[Development] The Day Major Fantozzi went Farming

[Fantozzi 4,068]

To avoid the 'show us thread ...' to be abused as a development thread I open this one instead. Seems on this project there is a need for this - as I have to learn and the project seems to become a bigger task to me.

@rsc204 said:

"In this case, they are growable, which is clear if you've read the development thread. As for SPAM ready, I'm not sure anyone brought that up, although it would be nice *hint*"
 

Nope, sorry. These are my plans and it's still a long journey:

1. Non-overriding for triple choice: use Maxis-blocker or FrankU's Maxis replacers or (if you think so) Maxis alongside. In fact, many dependencies I will share with FrankU's farms and I try not to repeat what he already did but to complement his work as good as possible (he sems to like flower fields, I think, so me: less flowers fields etc.).

2. Big set with all CAM stages 1- 7 well covered (-> no SPAM). Advantage: I plan to pack grow stage 1- 3 and 4-7 separate - so you can use a part of the set (1-3) also if you haven't CAM.

3. Changing farm style and field style with growing stage completely. What you see in the posted picture - the south european, mediterranian style will only be stage 1 and 2. Slowly changing to more 'north american/central european' bigger farms and finally on grow stage 6 and 7 to really ugly heavy industrialized mass production.

4. But also - and that's the point why I got into it - having the farm field accordingly to the farms. So the vineyards and lovely things on the earlier grow stages (with the mediterranian style) but to have also farm fields looking like industrial mass production on the highest stages. I want to achieve the same significant visual change as for the cities also for the farms. Idears how the highly industrialized farm fields could look like are welcome. Me thinking about how I can make 'farm fields' not really fields but also some kind of modular industrial life stock farming rows. And well, I got the inspiration by @OcramsRzr , who made me thinking about how different farming looks like around the world. So maybe, if I find suitable stuff - I will do some kind of vertical farming etc. on the highest CAM stages too. But that are all thoughts, idears, so far.

5. If I'm right - there are CAM farms, but no one thought of a concept to use the possibilities of the CAM to redo the farm development through all the 7 stages  before.

6. And yes, there will be a hell of dependencies. If I'm lotting, I do it to see all the nice stuff other people created on my lots. Girafe made some nice vines and from the SFBT team there are too nice vines (which I turned into timed props). So two different vineyards -> two different dependencies (and only for those!).

7. I also create and redo timed props partially. I don't want to change the farm fields altogether at March 1. Some change later, some change earlier - so I hope the fields become more natural in the seasonal changing and not like triggered by a fertility goddess that snips with her fingers and -bam! - everything is green.

So all in all - I see a terrible amount of work. And that's why I was disappointed when for almost a week nothing advanced and nothing seemed to work and why I was so glad when you helped me to proceed again.

As I just started this project - any idears on farming are welcome. Even idears like: I wish there was a cannabis farm (but I think there already is). Or stuff you would like to see on farm lots etc.

 

 

[nos.17 5,256]

9 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

2. Big set with all CAM stages 1- 7 well covered (-> no SPAM). Advantage: I plan to pack grow stage 1- 3 and 4-7 separate - so you can use a part of the set (1-3) also if you haven't CAM.

 

Would it be too difficult to package stages 1-3, 4-5, and 6-7 together? That way, SPAM users could at least get some value out of it?

 

Overall, I'm really excited to see what comes of this. Farms have been quite often left behind custom content-wise. Sure, there have been many custom I-A creations, but compared to R, C, and I-M + I-HT....

[Ocram's Razr 964]

https://www.sc4devotion.com/forums/index.php?topic=17303.20

 

There are now 10 farming stages. I suggest you release packs for stages 1-3, 4-5, 6-7, and 8-10. I can even help with some greenhouses and lumber mills.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

5 hours ago, OcramsRzr said:

There are now 10 farming stages. I suggest you release packs for stages 1-3, 4-5, 6-7, and 8-10. I can even help with some greenhouses and lumber mills.

