Macrotastics Gardening Questions

[Magicmoon]

I just completed my first round of gardening from planting to harvest, using Macrotastics and the fantastic Garden Signs. The garden is outside, not in a greenhouse. (Not my first gardening attempt, just my first one that used Macrotastics from start to finish).

My setup was two 3x4 garden plots. Each plot was subdivided with Room Dividers to allow 3 squares of planting for each vegetable type with a square leftover for the Sign. Macrotastics had no difficulty ordering the Sims to do the initial planting.  At that time, my Sims could only plant strawberries and tomatoes, so I had all the signs set to either strawberries or tomatoes. After they learned how to do the other crops and had harvested the original plantings, I changed some of the signs to the new crops so that there were 3 squares available to each of the 6 crop types.

The time was mid-summer when the harvest was started. Even though they kept working on the garden until all of it was harvested, they never fertilized or replanted the empty spots.  I found out that I was out of compost, but had plenty of money to use store bought fertilizer.

After about 24 Sim hours, I got nervous and manually instructed a Sim to fertilize the plots.  I waited until the next morning, but still no planting, so I told them to plant manually. This second harvest was ready on the first day of Winter.  I started thinking, somewhere in the Maxis tips or something, I saw a blurb about some plants doing better when planted in different seasons and that I should experiment.

So did the Sims fail to replant because they were waiting for a specific season to plant where the plants would grow better?  Did I jump the gun by going in manually? Should I just wait until they plant on their own? Do they only plant one harvest's worth per year outdoors? Or did something else go wrong and I need to do something different?

The Sims that were doing the gardening had sufficient badges to plant all the plants on the signs, and had no difficulty when instructed to plant them manually.

A few more questions:

• What is the radiance of effectiveness for the ladybug houses? I know that with anti-lag I can have as many as I want, but how many are actually needed?
• Are garden sprinklers needed or recommended in conjunction with Macrotastics style gardening?
• Do grow lights do anything for orchard trees? Does keeping the 'sunlight' garden lamps on your plants at night help in any way other than providing light? When are grow lamps actually needed? Are they only useful for Plant Sims?
• Does the scarecrow do anything useful for your plants? I don't exactly have a problem with crows eating my crops.
• Does receiving a reward from the Garden Society do anything useful for your crops or Sims besides fulfilling that particular want if it is rolled?

[jsalemi]

A few more questions:

• What is the radiance of effectiveness for the ladybug houses? I know that with anti-lag I can have as many as I want, but how many are actually needed?
• Are garden sprinklers needed or recommended in conjunction with Macrotastics style gardening?
• Do grow lights do anything for orchard trees? Does keeping the 'sunlight' garden lamps on your plants at night help in any way other than providing light? When are grow lamps actually needed? Are they only useful for Plant Sims?
• Does the scarecrow do anything useful for your plants? I don't exactly have a problem with crows eating my crops.
• Does receiving a reward from the Garden Society do anything useful for your crops or Sims besides fulfilling that particular want if it is rolled?

1) I think it's 2 or 3 tiles in each direction around the ladybug house -- I usually put one between every two trees, and that seems ok.

2) Macrotastic's garden includes the sims watering the plants, so unless you have a really big garden with only one sim tending it, you probably don't need the sprinklers.

3) Grow lamps are for indoor gardening (and Plant Sims) -- you can have a garden in a 'sun room' with a regular roof, or on the first floor of a multi-story house, and the grow lamps will make sure the plants get enough light.

4) No, doesn't do anything for the plants, but have a sim go over and view it for a while -- it 'comes to life' and scares them.

5) Don't know.

[kuronue]

Joining the garden club gives you a discount on fertilizer/seeds.

[nataku]

What garden signs?

[J. M. Pescado]

So did the Sims fail to replant because they were waiting for a specific season to plant where the plants would grow better?  Did I jump the gun by going in manually? Should I just wait until they plant on their own? Do they only plant one harvest's worth per year outdoors? Or did something else go wrong and I need to do something different?

Macrotastics doesn't replant without the use of an unreleased accessory that is in the test directory, gpsign, which allows you to designate what fields are for what. While plants gain a minor bonus for being planted or harvested in a "correct" season, the benefit gained does not outweigh the drawbacks of simply not doing anything.

• What is the radiance of effectiveness for the ladybug houses? I know that with anti-lag I can have as many as I want, but how many are actually needed?

I'll dig up the numbers if I remember.

• Are garden sprinklers needed or recommended in conjunction with Macrotastics style gardening?

They are not necessary, but Macrotastics can detect when they exist and will not unnecessarily water if they do.

• Do grow lights do anything for orchard trees? Does keeping the 'sunlight' garden lamps on your plants at night help in any way other than providing light? When are grow lamps actually needed? Are they only useful for Plant Sims?

Plants need a "sun" source, either by being outside or in a greenhouse, or by having a sunlamp. Sunlamps do not provide any benefit over the above.

• Does the scarecrow do anything useful for your plants? I don't exactly have a problem with crows eating my crops.

It looks neat? There are no crows, so it has no physical effect.

