Gnomoria

Gnomoria

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Farming and You [WIP - v0.9.14]
By DarkRaven
A mathematical approach to farming, more of a reference than a how-to.
   
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Introduction
This guide is mainly based on info from the Gnomoria wiki and forum (all of which is probably outdated) and my own dodgy math, so take it with a grain of salt. Based on v0.9.14. I'll try to do independent research to verify / fix the info in this guide.

Please note that these numbers do not include the time to pick and replant, as that's a function of the gnome's skill. Therefore, the amount you need for your world will vary between each pair of numbers. When in doubt, be more conservative.
The Numbers
Plants - Harvests per Year (Whole Harvests)

Trees - 4.95 (4)
Wheat - 6.60 (6)
Strawberry/Grape - 8.80 (8)
Cotton/Apple/Orange - 9.90 (9)

Animals - Plots per Animal to Feed (Less conservative) - based on 100 Fitness animals

Yak / Alpaca
  • 10.7 (9.7) Wheat
Emu (assuming all seeds drop at the same rate)
  • 14.2 (12.93) Wheat
  • 10.7 (9.7) Strawberry / Grape
  • 9.5 (8.62) Cotton
The Research
After doing some preliminary testing, as of this version, the sunlight time to grow is correct from the wiki.

Cotton/Tree Fruit takes 48 hours ± 5 hours.
Strawberry/Grape takes 54 hours ± 5 hours. (Grapes were not specifically tested)
Wheat takes 72 hours ± 8 hours
Trees take 92 hours ± ? (I quit testing at this point)

Mushrooms have not been tested yet.

It should be noted that the time variance seems to follow a uniform distribution.

Although I couldn't figure out a good test method, yaks seem to produce 8 milk every 48 hours. This would be difficult to test outside of a dedicated setup since you only know if a yak needs to be milked when the 'Tend animal' job gets queued.

The grow times only include time from sunrise to sundown.
I found evidence of, at least, predawn light. Several test units and grass grew before sunrise. This time is not included in the grow times, but Spring Day 6 has at least 15 minutes of this light and Spring Day 7 has at the very least 20 minutes.
I have not found evidence of postdusk light, other than it being inferred from RoboBob stating Spring Day 6 should be 12 hours long. Normally, it lasts 11h 31m (6:14-17:45), but with the addition of the 15 minutes of predawn light, one could reason that there's 15 minutes of postdusk light. More testing is required before conclusions can be made.

I've come to the conclusion that the predawn light is irrelevant. From my observations, while you do get 'extra' grow time before dawn, the light also ends before sundown - about the same amount of time as you gain in the morning. Effectively, you get the amount of time that's indicated by sunrise and sundown, just shifted by about 35 minutes. This may be an issue on my end (being in year 9) or in Gnomoria itself.

With that being the case, the total agricultural light per year would be 475 hours and 55 minutes.

Testing in progress: Preliminary tests indicate Grapes seem to spawn an extra seed ~80% of the time. Low sample count prevents this from being definitive. Conservative estimate at 75%.
Continued, but incomplete testing, indicate that for Grapes, extra seeds seem to spawn ~76% of the time, with the conservative estimate at 70%. While I'm relatively certain that the true number is 75%, at the moment my data indicates it is 76% ± 5.1%.

Preliminary data indicates Yaks eat ~1.4 Straw per day, but there is a distinct lack of data. The individual Yak's fitness may play a role, with higher Fitness resulting in less consumed. Conservative estimate of 1.45 / day.
After recording a few samples, I have come to a very, very hypothetical equation: Animals consume 64 - ((Fitness - 100) / 1.625) units of food per year. More testing is required to confirm, but as a conservative estimate plug in your lowest fitness animal and multiple by the number of livestock.

Always remember to have a small surplus at hand, in case of bad RNG or calculations.
The Math
Agriculture only advances in daylight, except in winter, so we have to calculate the total amount of day light in the year. We know that at Summer and Winter solstice (Day 6) the amount of daylight is about 16 and 8 hours, respectively, while at the equinoxes (Spring and Fall Day 6) there is 12 hours of day light.