I missed that. Shocking! I calculated with 10 - 15 lots for every stage, fewer on the higher stages. This means 100 - 150 lots ... phew. So I think I pack 1-3, 4-5 and 6-10? The manual of CAM 2.1 isn't clear at that point, if both options 'standard' and 'extended' have I-R stage 1-10. The manual says 'standard' is the same as CAM 1.0. So standard should be only 1-7?

How can I check this?

 

There are greenhouses for the fields in FrankU's Dutch Farming. I hope I can realize such thinks like this (for tomatoes):

 

But I'll need 1x1 modular barns/industrial segments to make also this (not glass, roof covered):

 

 

But maybe - stage 9 and 10 could be used to something still different - to do some futuristic farming? But I have no idear how to realize that on farm lots limited to 1x1 tile size.

 

Thanks for the link, very usefull.

 

[raynev1 1,887]

      Since I use SPAM , the CAM part is out of the question . But you seem to be focusing on users of both . I am indeed interested to see what you come up with . Maybe some animal farms could be something to consider ? Good luck and have fun at it . 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

On 14.3.2017 at 6:46 AM, raynev1 said:

Maybe some animal farms could be something to consider ?

Hm ... yes. Why not. But I have to think how to work with seasonal cows. Do yo have special props in mind?

EDIT: On a second thought, I would have to make prop families, I think. Never did this before. Don't have IDs for families, only for textures. Perhaps someone can give me a couple of IDs to play around with? It seems oversized to ask for a range just for a handfull of families.

EDIT 2: Or maybe someone could do some animal prop families for me? Or maybe there are already some? Any kind of support on this part would be very helpfull ...

 

 

From left to right: Tomatoes (new props), Cypress (Cycledogg + new prop), Leek (new props), Arugola (new props), Apples. Farm lots unfinished. Click to enlarge.

 

On 14.3.2017 at 6:46 AM, raynev1 said:

Since I use SPAM , the CAM part is out of the question

As I plan to have not on all the stages the same farm fields - to have also on the fields a visual effect of industrialization - you won't see some fields exclusively for stage 6 to 10. Well, those will be the nasty ones. But so far I didn't have much success creating them.

[T Wrecks 10,210]

Actually you can also use so-called ad-hoc prop families.

As you probably know, real prop family needs a unique IID, and all props to belong to that family need the property "Building/prop family" with a REP of 1 and the unique IID of the family. The disadvantage is that you need some unique IIDs, and the advantage is that you can use this prop family repeatedly and conveniently in future.

For a more one-off approach, you can also make an ad-hoc prop family as follows:

• Note the IIDs of the props you want to appear randomly (your "family") and choose one prop IID that you will use to locate the correct line in the LotConfigExemplar
• [Pro tip: Design the lot, and add the "marker prop" for your family-to-be last => it will be the last line in the LotConfigExemplar!]
• Edit the line of the "marker prop" (if you followed the pro tip, this is always the last line!) in the LotConfigExemplar in iLive's Reader by adding the IIDs of the other props in hexadecimal form (e.g. ,0x12345678, 0x21345678,0x3125678...)
• Apply the change and note that the REP value for that line has increased from the default value, 13, to a higher number (depending on how many props you added)
• The lot will now select one of the props assigned to the edited line randomly - just like with any normal prop family

Advantage of this method: no IID range needed, no assignment of props to families, absolute flexibility
Disadvantage of this method: clumsy for repetitive use, not a single item that you select from a list

Advanced tips:

• These ad-hoc prop families can be copied in the LE! Copying the prop to which the other props were added ("Duplicate selected") will also copy the other props.
• By adding the IID of prop A several times and the ID of prop B only once, you can make one prop (prop A in this example) much more likely to appear than another (prop B)
• If you know you'll be using a set of ad-hoc prop families for a series of lots, you can make yourself a lot template. This template will be an empty lot that contains all the ad-hoc prop families you'll be using. When you start editing, you load the template first, select "Save As...", choose the correct name, and then you can copy and move around all the ad-hoc prop families you'll need and edit the rest of the lot.
  (I did that sometimes with trucks and trailers for some IRM lots because I wanted to bundle several props from different packages and have them appear only with a certain probability)

This being said, IIDs are plenty, and you can request a small range from @catty-cb, I believe. I'd gladly give you a handful from my range, but Catty informed me that she prefers to track which IIDs were assigned to which content creator. If we wildly exchange IIDs among us, there will eventually be no way of telling to whom an IID actually belongs.