[Emma]

Are you telling them to 'Be Farmer' magicmoon? That didn't ever work for me until I installed the gpsign. I dunno why it is in the test directory, it works great 

[Magicmoon]

Macrotastics doesn't replant without the use of an unreleased accessory that is in the test directory, gpsign, which allows you to designate what fields are for what.

That's just it. I installed the signs and asked questions in another thread so that I was using them correctly. I divided the plots up with room dividers so that each compartment had 3 squares for growing and one square for the sign. I set the crop on each sign so that I would have all 6 crops, and the planting Sims had appropriate badges to plant all the crops.

So why aren't they re-planting? They followed the signs to do the original plantings of strawberries and tomatoes. Am I using the wrong type of fencing?

Are you telling them to 'Be Farmer' magicmoon? That didn't ever work for me until I installed the gpsign. I dunno why it is in the test directory, it works great 

Sometimes I was using Business>be farmer, and other times I was using Macro>garden. Mostly I was macro-gardening because I wanted them to stay with the plants at that moment and not go off fishing or restocking when they got done.

I'll go back in and see if 'Be Farmer' works where gardening failed.

[Zazazu]

3) Grow lamps are for indoor gardening (and Plant Sims) -- you can have a garden in a 'sun room' with a regular roof, or on the first floor of a multi-story house, and the grow lamps will make sure the plants get enough light.

In case anyone hasn't see it, this garden plot mod at MTS2 by mike_1102 makes plots placeable pretty much everywhere. It works with Macrotastics-Garden as well. I've had plots on the second story of a house off the kitchen (the Tower of Doom, post-apoc house in Urban Paradise before Culinary and Business were unlocked), and I have one house with a roof-top garden using these. You don't actually have to get them from the buy catalog, using the normal build tool works.

Love the garden option. I never thought I'd use it, but I have a Servo commune on the old site of the Tower of Doom. It's a 3x3 lot consisting of two crop greenhouses, a fruit tree greenhouse, a pond, and a work shack. They craft and grow items for the whole 'hood during redevelopment. With Macrotastics and the cheaty "motiveDecay off", all I have to do is sit them in the sun every day and a half and just let them go. Actually, I have two on Be Farmer and one on Macro-garden as needed.

[Emma]

Ohh! I always wanted my sims to have a roof garden, thanks Zaza

[Kittylynn]

Those garden signs sound interesting, where can I find them?

[cassblonde]

I found it Kitty;  here is the test section

Cass 

[Kittylynn]

Thanks!

[Emma]

magicmoon, I realised last night that when the crops need planting again I manually instruct my sims to do so by clicking on the sign and selecting 'plant crops' I don't think Macrotastics has ever allowed for the autonomous planting of fresh crops through macro>garden or Be Farmer. That's all you have to do for replanting, they will fertilise, plant and water with that one command from the sign.

[witch]

My sims automatically plant under Be Farmer, not sure about macro-gardening, haven't used that for a wee while. My sims must be smarter than your sims.

[Emma]

Oh, scratch that then

Do they have their gold badges? Mine don't. New 'hood y'see.

[witch]

You're right, my actual employees only started planting what they could according badge level I think - my playables were plantsims as they're the town greengrocers.

[J. M. Pescado]

Love the garden option. I never thought I'd use it, but I have a Servo commune on the old site of the Tower of Doom. It's a 3x3 lot consisting of two crop greenhouses, a fruit tree greenhouse, a pond, and a work shack. They craft and grow items for the whole 'hood during redevelopment. With Macrotastics and the cheaty "motiveDecay off", all I have to do is sit them in the sun every day and a half and just let them go. Actually, I have two on Be Farmer and one on Macro-garden as needed.

You don't need to be lame. They'll keep going even with motive decay, as the entire point of Macros is to handle motive maintenance without micromanaging it.

[Magicmoon]

My Sims automatically plant under Be Farmer, not sure about macro-gardening, haven't used that for a wee while. My Sims must be smarter than your Sims.

I had some success with the Farmer option. The gold badge Sim planted half the crops autonomously. He left the tomatoes undone for some reason though.

magicmoon, I realized last night that when the crops need planting again I manually instruct my Sims to do so by clicking on the sign and selecting 'plant crops' I don't think Macrotastics has ever allowed for the autonomous planting of fresh crops through macro>garden or Be Farmer. That's all you have to do for replanting, they will fertilise, plant and water with that one command from the sign.

I just discovered this last night. I didn't realize that the options on the signs ever changed.

But I was fertilizing them the Maxis way, then clicking 'plant crops'. I should have known that it would have been included.

Thanks everyone. I've got them planting now.

[Emma]

Thanks everyone. I've got them planting now.

Oh good! You watch, my game will break next

[Magicmoon]

I thought adults and elders weren't supposed to spray because of the danger of plantsimism. So now why has this adult suddenly taken to spraying now that she is working towards her gold badge? She didn't spray before, and her husband made it to gold badge without ever spraying, and he still doesn't spray. I took this photo the 3rd time I witnessed her spraying. The first two times I kept telling myself that I must have accidently told her to do it instead of the kids. I had her on Macro>Garden.

[J. M. Pescado]

Newversioned.