Farming in Elin is a key aspect of the game. It’s an essential way to boost your attributes, earn money, and create valuable equipment. Plus, you’ll need to craft travel rations to utilize the game’s fast travel system, which can save you a lot of time otherwise spent exploring.
This guide explains the mechanics of farming, including how fertility and crop levels work. You’ll learn how to grow crops during winter and where to find the exotic seeds necessary for cultivating stronger plants. With a solid grasp of crop rotations and proper nutrition, you’ll be better prepared to tackle dungeons and other challenges.
Understanding Fertility
A common mistake for beginners is misunderstanding the fertility system. Planting more crops than your land can support will cause them to wither and reduce your yield significantly.
You can check the soil fertility through a home board; if you’re exceeding the fertility limit, it will give you a warning. By middle-clicking the status bar, you can also display the current map’s fertility.
Fertility can be enhanced by land modifiers—like fertile terrain (which the starting meadow has)—and by improving soil quality. You can recruit farmers and gardeners or consult a policy book to level up your soil using gold.
A typical rookie mistake is planting excessive seeds. Seeds only deplete fertility once they take root, making it easy to oversaturate your fields. Always check your seeds’ fertility requirements or expand your farming areas gradually.
Most plants consume fertility, but wildflowers, trees, and weeds can limit your crop output. Clear out all wildplants from your base and implement the Weed Pulling policy at a home board to keep them from returning. You can also lay down flooring to reduce weeds further. Another strategy for improving fertility is purchasing more land.
- Expanding territory with your maid costs gold bars for additional farming space and fertility. However, you have to clear weeds and overgrowth on new land to ensure you don’t end up with less fertility than before.
- You can use land deeds and relocation deeds to acquire fertile forest and plains areas and then move them closer to your main base. Fertility is calculated by map, so having multiple farms can be less expensive than upgrading one to its maximum.
Obtaining Superior Seeds
You’ll start with a basic seed pack from Loytel, but they won’t last long. A sickle is indispensable for gathering seeds from already planted crops and wild plants you find.
Remember: you cannot collect seeds and food from the same plant, meaning you’ll need to set aside about half of your crops for replanting. Fruit trees don’t follow this limitation and will always yield fruit, lumber, and seeds.
Bringing your sickle while exploring makes it easier to gather common seeds. Starting meadows and nearby areas are full of flowers, Api nuts, and crim bushes. For more specialized seeds, you’ll need to venture further:
- Most standard crops can be obtained through harvest quests in nearby towns. You’ll incur a karma penalty for taking home crops from these quests, but not for seeds.
- Some seeds can be taken from crops in settlements, such as cotton from the Merchant’s Guild, wheat in Yowyn, and rice in Mifu Village.
- Kumiromi devotees can create seeds from spoiled food and by feeding fruit to their fairy companion, which is the only method to get rainbow fruit seeds besides pilfering them from other players’ homes.
- The Ecopo merchant in Yowyn offers upgraded seeds for Ecopo tickets, perfect for those wanting a specific strain.
Upgrading Your Seeds
The plants you grow at the start are the same as those available from vendors. With some investment in your farm, the crops you grow will surpass anything from high-level shops.
When you harvest seeds from a crop you planted, they will become upgraded, improving their attributes. The upgrade can enhance either one of the potential attributes or provide a bonus of rich collagen, which grants charisma experience. Characters lacking the gourmet feat won’t see the rich collagen bonus, meaning an upgraded seed without visible traits still carries this benefit.
Seeds only upgrade from crops you planted, so you won’t find enhanced seeds when harvesting in villages or moongates. After the first upgrade, subsequent levels will only boost existing benefits rather than adding new traits. To achieve diverse attributes in your harvest, you’ll need to plant various crops.
Interestingly, inedible plants are affected by seed levels as well. Upgrading trees results in better quality wood, allowing for higher sell prices and more traits.
The maximum seed level corresponds to your farming skill, but attribute bonuses max out at seven levels, meaning farming levels above 70 provide fewer benefits.
Tips for Faster Crop Growth
To expedite your farming, you can utilize fertilizer and watering, both of which can be combined for better results. Use a watering can daily for a growth speed boost. Setting up a water source near your farmland—like using a bottomless pot of water—can ease the process.
It’s noted that higher-quality materials yield watering cans with bigger capacities. You can also find ways to avoid watering altogether, which reduces management while sacrificing the experience:
- Plant wheat and rice in paddy fields for quicker growth, as if they were watered daily.