All this being said, I applaud you for your effort and for venturing into the farming sector, which hasn't been catered for very much recently. All the lots and crop props you've shown so far are looking very good, too.

One suggestion: Personally, I hate it when every little farm field has a building on it. In reality, you'll have lots and lots of fields, and only few barns and silos here and there, with farms somewhere between the fields. Therefore, I have made a series of farm lots for myself that look exactly like the surrounding fields. They'll work normally, but the filed will look like a simple, empty field - just the rows of crops (and the chirping of crickets). Maybe, if you like this idea, you could offer such simple lots as well. This way, people could choose whether they always want farm buildings (simply delete the "empty" lot) or whether they would like a mix. Radical control freaks like me might even make a growth blocker for the lots with buildings, leave only the "empty" lots to grow, and occasionally plop a lot with building using the Extra Cheats DLL.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Ad-hoc propds families. Ad-hoc prop families? This community is absolutely crazy. Is there something

you can't pull like a rabbit out of the hat?

Jokes apart -

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

Design the lot, and add the "marker prop" for your family-to-be last => it will be the last line in the LotConfigExemplar

this I didn't understand. What does the term 'marker prop' mean? I must confess - I even don't know how to put a 'family' on a lot. It's the first time I think about these things, please excuse.

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

Disadvantage of this method: clumsy for repetitive use

And this I understand neither. It's because I always have to edit the lot exemplar on - it's a family that exists 'only dependend on the lot - so you have to redo the familiy for every lot?

But maybe I have to read through your post several times and do some practice - normally things become clearer. Many thanks for showing this interesting perspecitve.

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

I'd gladly give you a handful from my range, but Catty informed me that she prefers to track which IIDs were assigned to which content creator.

Wait ... she?

Now I have to go through my posts and see the dozens of times I failed shamefully.. This was the point in your post my head turned deep red.

 

1 hour ago, T Wrecks said:

Maybe, if you like this idea, you could offer such simple lots as well.

Hm. Initially I just wanted to have some different looking farm lots. I was tired of the farms always looking the same on each stage. From there I came to need of doing some additional farm fields to reflect grow stages also with different looking fields . Now you want to trick me into having my farm lots looking like the fields. And I even imagined on CAM level 9 and 10 the fields looking like the lots () - some industrial zone - not really crops but some kind of 'food factories' in a row. But yes - maybe I consider this on the earlier grow stages - where things should look 'natural'. There is this little 'hut' in the 'SFBT Weinberge' - I must confess this looks really nice, this little 1x1 hut surounded by vineyards. But on the high grow stages - I'm still searchig for a way to make the fields looking more like engineering plants. Like: romanticism is gone now.

[raynev1 1,887]

      Hey , those field lots look great . Previously I was just throwing out an idea , I have very minimal modding abilities . In fact , I'm still learning how to use the Lot Editor . And after reading TWrecks post above , it was like a language I just can't quite understand . I have to give it to you guys that create the custom content that you do . 

      

5 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

But I have to think how to work with seasonal cows.

      Yeah , haha . But another thought had come to me . So I had to write this down , because it may be a good idea . What about some kind of diagonal farm fields ? Would that be possible ? And I love what TWrecks mentioned .

 

3 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

In reality, you'll have lots and lots of fields, and only few barns and silos here and there, with farms somewhere between the fields.

