Brazen's Journal • WIP Progress (Patreon)

I think I'm finally at the point where I can start wrapping up the harvestables project. Progress has been slow because I rebuilt everything like 5 times and I added a bunch of stuff I wasn't planning on adding originally. All of these mods interact with one another on some level and I just really didn't want to release something I might need to change again.

My timing ended up working out well with this - it looks like EA will have an update next week that will change the harvestable tunings. I'm not sure what that entails but I'll get all my harvestables in-line with any new changes EA has. If you aren't aware, it sounds like they're going to have a fix for the issue where plants can't be tended to when they're out of season.

It's a busy weekend so I'll try to update this post with some pics next week when I get back home but I want to explain how everything is coming along. Sorry it's really long 😅

➥ Currently...

Harvestables

I went through several iterations of how to add the special effects to garden plants. The first way required too much extra tuning to be added and would be impossible to keep up with. The second way created some extra lag that I didn't like. The third way worked well but made it hard to incorporate EA plants and messed with the interactivity of everything. The fourth way worked well and incorporated EA plants but it was a kinda overcomplicated. The fifth (and likely final) way has improved on my fourth version by generalizing some types of critter spawns.

For instance, instead of a Mantis showing up on only a specific type of harvestable, it now has a chance to spawn on any shrub-like harvestable plant. There are still some plants that will specifically attract certain types of critters, like bees or ladybugs, to give you a little more control of what helpful critters spawn in your garden.

That being decided, I wanted to make sure that these effects don't hurt your gameplay for those of you who don't want to use them or maybe need a break from them. To do that, I've created some lot traits that control your level of interactivity with them.

Lot Challenge - Lively Garden

This works on my custom plants and EA plants. This lot trait will allow critters to spawn in your garden. Those critters won't do anything with only this lot trait active, but they're fun to look at! 😁

Like the previous versions of my harvestables, you can attempt to catch insects that spawn on your plants. Any fragrant plants will also give your sim buffs by being near them.

Basically this is all the good and fun stuff that makes your garden feel more alive!

Side Note: Insects

I made some changes to how collecting insects work. I've removed the insect overrides from the Core Mod and your sim will now collect a 'Box of...' that insect instead of the jar. Those boxes can be used as ingredients for recipes and stack nicely for storage or for sale. If you have Outdoor Retreat then you can click on the box to 'Display' that insect and put it into a glass container.

This was a good way to remove the overrides, which kind of limited what I could do with them. This new system of 'Boxes' of insects gives me more to work with for future mods.

I've also separated the 'Insect Jar' overrides into a separate file so you you can use EA's mesh if you like.

I've also added a mod that will make it so you get a 'Box of...' insects from the insect farms instead of the ingredient bags. It comes with a recipe for each ingredient, which can be made on the mill, by using the Box of Insects as an ingredient.

Lot Challenge - Complex Garden

This works on my custom plants and EA plants. This will add lots of small quirks to plants that can interact with other plants in positive or negative ways.

This includes some edits that make it a little harder to garden, like plants evolving more slowly in general, trees in bad health attracting termites, plants needing more water, etc. That being said, it also adds effects to plants that do things like reduce the need to water nearby plants or helping plants evolve quickly by adding extra nutrients to the soil. With the right combination of plants and some 'Companion Planting' you can manage your garden with less effort and minimize or cancel any negative effects of plants. This trait will also work in tandem with Lively Garden, adding another layer of effects depending on the critters that spawn!

This is for people who may want more complexity in the garden or who would like to add a new challenge to their gameplay.

This will be released into Beta testing as it will likely need some fine-tuning. 

Lot Challenge - Sheltered Garden

This works on any harvestable plant. This trait conflicts with Complex Garden. This makes all plants on the lot 'Sheltered' and they will produce crops year round but you will get a smaller crop.

Obsolete Ingredient Modules & EA Seasonality Changes

Because I had to figure out how to build a script to make the new mods work with EA plants, I decided to go ahead and use that same script to make EA harvestables and ingredients compatible with my custom ingredients. I had no intention of working on this right now, but since I was already there I figured I might as well. That means that the majority of my core modules will be obsolete and you can add my custom ingredients to EA items without worrying about any conflicts.

I can't stand the seasonality of EA plants so I've also made a mod that changes them to make more sense. This will not override any EA files so it won't conflict with other mods.

I'm still not sure where I'm going to put these or if they will end up in a mod on their own. I'm thinking of just adding it as part of the Harvestables Core Mod, but if you have a suggestion feel free to leave it in the comments below.

Feed Livestock

This mod will allow you to feed certain harvestables and dried ingredients to livestock at no cost. This uses the animations already in-game but I may add custom animations later.

➥ Upcoming...

Foraging

I considered my Foraging Mod while working on everything so that it works seamlessly with what I have planned. This mod will shift from an in-world mod like I had tried to do previously, to being a lot and harvestable plant based mod.

Dye Crafting

This is another mod I build the upcoming updates around. This one is a little farther down the road, but like the Foraging mod I've added some foundational pieces into my harvestables with this update that will help me build this mod in the future.