- The Ether Disease spell, living humidifier, increases rainfall, automatically watering your crops on rainy days.
Fertilizer, obtained from the compost bin, can also accelerate growth. Set the auto-dump settings to accept rotten food and discarded corpses, and you’ll have plenty of fertilizer.
Fertilizer is effective when applied once per plant, and it lasts throughout the plant’s life—ideal for fruit trees. However, none of these methods will instantly grow plants.
Crops grow according to in-game time, typically taking one or more weeks. To speed this along, consider these strategies:
- Sleeping hastens time but consumes stamina first. Crafting large item stacks can regenerate your stamina quickly.
- To pass time without boredom, undertake delivery and escort quests, especially if using fast travel.
Creating Irrigated Fields
You can create new water sources with a bottomless pot of water, which is essential for setting up paddy fields and allowing easy refills for your watering can. While this pot isn’t literally bottomless, it holds water blocks.
Here’s a quick guide to increasing its capacity:
- Typical bottomless pots can irrigate small farms.
- Ice Clay can be sourced in snowy biomes and offers a significant capacity increase.
- Though Rubynus and other precious materials can create pots holding over 200 blocks of water, acquiring the necessary materials involves a complex process.
If you’re serious about growing rice and wheat, follow this step-by-step form:
- Purchase a dye from the trader in Olvina made from diamonds or mithril.
- Convert that dye into carpet at a flooring workshop.
- Place down the carpet in a non-base map.
- Use the meteor spell to ignite the carpet.
- Dig up the ash to create soil from your chosen carpet material.
- Mix that special soil with clay to craft your water pot.
- Visit the coastline and fill the pot.
While convoluted, these crafting tricks can be useful down the line as updates may add more functions for advanced materials.
Utilizing Delegated Farming
Delegated farming is one of the basic civic policies to unlock and costs nothing, making it feasible to run constantly at every settlement. Here’s how it operates:
- Crops near a farming sign get automatically harvested, although this process is slower than manual harvesting.
- Seeds are replanted without drawing from your storage.
- Seeds can gain levels through delegated farming, but only one level at a time compared to the potential of manual harvesting.
- Crops of different strains next to each other will merge into the higher-level crop, which can help save inventory space but may inadvertently remove useful strains.
Best Crops to Grow
When deciding which crops to cultivate, consider the returns on attributes, growth rate, and fertility needs. For individual players, prioritizing benefits aligned with their playstyle is key.
Crop | Attributes | Extra Products | Usage |
---|---|---|---|
Rice and Wheat | Will, Perception, Learning Potential | Straw | Used to craft travel rations for fast travel. |
Mushrooms | Perception, Charisma | Rare mushroom variants | Grow quickly and can train cooking. Poison mushrooms can serve as bait. |
Palulu | Strength, Endurance | Big leaves, Palulu wood | Rare for boosting strength and endurance; the wood fetches a high price. |
Cherry Blossom | Price, Rest Quality | None | Best wood for furniture; no edible parts. |
Pasture | Strength, Endurance, Strength Potential | None | Inedible yet allows ranching for diverse food attributes. |
Flowers | Magic, Perception | Honey | Honeycomb aids in magic training and can be included multiple times in recipes. |
Corn | Endurance Potential, Charisma, Magic | None | Produces abundant yields, good for supporting more durable characters. |
Rainbow Fruit | Learning, Perception Potential, Charisma Potential | Bone Needles | Offers farming of rare learning attributes, consuming more fertility. |
Radish | Dexterity, Endurance Potential, Will Potential | None | Implies hidden benefits due to connections with moving foods. |
Cultivating During Winter
In winter, your fairy will notify you that the lack of sunlight hinders plant growth, but you don’t have to abandon your farming efforts. Here are winter options:
- Mushrooms don’t require light to grow and are accepted in vegetable dishes.
- Sun lamps, which can be crafted, provide light across a wide area without needing electricity.
Mushrooms can be grown in caves or tents that you can carry, allowing for a portable farming setup. To craft sun lamps, you’ll need a sun crystal, which can be mined or acquired through other means.
Electricity for the lamps can be generated via various methods, ensuring your winter farming efforts remain fruitful. Options include hiring residents with power generation skills, crafting the Wheel of Pain to generate power with a resident, or purchasing a generator.
By following these tips and techniques, you can establish a successful farming operation in Elin, regardless of the season!