      You are so correct , I've seen hundreds of acres of farms with only a few buildings every here and there . And only divided by fence/walls , streams or small patches of woods . So a farm field with no visual building would be cool with me . 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

15 minutes ago, raynev1 said:

I've seen hundreds of acres of farms with only a few buildings every here and there

Guys, really  - you are too romantic about farming.

You see this:

 

Me, I see that:

 

I won't do farms looking like national parks. If I was skilled enough I would even do a 'Drunken-Gerard-Depardieu-Laying-In-The-Gras-Prop' to put in on the vineyards.

 

(Just kidding)

 

But I'm open and willing to a discussion - what is realism for farms/farm lots.

 

[rivit 3,402]

someone - please make that prop

[rsc204 21,866]

5 hours ago, T Wrecks said:

This being said, IIDs are plenty, and you can request a small range from @catty-cb, I believe. I'd gladly give you a handful from my range, but Catty informed me that she prefers to track which IIDs were assigned to which content creator. If we wildly exchange IIDs among us, there will eventually be no way of telling to whom an IID actually belongs.

Actually, you'll need to ask me now, since Catty is no longer handling them.

As for re-assigning IDs to others, I don't personally see a problem with it? In such a scenario, the IDs wouldn't be officially re-assigned, they would remain assigned to the user that originally requested them. But if a modder passes some of their IDs for others who need a small amount, you must ensure you don't accidentally re-use them.

My first thought here was I'd rather give you a couple from my personal range to mess with than assign yet another range that potentially never gets used. It's less wasteful in the long-run, even if there are plenty of IDs. The list of users that were given large ranges and never released a single family is way too high.

Ad-Hoc families are very useful too.

3 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

this I didn't understand. What does the term 'marker prop' mean? I must confess - I even don't know how to put a 'family' on a lot. It's the first time I think about these things, please excuse.

All the lines in Reader of the LotConfig exemplar, most of them are a Hex representation of the work done in the Lot Editor. All TWrecks is saying, is to make this prop the last one in the list, so it's easier to find later.

3 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

And this I understand neither. It's because I always have to edit the lot exemplar on - it's a family that exists 'only dependend on the lot - so you have to redo the familiy for every lot?

Simply put, use of an ad-hoc family is great when you only plan to use the family a couple times. But, when you want a family you may reuse a lot, a proper prop family makes more sense. Once again, I think the missing link here is understanding the LotConfig exemplar, specifically the LotConfigPropertyLotObject lines...

So here is a typical Lot. Grouped by the Red Rectangle are all the "objects", i.e. Textures, Props etc on your lot. All the LE does is add a line for each object, then in Hex, is a bunch of code (or Reps) to tell the game how to put together your lot. Rep1 (Green Rectangle) tells the game what type of object something is:

• 0x00000000 = Building
• 0x00000001 = Props
• 0x00000002 = Texture

There are others, but these three are most common. The other 12 Reps determine things like it's position on the grid, rotation and other details that are important. A full breakdown of these can be found here.

Rep 13, or the final rep, that's the Instance ID of the object. In the case of textures, it will be the Instance ID of them. In the case of the building, it will be the Instance ID of the buildings exemplar this lot is linked too. For props, it's the Instance ID of the Prop Exemplar for the prop to display.

So once you have decided which prop to make your ad-hoc family, make it the last item you add onto the lot. That way, it will appear last in this list, so it's easy to find. The list is ordered in the order the items are placed. Double click the line to make into a family, then add new "reps". Each new Rep or Prop IID you add, will be part of the family. (Yellow Rectangle).

For making actual new prop families, see here. If you want a couple IDs to play with, I'll happily PM you some you can use.

[matias93 7,535]

2 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

But I'm open and willing to a discussion - what is realism for farms/farm lots.

Maybe is just because I live on a small, hilly and not-industrial country, but my image of farming is the sorroundings of San Clemente, were my great-grand parents were inquilinos, labouring very small plots of land with highly diverse crops. Nowadays inquilinaje doesn't exist, big rural properties were redistributed and once again concentrated, but the small plots remain around the small towns, with their owners still cultivating some produce for subsistence and small commerce.