The average daylight during Spring and Fall is therefore about 12 hour/day; combined that comes to 288 hours. (12 Days * 12 hours * 2 seasons)

Winter is useless, so onto summer. I'm not exactly certain how to do this math correctly, please comment if I've done this incorrectly - I never exactly aced Trig.

The amount of sunlight per season can be boiled down to a wave - and therefore a circle - with the radius being 4 hours (1 daylight difference factor) on the y-axis and 12 days (1 season) on the x-axis. The wave crest is Summer Day 6, while the trough is Winter Day 6. That means summer lasts from (-0.5,y) to (0.5,y) thus the average summer daylight deviation would be at (-0.25,y) and (0.25,y).

Therefore, the total hours of daylight in summer equal the ((average daylight deviation factor * 4 hours) + 12 hours baseline) * 12 days.

ADDF = sin (cos⁻¹ (0.25)) ≈ 0.9682
ADDF * 4 hours ≈ 3.8729 hours + 12 hours / day ≈ 15.8729 hours / day
15.8729 hours / day * 12 days ≈ 190.48 hours

So the total agricultural daylight in a year is about 478.48 hours / year. Nearly 40% of your total agricultural daylight is in Summer, in other words, you get about 33% more light in Summer than Spring or Fall. Obviously, the daylight time in game doesn't follow a smooth curve, but is laddered, so I'll be assuming for calculation that there are 478 daylight hours in a year.


The true agricultural light per year comes to 475 hours and 55 minutes, broken down as follows: 141 hours 13 minutes of Spring, 187 hours 55 minutes of Summer and 146 hours 47 minutes of Fall/Autumn. I'll be using 475 hours for calculations.

The rest of the info is from the wiki and may be incorrect. More testing may be required.
Average daylight time to grow:
Trees - 96 hours
Wheat - 72 hours
Strawberry/Grape - 54 hours
Cotton/Apple/Orange - 48 hours

Therefore, you'll get this many harvests / year, disregarding labor times - which are substantial.
Trees - 4.95 (4)
Wheat - 6.60 (6)
Strawberry/Grape - 8.80 (8)
Cotton/Apple/Orange - 9.90 (9)

Each animal eats ~64 ± 6 food units/year (based on 100 ± 10 fitness).

To feed animals, you're need at least (very conservatively - assumes 0 stocked food and only gaining 1 of the respective feed / plot):

Yak/Alpaca - 64 / 6 = 10.7 wheat plots / animal

Less conservatively (Year 2+):
Yak/Alpaca - 64 / 6.60 = 9.7 wheat plots / animal

For emu's specifically, there is a significant chance to drop 2 seed when wheat/cotton/strawberry/grape plots are harvested. For Grapes, I've tested ~75%. This excess would be your feed (so that the the plots could get replanted).

(Assuming seeds drop at the same rate for all plants):
Emu - (64 / 6) * (4 / 3) = 14.2 wheat plots / animal OR
Emu - (64 / 8) * (4 / 3) = 10.7 strawberry/grape plots / animal OR
Emu - (64 / 9) * (4 / 3) = 9.5 cotton plots / animal
________________________________________________

A gnome goes from 100 Hunger to 0 Hunger in 3 days, looks for food at 75 Hunger and stops working at 50 Hunger. At 0 Hunger, the gnome dies. Thus 25 Hunger is about 18 hours of a gnome's life. Given that information, every food item effectively extends a gnome's life for a certain amount of time. All values calculated are from average quality; meat, mushrooms, fruits and eggs are always average quality. Quality directly impacts Hunger: Poor (x0.9), Average (x1), Fine (x2), Superior (x3), Masterful (x5), Legendary (x10). The Δ refers to the difference of a crafted item's Hunger from its component parts.

Time is derived from Hunger/25 * 18 hours.

