Farmable items not growing???

[Chipaton]

Well, that's just it. I'm doing everything Midget mentioned and it's still mega mega mega slow. I have Jack-o-Lanterns lighting up everything that's supposed to grow. Yesterday I logged in and just sat in the middle of my plot for 2 hours and this is what happened:

1. New wheat grew 1/2 way.
2. Pumpkins (the fruit) grew 1 out of 3.
3. Melons
-- a. out of 3 fully grown stalks (used the 1 bone-meal i had) grew 1 Melon.
-- b. out of 7 seedlings grew NO stalks, 2 grew 1/2 way, the rest 1/4.
4. This is the kicker, virtually NO GROWTH on Sugar Cane. The reason why this is a kicker, I had over 66 plants (with 1 plant that grew 1 block length) that I basically just tore down and went and bought the bookshelves instead. The time it took was just atrocious.

All the items are lit artificially, have water, plenty of daylight.

Something is not right on the server. Over 2 hours of just sitting within my plot waiting for stuff to grow and it doesn't? Maybe it's because I'm just at registered status and not trusted? I don't know... it's just hella frustrating.

Considering almost NOTHING spawns out in my territory mob wise. I think in my last 5 times on the server I've seen 1 zombie, 1 spider and 1 skeleton. So, that'll tell you my bone-meal situation. Personally, I feel like the market is being pushed vs natural growth and acquisition of goods/food. About the only good thing is that I have a Spider spawner near me, so experience WOULD be good, if the spawn rate actually represented real spawn rates. Even the spawn rate in my area is abysmal. I sat near the spawner for 3 minutes and had 1 spider spawn... again... something not right. On other servers that room I built would have been filled with spiders.

If you ever want to be be Trusted (I presume you will) then complaining and having that type of attitude is not going to be in your favor. Having a good relationship with players on the server will make your stay a hell o' lot better. Expressing your opinions is appreciated, though if you would like something changed or need help post them in their corresponding areas. Bottom line- Have a good time and we appreciate that you have something to say, just drop the attitude. Thanks~ Chip

[Spamarian]

I agree that everyone has to have the best attitude in places that are new for them.
I dont say that your bad attitude is not acceptabla, but sometimes the games influences our minds and its better to write when you are calm.
Everyone has starved in the past. I have died from starving. I was selling breads to get some money in order to develop my account. I was asking for some dollars help. These dollars came from Clawstrider at that time. I never forget people who helped me. This is what I do too, to new players. I have spent a LOT in "global money sharings". I have benefited others with money, items, seeds, etc. I have done 4-6 free drop parties, and I have hosted an Event to help people. I given items from what I have bought! Not from what I have found.

If until Friday you still have great need, I will rent you a home with everything. I mean everything. Nether portal, farms, ench. table, chests, and entrance to a mine.
Contact me to rent it to you.

And yes indeed, market is a place that doesnt attract me any more for mellon sales. I have abondoned my farms.

[sniperdoc]

First off. I didn't come in here with an attitude. The fact that you guys are taking it personal because I feel that I'm seeing a flaw in the market that AT THIS POINT, for newbies makes it pretty dang hard to get a good start to explore.

Furthermore, just because someone is an admin gives them no right to start flinging the insults... none were given on my end. I just stated that I feel that with the farms not working properly that the market isn't set up properly to assist. You're spending more cash that you're able to bring in as a newbie. For the people that are responding so disrespectfully, should stop taking things personally as I didn't insult them in any way, nor was any intended.

So far I'm seeing that there are a couple of people with the same issue, so it bears SOME responsibility for the proper people to check it out. Those with 400 chests of steaks and bread it's not so much of a concern is it? For NEW players that can't explore at all, because their farms aren't cranking out food and sitting at their home for 5 hours this isn't a very fun experience when going to the market and they have to sell their entire stock of iron or gold to be able to buy over 200 bread!

I feel that I am the one being attacked for sharing a situation. My demeanor or attitude, as it was so called, didn't change until Mr. Admin Nick Supergod over here decided to start flinging the "ignorance" pile around and THAT... is not respectful. Though I do appreciate the fanbois jumping on the bandwagon as well. Where did I mention anywhere that I wanted Trusted status? I just asked if that's a requirement to have faster growing farms...?!? Seriously...? Don't put words in my mouth and jump on Nick wagon just because you've been on here for 24 comments longer than I.

Spamarian and the ones that replied before Nick came on the thread read me right. Though I wasn't upset or angry when writing my initial responses (I'll call them PrN responses, Pre-Nick). I was just making a point.

As far as the assistance Spamarian, much appreciated but I have a home all built and ready to go, just waiting for the farm thing to resolve really. I've got a little bit of cash saved up but it's dwindling if I have to eat a lot.