Yes, there is the occassional greenhouse or even hydroponics when somebody gets a subsidy from the government, but you can go all over the satellite photos and the image is basically what you are planning to do for the very first stages: big factories are almost absent; here I found one, and is not even close to the density-intensive standards used in other countries, most of the place is virtually empty!

In fact, the only fields here that are authentically extensive are vineyards, and even then they keep different varieties separated, to avoid the contagion of their multiple plagues between them.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

So far I found this one - which - by desccription - are already grouped into families: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1667

Then in the SPAM ressource pack are some nice lifestock. So only for these - to realize one or two grazing fields - maybe @T Wrecksproposal of 'ad hoc families' is the apropriate way ...

 

...if I manage to understand how they work.

[CT14 2,486]

Looking great! Don't forget Diagonal Farm Crop Fillers a la SPAM. I often bulldoze farms which grow on a diagonal and don't match one of those fillers.

 

[MeMyself&I 379]

4 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

If I was skilled enough I would even do a 'Drunken-Gerard-Depardieu-Laying-In-The-Gras-Prop' to put in on the

Now I have to watch "Man in the Iron Mask" again!  Thanks for that! 

4 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

But I'm open and willing to a discussion - what is realism for farms/farm lots.

I grew up working a dairy farm here in Upstate NY and I've always lived around farms.  Lots of them around here.  I agree with @raynev1 that animal farms, particularly dairy farms, would be a very welcome addition.  As far as realistic props in farm fields;  very common to see pieces of equipment or farm implements sitting in a field, such as; combines, hay balers and wagons, tractors and plows, dilapidated silos or bare foundations of them, grain sheds or small water structures (towers, pumps, towable irrigation pipes and sprayers, corn bins) in place of structures.  Access roads are simply a must.  Small dirt tracts winding through and around crops so farmers can move equipment through fields.  Some animals like deer, rabbits, raccoons, and birds are typical as well as scattered trees, haystacks and bales, scarecrows of all sorts and, of course, lots of different types of fences.  Prop families of some of these in place of buildings would definitely be more realistic in random fields as opposed to actual buildings.  Houses, barns, silos and other large structures are typically close to each other - within walking distance, usually - and always with road access for trucks. 

Most of the wineries here around the Finger Lakes region tend to have nicer houses with small farm stores or even cafes to serve their wines with light fare on main road access.  They typically have smaller barns without silos (no animals so no need for grain or feed to store), extensive fields of grapevines with little clutter other than lots of irrigation equipment and always have ponds, streams, or small lakes either on or bordering on the fields.  Lots of waterfowl on wineries too because of this.  Not much in the way of equipment other than trucks, usually with large tires for muddy terrain.  We're talking about American farms here, of course, so I'm not familiar with European farming but I can't imagine it's a whole lot different other than probably much larger fields, generally speaking and, mixed commodities as opposed to being just a dairy farm, for example.  Dairy and swine farms tend to grow lots of corn, mostly to feed the animals as opposed to selling the crop so you almost always see at least cornfields on animal farms.

I don't know if any of this helps or not but I think you could definitely make some very realistic prop families of some of these things to use on farm lots.  I use Jestarr's excellent animal MMPs that you linked to in the above post on my farms and they're very realistic both in looks and scale.  Best cows and pigs I've seen but, it would be great to see some lots with them there already because they don't always plop where you want them to.  It would be nice to see more variety of animal MMPs and not just for farming either.  For the life of me I can't find any dogs or cats anywhere!  What's a farm without dogs and cats to keep the vermin and predators away?  I really like what you've done here and what you're doing going forward.  I love farms and have them on some scale in almost all of my city tiles.  Sorry if this was too much.  Thanks for doing this!

[catty-cb 4,412]

11 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

....Wait ... she?

Now I have to go through my posts and see the dozens of times I failed shamefully.. This was the point in your post my head turned deep red. ....