Meat - 3.6 hours
Mushroom/Cheese - 7.2 hours
Fruit/Egg - 10.8 hours
Bread/Sausage - 14.4 hours (Sausage: Δ +10.8 hours)
Cheese Omelette - 18 hours (Δ +0 hours)
Mushroom Omelette - 25.2 hours (Δ +0 hours)
Sausage Omelette - 32.4 hours (Δ +0 hours)
Sandwich - 36 hours (Δ +10 hours)

A similar system works for Thirst, however it fully drains in 1.5 days and they start looking for drinks at 84 Thirst. Water and Milk are always of average quality. The Δ refers to the amount of Hunger hours (Hhours) that would have been otherwise sated by the ingredients.

Time is derived from Thirst/25 * 9 hours.

Water - 3.6 hours
Milk - 9 hours
Tea - 9 hours (Δ 7.2 Hhours)
Wine - 18 hours (Δ 10.8 Hhours)
Beer - 18 hours (Δ 14.4 Hhours)
Conclusions
Note : this uses old calculations and is inaccurate as a result.

For brevity, Hh refers to Hunger hours while Th refers to Thirst hours.

A max efficiency yak pasture (13 yaks, 1 male, 12 females), produces 1 yak per day and 48 milk per day (12 females * 8 milk / 2 days). You need ~147 wheat plots to feed them in the year (13*11.3), which also produce an average of ~20 grain per day.

1 yak -> 12 meat (43.2 Hh) -> 12 sausages (172.8 Hh)
48 milk (432 Th) OR -> 48 cheese (345.1 Hh)
20 grain -> 20 bread (288 Hh) OR 20 beer (360 Th)
12 sandwiches can be made for (Δ 120 Hh)

Resulting in (ideally, if nothing else is produced): 576 Hh + 576 Th
From: 12 sandwiches, 8 Beer, 28 Milk & 20 Cheese

Which can support 24 gnomes, limited to 18 by food units (1 gnome/sandwich & 1 gnome/3 cheese) should they get hunger at the same time - unlikely, but possible.

In addition, Wheat produces excess seeds which can feed Emus, which can provide more meat and eggs - that isn't included due to lack of information on seed spawning, emu birthrates and egg spawn times.
_______________________________________________________________________

Sausage Omelettes should never be made, as the sausage is better spent in a sandwich. If they must, only Cheese Omelettes should be made and only to reduce the amount of food in stock - mostly useful for preventing / reducing mants.

Likewise, it's better to make wine over beer - as you lose less Hunger hours from crafting it.

Mushrooms have no particular advantage, other than variety. All mushrooms should be made into tea.
Epilouge
This guide was made in good faith and I take no responsibility for less than ideal results. However, I will totally take credit for ideal ones. As stated before, the info in this guide will be updated when possible. Comments and/or suggestions are welcome.
17 Comments
rft50 8 Nov, 2015 @ 3:53pm 
You should revise this, gathering information from both the wiki, and the game code, in the form of the "Mod Files" file found in the Gnomoria directory. This should give you some significantly more precise values, which will ultimately help all of us.
Wraith_Magus 4 Jan, 2015 @ 4:28pm 
Yes, it was from the conclusions section. Incidentally, because emus only produce 6 eggs, you'd want 16 female emus, which means you'd want roughly 290 harvested tiles to feed them per year (barring buying seeds) but mushroom "seeds" count for them, as does cotton.

However, there is the fact that it's not really land that's most valuable, but labor. Not counting hauling, a yak sandwich is 7 labors. (8 with milking.) (2 for the wheat, 1 feeding yak, 1 butchering yak, 1 making bread, 1 sausage, 1 sandwich.) Relative growing times only matter for how much land needs to be dedicated, but isn't a serious constraint until you start having to seriously expand. It's just 2 labors (1 for orchards) either way. Even assuming we have a legendary cook, bread is almost as good as a sandwich by measure of satiation per labor. (Unless masterwork bonuses stack, or something...)
DarkRaven  [author] 4 Jan, 2015 @ 4:07pm 
If you mean in the conclusions section, that's just the optimal output from a max efficiency cattle pasture, with only -some- of the byproducts accounted for (not seeds/emus/eggs) and assuming you only have that cattle pasture. I am by no means saying that should be your only food production chain, as an orchard far surpasses that for Thirst and should be made. That summary would change with any other input (say an orchard or emus), it was more an example of how to calculate things (for myself mainly).
Wraith_Magus 4 Jan, 2015 @ 2:24pm 
Basically, if you add emus, you have more meat (and hence more of that wheat can go to sandwiches) plus milk gets turned into omelettes, so you need a different, dedicated drink supply, and fruit wine is the most efficient type of drink by far. (Two steps of labor, including brewing, compared to three, and 33% more land-efficient.)
Wraith_Magus 4 Jan, 2015 @ 2:19pm 
No, I mean fruits only being used for wine. You talk about using milk and beer for your drinks, and beer, definitely, is a waste, (because of taking two steps to grow, rather than one, plus needing 50% more land to grow upon,) and milk is probably the worst drink (since water, at least, has no labor cost). You're basically throwing excess wheatand all that milk into drink, instead of considering the efficiency of drink.