So, to get the thread back on track...

It appears farmable items such as sugar cane, wheat, pumpkins, and melons are or were growing tremendously slow. However, I logged in last night for about 20 mins just to observe the growth and it seems that my cane did grow somewhat, not much. I also had a some growth on my wheat and melon stalks. I actually had 1 melon as well. I don't know if that is because I spent 2+ hours on the server the night before just watching stuff [not] grow and I got off right at the growth spurt or what, but I may test some more later on tonight.

[Nick3306]

Let me start out by saying you were being disrespectful to us before i came into this topic.

If you can't grow any food then you need to buy it. Compare that with the values of ore sales. Yeah... pretty crappy and not well thought out at all.

Someone should do the math and figure out how much iron or gold ore needs to be sold to buy a Diamond Protection block... yeah... no way in hell anyone will make enough cash to buy one.

These quotes would have been fine, but as you can see (i hope), you have a really bad attitude in both of these. Not to mention you do not offer any alternatives at all, you are just complaining that you cant get enough money. You can call it the "nick bandwagon" if you want, but I am not the only one who sees the attitude.

As for your last post.

You're spending more cash that you're able to bring in as a newbie.

Yes, this is how it is supposed to work, if every newbie was bringing in more cash than they were spending, everyone would be rich instantly. It is supposed to be hard to start out as a newbie, it's survival.

[24kGold]

We all started out as new players. I bought a stone pick, axe, and sword from the market and now I'm doing just fine. My farm grows wheat, and I live by you. You're not on the edge of the world, btw. Far from it. Maybe you should just go explore and kill cows/pigs/chickens. I know they're out there. You always have the /home option, so you don't need to worry when venturing far out.

[sniperdoc]

These quotes would have been fine, but as you can see (i hope), you have a really bad attitude in both of these. Not to mention you do not offer any alternatives at all, you are just complaining that you cant get enough money. You can call it the "nick bandwagon" if you want, but I am not the only one who sees the attitude.

I didn't intend for any attitude. If you read them that way it still didn't give you the right for you to throw out "ignorance" because of it... Honestly I think it's a pretty crappy response from someone with admin status.

Yes, this is how it is supposed to work, if every newbie was bringing in more cash than they were spending, everyone would be rich instantly. It is supposed to be hard to start out as a newbie, it's survival.

I get that. I think that goes without saying as well. My statement, and I'll try to be clear, again, that this has to do with new players, having to spend more money than they're able to make, because their food stuff's isn't growing.

I put my observations. I gave pretty concise explanations of how fast stuff was growing for me. I'm also not discounting 24kGold and that his/her stuff may BE growing. But, 24k also seems to have been on the server for a while as well. Has 24k actually sat down, like I did for 2 hours and observed growth? At the same time as I observed the issues? Chances are probably not. So, I would go insofar that 24k's statement should have little bearing on what I observed.

I also stated there's a possibility that things could HAVE improved yesterday. I didn't get a chance to sit there for 2 hours and time it again, personally I find it a waste of my time. I was willing to do it the first time so there'd be some data for troubleshooting purposes.

As far as the pig/chicken/cow comment. I have a chicken/pig farm, a small one, and observed that even animal growth was a bit slow (though I didn't mention it), I also can't feed the animals wheat... as I have a limited supply of it. My best bet at first was to use the eggs I get to maybe drop 1 chick out of 16 eggs. But I found that, this was not a method that was sustainable i.e. chicken for food vs replenishment of chickens with eggs. I used up more food stuff trying to dig up iron/gold/diamonds than just standing there and watching it grow... which isn't fun. I also don't stray far from my plot either and usually hang within at least 100 and am usually right below my plot. Which I would assume means that my stuff should grow since I'm in still in the same chunk.

My best bet actually, was fishing, for a while. But, during the 2 hour observation period, I spent a half hour trying to catch fish, and I caught two. Why? Lag? I'd see the bobber go under, I'd right click and get nothing. Repeatedly. So, now that's not panning out any more. Could it be my connection? Maybe. I had 6Mbps ADSL, but let me preface that with the fact that on other "less active" servers, I have NO problems fishing. I just changed my connection to a 30Mbps/3Mbps cable line. So maybe there'll be some change on Opticraft now, I don't know.

Don't get me wrong, I like the server and all, especially the warp options which help a lot. It's just frustrating to try and explore, run out of food, have to sit there for hours at a time just to watch my food stuffs barely grow, then sell all my gold and iron (can't even sell the diamonds I have), and spend all my cash on bread. Explore a bit, run out of food, spend some more money. Eventually the money just disappears and I wouldn't have a farm to support myself. Now keep in mind that I was projecting the possibility of events, not that it is happening currently. I still have $8,000 I think. But, add it up.. One bread = $100 right? 64 breads x $ 100= $6400 that's not cheap and doesn't leave much headroom for exploration.