Never noticed  in real life its cathy

And I see @rsc204 has let you know he's responsible for the prop family ranges now so that's great 

[Fantozzi 4,068]

 

@T Wrecks: after 12 hours and the posts of @matias93 and @MeMyself&I I see things different then I said first. On the higher stages, when farms are more industrial and even need bigger lots you would have less and concentrated plants covering a quite big area of farming. So you wouldn't do 'fields only farms' on the early stages but in contrary on the higher stages. So this is even a very good idear to realize the higher grow stages - only few high tech facilities and many 'fields only'.

18 hours ago, CT14 said:

Don't forget Diagonal Farm Crop Fillers a la SPAM.

Most probably I won't do them. Or later. I will have to do minimum 100 lots. I know my behavior on this - if a project becomes to complex I loose interest on half of the way. So I have to concentrate a little bit on those things that are fun to me or are interesting (to my personal taste). Me, personally, made peace with some of the games restrictions at a certain point. I rarely do diagonal streets, my cities are very rectangular, I don't think, I have any diagonal buildings  in my plugin folder. So most propably I won't support diagonal farms - and please, I know it's something selfish, but I have to limit work to an amount, I know I'm able to complete it in a certain amount of time. As I'm like a butterfly - if it takes too long to complete the task, I may loose interest. I have still so many other idears I'd like to do for sc4. And I didn't play for quite a while now only lotted. But my dream is one day to be finished and then making a CJ about the real Major Fantozzi. The one, that inspired my avatars name.

 

18 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

Most of the wineries here around the Finger Lakes region tend to have nicer houses with small farm stores or even cafes to serve their wines with light fare on main road access. 

For shure I will do a 'chateau' like you see it often on french wine bottles. I found the perfect building for that in the same NAMS bat pack I used already for the mediterranian farms.

 

 

 

18 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

extensive fields of grapevines with little clutter other than lots of irrigation equipment

Great idear. Made me think if/how I could use these props on the fields:

But another dependency just for a few fields? But still thinking, they probably could look great an the fields...

[Fantozzi 4,068]

13 hours ago, MeMyself&I said:

Small dirt tracts winding through and around crops so farmers can move equipment through fields.

That's why I think @T Wrecks proposal of 'field only farms' might be pretty nice. Two possibilites I can see arising from doing so - you can make some ploppable dirt track elements to put it in between the fields (and to put farm MMPs on it - I think for SimGoobers farm stuff there are already MMP done?) or you simply realize them with SAM roads.

I would go for the second, as I won't have any further work with it.

[matias93 7,535]

For the buildings, maybe you can reuse some of the literally thousands of models by CP, he's now back at work so much more are incoming! Their main advantage are his multiple renders for different climatic styles (i.e. stucco, brick and panelled wood).

Also, for irrigation, entubed aqueducts are very unusual, in everything but the most industrialized sites; most other places just dig a trench and run water through it. Indeed, Simgoober did some of those irrigation channels (two versions), so that's an option

[T Wrecks 10,210]

I like your idea of having smaller farms with buildings and bigger, more industrialised farms with fewer, but larger buildings - makes sense in a way. It would represent the transition from subsistence farming to agricultural industry.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Tried to create a chicken shack row field for the higher grow stages - but they look inapropriate ony slopes.

 

 

[matias93 7,535]

But not so inapropiate, mind you... getting rid of the foundations, the sloped props look almost coherent, even more if the slope is transversal to the rows instead of longitudinal to them.

[MeMyself&I 379]

7 hours ago, matias93 said:

Also, for irrigation, entubed aqueducts are very unusual, in everything but the most industrialized sites; most other places just dig a trench and run water through it.