However, when you talk about Winter, I also have mushrooms growing specifically because my farmers have a whole season in which there's nothing better for them to spend time doing, so I tend to make those mushroom omelettes, as well, which are potent if made with high quality.
DarkRaven  [author] 4 Jan, 2015 @ 1:28pm 
Your cooks would need to be making more than 10 poor quality per fine to be worse than the assumed average and once they're making 3 poor breads per fine or 4 per superior, the life gained per time spent supasses that of fruit, not to even bring sandwiches into the discussion.

Basically, if you have a sandwich cycle going, fruit is an excellent 'back up' food stuff (for those poorly plan ... I mean long winters). However, the faster growing time is why I prefer wine over beer, which has the added bonus of seperating the crops for needs: Wheat for Hunger and Fruit for Thirst.

Semi-unrelated note: It's been a while since I've played, hence the version info in the title, so while the patch notes haven't indicated any changes, inaccuracies may have crept in. Also I am inately inaccurate, so there's that. =P
DarkRaven  [author] 4 Jan, 2015 @ 1:28pm 
I overlooked emus, mainly because I haven't done the complete research on seed spawns, emu birthrates and egg spawntimes and I did mention that the conclusions section. In short it's basically cheap 'life support' using the byproducts of the 'main' food production cycle.

Regarding fruit, the main reason I overlook it as a food source is purely quality and skill gain, or fruits' lack thereof. Fruit grow time is 2/3 of wheat and it is true that Fruit does give 3/4 the life of an average loaf of bread, giving a net gain of 12.5% of life gained per time spent for Fruit over bread, which makes Fruit an ideal initial food source when cooking skills are low.

However, the process of consuming bread, and later sandwiches (which are OP), increases skills and has the possibility of producing fine or greater breads - far outstipping the life gained for time spent.
Wraith_Magus 4 Jan, 2015 @ 10:21am 
*comment split due to character limits*

Likewise, while crops like wheat take a planting and a harvesting, once set up, orchard trees take only a harvesting (and harvest more frequently, requiring less land) plus they are more valuable as a drink than yak milk, and can include skill bonuses. Their high yield also means that orchards can be more compact, which can save on those horizontal tiles of movement that kill your efficiency. (Sprawling plots of wheat fields are both a wasted chance at making a more aesthetically interesting plot of surface land, and wind up wasting much of your gnome's time just walking to the far ends of your fields.)

Combined, you can add emus and a few orange/apple orchards and signfiicantly expand the number of gnomes you feed with only a marginal increase in land use and labor spent.
Wraith_Magus 4 Jan, 2015 @ 10:19am 
Thanks for the guide, I find these sorts of mathematical analysis extremely useful, as I otherwise have no idea how much land I need for food, and just overshoot wildly to be safe...

I should say, however, that you overlook the usefulness of orchard trees and omelettes. Emus cost basically nothing but time hauling seeds and eggs, and depending on how you build your pastures and kitchen, that may not be much labor at all. (I prefer to build a farm on top of my pastures.)

*splitting comment due to character limits*
Ralp 8 Dec, 2014 @ 10:53am 
I once wrote a thread on the official forums answering what takes to feed a gnome on sandwiches per game year, but yours seems much more detailed when it comes to farming math. Anyway mine is here: http://forums.gnomoria.com/index.php?topic=7466.msg56724