this is a companion piece to my "we NEED more terrain textures" thread. im sure this is a more common request but i feel i have a decent structure for its revival. wanting to see it in the game again inspired me to learn how to mod and try it out myself. since i didnt know what i was doing i dled a mod that brings it back in the state it used to function in a16 and tried to backwards engineer xml coding. im gonna post images here for example purposes but just to let you know this was originally based gouki's GKB2 Old Farmland mod that i edited further.
the farm plots are fine and dandy but lets face it, we cant be proper farmers without being able to grow crops on dirt. i thought up a way to bring back ground gardening while keeping it balanced with growing on plots too. also this-

...just looks and feels right.
GARDEN HOE-returning tool that was removed in a17. back then there was only iron but for my concept the usual 3 ranks would be used, stone/iron/steel. what makes each different is that plowing land is similar to upgrading a block; you need to hit at it a few times before it becomes fertile. this is the incentive for the player to upgrade through the versions
stone hoe-requires 6-7 hits to make dirt plantable
iron hoe-3-4
steel-1



(there is no stone model, original mod uses a shovel. i learned some unity and ripped the unused iron and steel hoe models and icons from a18. pretty proud of myself)
NEW ITEM-compost. in order to properly convert ground dirt to plantable you need compost for the garden hoe to do its job.

compost requires the same amount of supplies as a farm plot and is now also the main ingredient required to make those too. which leads to...
NEW WORKSTATION-composter- a container with an interface similar to the new dew collector. over time player will receive compost after socketing in rotten meat, nitrate powder, maybe clay and... crap!. thats right the ■■■■ returns!

which is required for...
FERTILIZER-this is where the meta game comes in. compost is a 1 and done permanent base block upgrade from unplantable to plantable. but, like cooking has also become, the growth process is much longer then it currently is. the player is now motivated to apply fertilizer to the planted dirt square which will speed up the growth process (and yield?).
base, infertile dirt=level 0 (world wide)
1 compost=level 1 fertilization (permanent)
+1 fertilizer=lvl 2 fertilization (temporary)
+1 fertilizer=lvl 3 fertilization (temp)

fertilizer will not stay forever and level 3 fertile dirt will degrade back to level 2 then 1 (but never below that). player needs to fertilize if they want yield at a decent pace. the issue is here is that player would need to visually see what quality level the dirt is at which means the tint of the dirt needs to be visually different. as it currently is, changing terrain tint is NOT possible (why i complained about the textures in the other thread).

infertile<----------------------------------------------------------------------->most fertile
what is stopping the player from just placing dirt block diamonds on skyscraper roofs instead of proper farm plots? have there be a restriction where player cannot apply compost unless there are at least 2 dirt blocks below it. i dont think this is too inconvenient for the player and its completely realistic for roots to properly spread in theory. at this point player can still make dirt spires if they want to.. but why? just make a farm plot.
the farm plots are fine and dandy but lets face it, we cant be proper farmers without being able to grow crops on dirt. i thought up a way to bring back ground gardening while keeping it balanced with growing on plots too. also this-

...just looks and feels right.
GARDEN HOE-returning tool that was removed in a17. back then there was only iron but for my concept the usual 3 ranks would be used, stone/iron/steel. what makes each different is that plowing land is similar to upgrading a block; you need to hit at it a few times before it becomes fertile. this is the incentive for the player to upgrade through the versions
stone hoe-requires 6-7 hits to make dirt plantable
iron hoe-3-4
steel-1



(there is no stone model, original mod uses a shovel. i learned some unity and ripped the unused iron and steel hoe models and icons from a18. pretty proud of myself)
NEW ITEM-compost. in order to properly convert ground dirt to plantable you need compost for the garden hoe to do its job.

compost requires the same amount of supplies as a farm plot and is now also the main ingredient required to make those too. which leads to...
NEW WORKSTATION-composter- a container with an interface similar to the new dew collector. over time player will receive compost after socketing in rotten meat, nitrate powder, maybe clay and... crap!. thats right the ■■■■ returns!

which is required for...
FERTILIZER-this is where the meta game comes in. compost is a 1 and done permanent base block upgrade from unplantable to plantable. but, like cooking has also become, the growth process is much longer then it currently is. the player is now motivated to apply fertilizer to the planted dirt square which will speed up the growth process (and yield?).
base, infertile dirt=level 0 (world wide)
1 compost=level 1 fertilization (permanent)
+1 fertilizer=lvl 2 fertilization (temporary)
+1 fertilizer=lvl 3 fertilization (temp)

fertilizer will not stay forever and level 3 fertile dirt will degrade back to level 2 then 1 (but never below that). player needs to fertilize if they want yield at a decent pace. the issue is here is that player would need to visually see what quality level the dirt is at which means the tint of the dirt needs to be visually different. as it currently is, changing terrain tint is NOT possible (why i complained about the textures in the other thread).

infertile<----------------------------------------------------------------------->most fertile
what is stopping the player from just placing dirt block diamonds on skyscraper roofs instead of proper farm plots? have there be a restriction where player cannot apply compost unless there are at least 2 dirt blocks below it. i dont think this is too inconvenient for the player and its completely realistic for roots to properly spread in theory. at this point player can still make dirt spires if they want to.. but why? just make a farm plot.