Now I want to screw the One Week Challenge and just do this now....

Blackwind wrote:Now I want to screw the One Week Challenge and just do this now....

Sorry, can't do that :p I'll be on soon to do a heap of writing and the update the challenge.

Ok, here we go I've seen a couple more great suggestions too. I especially like the hidden farms.

Now, Spectrum, you seem to be focusing on the 'farm' side of things more than the appearance thing. We dont NEED an efficient farm. We don't need 'Epic farms', we need an epic place for the farms. It's not the farms we are utilising for this other method, they're just added to it.

Wow, i promised a big post, by my brain just stopped -.-

I can see the hidden farms working... Maybe just a couple of 9*9 plots hidden off the side of the eating hall. Close to every day traffic, and out of the way.

Ever since we started, I actually haven't like the position of the farms, and the fact it goes from massive stone chamber, to grass. I was a bit surprised when i saw it, but I didn't worry too much because I knew that we NEEDED food to keep us sustained, and it needed to be close... But by the time we get to the stage of building this new area, we won't have need for this. Instead, we can use the space the farms are occupying to give us a place for the barracks, and a forge. We can have archery ranges, training areas, and perhaps even arenas, all in the space the current farms occupy. This means we'll finally have the most dwarven part of our city, and we'll have a place close by for our (hypothetical) army to train.

I think people need to consider what we are building and if we are building a farm for show or a farm for utility.

The existing farms were built for utility they were made to get everything up and running.

I think we can definitely say we should build the farm island, It should be for show and we don't need
to care about where it is it just needs to look good!

I think having small farm plots in key areas of the city a better idea than worrying about the placement or size of the farm island.

The key thing to remember is that only the 10 chunks around a player are active.
So at least one of these hidden farms should build near one of the grinders since they tend to get quite a bit of use.

I think that once the residential area is complete we should first look at replacing the existing farms the reed and pumpkin farms should be built behind under or above the store room. I also like the idea of few farm plots under the eating hall.

I also think we need a wheat farm above the mines the number of times i have been the only one on working the mines a small 9x9 farm would be handy along with a store room for all the cobble i am generating.

You do seem to be our miner so I think most of us are on the same page... Hidden plots for actual effective farming, and then the big one for looks and awesomeness.

As I said, we aren't building epic farms, we are building an epic place to put a farm