I was hoping that purchasing a few melons would be a faster food source, but at the time, that even took forever. Where on other default setup servers I get by with more than enough leftovers with the little farm that I have, I'd have to have a wheat farm almost 5 times it's current size on the Opticraft server to support any bread/melon operation. But, again, as I stated before, the situation could have resolved yesterday. I'm just trying to elaborate for those that may not understand the cycle of a new player trying to make it. By new, I mean someone that's managed to develop an established farm of some kind.

At this point I"m just thinking of putting in a massive underground wheat farm, I'll have to see how much seeds cost though. I don't have anything else I can sell at the market anymore since I spent it all trying to get money to purchase a protection stone.

Anyways, I don't think I needed to have gone into such detail but there it is... jesus I'm out of breat.... ok maybe not.

[cschurz]

*skips reading whole topic*

hello sniperdoc. i have inspected your /home and found that your house and farm is spread out across many in-game "chunks"

each chunk is 16x16 blocks. if you are not standing in a chunk, it will not update on the server, and therefore your plants will not grow.

here is a (very) rough diagram of the layout of your home and farm.



the red sqaures roughly indicate where you must stand in order for plants within a given square to grow.

i have taken the liberty of placing signs labeled "CHUNK VERTEX" around your home, showing you where a corner of 4 chunks meet. remember,  chunks are 16x16. using this information, you can create a very efficient multi-leveled farm if you wish.

please take the time to read more about chunks here http://www.minecraftwiki.net/wiki/Chunks

the way chunks work coupled with the low tick-rate the server experiences at most times of the day creates a very unfavorable farming experience unless you have very specific knowledge about farming and how it works. i hope i have cleared up at least some of your confusion regarding the slow growing of plants.

thank you for playing on opticraft.

[sniperdoc]

GOD, THANK YOU!! Awesome. Thank you so much for letting me know. I know about chunks, but someone mentioned that if I'm at least within 128 squares I should be fine. So, I thought chunks were rather large for a server housing up to 300 players. That would explain EXACTLY why nothing grew. I was standing right at the entrance of my house, which is just at the edge of the lake (sugar cane) and the edge of the pumpkins/watermelons.

Thank you so much Dejected for the help/explanation.

[animedude88]

the same problem happened to me. You need to stay close to the plants otherwise it would not grow.

[sniperdoc]

@Dejected: Thanks for the food/cookie... lol

As far as the plant growth/chunks are concerned... how are people able to build these massively huge farms then? They're not standing in the appropriate chunk for 45 mins waiting for their wheat to grow? On other servers, if I'm within line of sight, over 16 squares away, I can watch trees, wheat and other stuff grow just fine?

[D00MKNlGHT]

Dude just visit enderpolis legendary melon 100% auto afk melon farm made by skittcat :/... I do allow news to use it for free sometimes.. But rmb to ask perm.

[cschurz]

@Dejected: Thanks for the food/cookie... lol

As far as the plant growth/chunks are concerned... how are people able to build these massively huge farms then? They're not standing in the appropriate chunk for 45 mins waiting for their wheat to grow? On other servers, if I'm within line of sight, over 16 squares away, I can watch trees, wheat and other stuff grow just fine?

while it's true that plants are able to grow when nobody is standing in that chunk, it is generally at a very reduced rate. and, once again, since opticraft has a very low tickrate at peak times, plants will basically seem to not grow at all.

many people have large farms that are multi-leveled. since chunks are from bedrock to the height limit, you can fit many more plants into a chunk by planting vertically. this is the most efficient way to farm currently.

other people with "massive" farms that span across multiple chunks are likely constantly walking around their farm, causing plants in multiple chunks to grow. there's nothing special about these farms, and if one were to sit afk in one spot, not many plants would grow.

[thedude114]

A little bit if advice: put your farm in a town. The poeple there all the time really help the growing.

[Midgetized]

thedude that seems like a good idea on paper, but then those people will use your farm as well. I have auto farms at the edge of the world and still people constantly use my farms w/o asking all the time, even my wheat farm that they dont replant.

[sniperdoc]

while it's true that plants are able to grow when nobody is standing in that chunk, it is generally at a very reduced rate. and, once again, since opticraft has a very low tickrate at peak times, plants will basically seem to not grow at all.

Thank you cschurz, you answered my other question perfectly, thank you. I was wondering if that was it.

I'd also have to agree with Midgetized about it looking good on paper. It seems that Opticraft has a lot of griefers (could be subjective since I haven't played on a server of this magnitude before) and that being closer to a largely populated area could yield you pain and suffering for the most part. One of the reasons why I'm not too fond of the /warp option at all. It's nice, but it can also be EASILY misused.