Solely bordered or entrenched irrigation systems on farms are indeed common but only if they're on relatively flat land.  Anything over a 2% grade renders them all but useless as a stand alone irrigation system.  Many farms, including the Finger Lake wineries here in Upstate NY, use some trenches to catch overflow and channel it to a pond or lake where it's filtered slightly for salt and metals and then pumped back uphill to be used again with it's nutrient and bacteria rich water.  Overhead sprinklers or drip lines are much more efficient for two reasons;  1) they water directly and quickly on the crops making them grow a good canopy faster which is crucial in NY where the seasons change dramatically and quickly unlike say, California, where there is almost zero chance of frost or deep freeze the majority of the year and, 2) most of the fields are planted on hilly terrain so ground water tends to not soak into the roots as quickly from ditches because it's moving downhill.  Watering from the top gives crops more time to soak water before it runs downhill as opposed to flat farmland where ditches can hold water and the crops soak from the roots up more efficiently.  Either way is fine in game though as both systems are definitely commonly used depending on the region.  The overhead irrigation systems would be more eye candy for sure but might also be harder to make.  I'm not sure about that but I'm no modder either.  You guys would know the work load much better than I would.

48 minutes ago, Fantozzi said:

Tried to create a chicken shack row field for the higher grow stages - but they look inapropriate ony slopes.

33 minutes ago, matias93 said:

But not so inapropiate, mind you... getting rid of the foundations, the sloped props look almost coherent, even more if the slope is transversal to the rows instead of longitudinal to them.

Agreed.  I've never seen poultry farms where the houses are perfectly aligned anyway.  Usually haphazard and uneven, especially on sloped terrain and especially when there are a bunch of separate structures as opposed to several bigger or one large one.  Perfection and symmetry in chicken coops isn't usually a priority.  They do need to be level though and normally have to be off the ground considerably because the birds need dry dirt to avoid mold and mildew in the straw so you normally step up into a poultry hut, but @matias93 suggestion for eliminating the foundations probably would do the trick for aligning them better to look more aesthetically pleasing, looking at the photo that was posted. I think they look really good!   I also love the SAM rural streets for agricultural lots.

[Ocram's Razr 964]

Stages 8-10 could include buildings like Peg's Skyfarms (surrounded possibly with wheat since skyfarms are less useful for grains) and Japanese Integraculture—they are usually classified as I-HT despite being giant vertical farms.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Field Lots, part 2:

 

From left to right: Tobacco (new props), Wheat (props Cycledog), Cabernet Blanc (props by Girafe), Greenhouse Rows (prop by Pegasus)

[Fantozzi 4,068]

Someone should do a set of MMP fences now ...

Got a family Id-range and new skills (thanks to T Wrecks and rsc204) and with some experimenting with timed props and prop families I achieved an 'almost' non repeating cattle range (props by Vnaoened).

[rsc204 21,866]

I'd say there's a few too many cattle in there, you want to mix it up by lowering the odds of a cow appearing. Either done by converting the props to RTK4 and using the Prop Random Chance property. Or more easily, make some prop exemplars (Props) using the blank model in PIM-X. Add those to the family and it should help stop the cows from taking over.

MMP Fencing exists for RRP's fences, made be dedgren. Otherwise if you had a set in mind I could whip them into an MMP for you.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

I'd say there's a few too many cattle in there, you want to mix it up by lowering the odds of a cow appearing.

Thanks - that gave me the idear to do two different fields. One with sparse or less cows for the lower grow stages and this one for the high grow stages. Yes?

5 hours ago, rsc204 said:

MMP Fencing exists for RRP's fences, made be dedgren. Otherwise if you had a set in mind I could whip them into an MMP for you.

Nice finding this thread, didn't see it before. Well then, there is no actual need. The only thing one could consider to use a more common (broader) dependency, like CP - vol01 f.e., and make a set of different (coloured) fences. But I guess - seeing your releases - you have other great stuff to do, so I wouldn't claim that you spend time on that.

[Fantozzi 4,068]

 

From left to right: rapeseed (new props), Greenhouse Herbs (props Nexis/Simgoober), Cows sparse (props Vnaoned), Cows dense (props Vnaoned), Cows ultra (Vnaoned/new)