Icarus Week Eighty Eight Update | Crop Plots and farming have been revamped

Week Eighty Eight is here and with the New Frontiers expansion only two weeks away we have a lot to talk about.

The feature of the week is the revamped farming system, following on from our community discussion a couple of weeks ago. This changes how you interact with crop plots, introduces a more robust early-game farming system and adds five new items to support these changes.

We’re also calling for feedback on a proposed ‘arachnophobia mode’, so if you are someone who suffers from this (or know someone who does), we want to hear your thoughts on our proposed ideas in the comments.

Finally, if you haven’t already heard, ‘The Seeker’ - the newest installment in our live action documentary series - premieres this weekend on YouTube so go sign up today.

Video Premiere: The Seeker

'The Seeker' is our newest chapter in the Icarus documentary series, and it premieres this Saturday August 12th at 6pm EDT. Come join us by signing up below.

Core Farming Changes

A few weeks back we asked for feedback on some proposed changes to the farming system, and this week we’re implementing them with some adjustments made.

The most impactful change is how players interact with crop plots, which previously had their own UI, but now are interacted with in-world just as you would any flora found in the ground.

This means that crops can now be harvested by sickle as well as by hand, allowing you to gain the boost provided when using this tool.

This new system requires the new ‘Seed’ item we’ve created for each plant which acts like a deployable item. You can place these into crop plots from your hotbar, along with fertilizer which can be applied the same way. Crop plots can still be watered as they were before, so this process hasn’t changed.

Farming Talents are also now applied at a different step in the process, no longer when crafting a crop plot but rather when you place a seed in your crop plot. Crop plots now also auto-reseed, allowing you to plant a seed once and then reap the harvest when it is fully grown, while not interrupting the growth cycle.

Existing Crop Plots will be converted to the new system, and will be seeded with anything that was growing. Power and Water connections will need to be reconnected. If you have farming talents you will want to reseed these to get the bonuses as talents no longer craft alterations on to the crop plot BUT instead apply when a farmer plants a seed. Any inventory items inside will be placed in bag on top of the crop plot to be retrieved.

New Farming Items

These farming changes come with a bunch of items to support the improved system.

Seeds - one for each of the different plant types which can be gathered when harvesting resources. The chance of these being gathered is improved when using a sickle.

Watering Can (T2) - This can be used to water multiple crop plots at the same time.

Stone Shovel (T1) - Shovels can be used on grass/dirt/mud to spawn a dirt mound. Dirt mounds are the T1 crop plot alternative so you can get into farming straight away (this also means you can put plants almost anywhere).

Metal Shovel (T2) - It's behavior has been adjusted so it can be used to spawn dirt mounds.

Aeroponic Crop Plot (Workshop) - This is a workshop version of the crop plot with extra farming bonuses.

Early Game Farming

Dirt Mounds are a new addition to the farming system which introduces a simple version to the early game, rather than requiring players to wait until Tier 2 to access crop plots.

These can be created using either the Stone Shovel at Tier 1 or Metal Shovel at Tier 2, and allow you to plant seeds directly into the ground.

Because the soil you’re planting into is ‘infertile soil’, this does reduce crop growth speeds by 50%, but it provides a valuable option for generating food early in the game or for decorating.

All farming talents are applied to Dirt Mounds just as they are crop plots, as the change to when talents are applied allows seeds being planted in Dirt Mounds to receive the same perks.

The most noticeable difference is these will not reseed such as crop plots will, and when harvested, will need to be re-dug to be planted again.

New Seed Recipes

With the new seeds, come new recipes.

We have five new food items you can create, three for consumption, one for animals, and one as a resource for other recipes.

Berry Bar - Craftable on character and requires any combination of seeds and berries. Long-lasting stamina based food modifier

Crackers - Stamina Based buff with ‘Tool-use’ stamina impact reduction

Seed Bread - Stamina Based buff with ‘Tool-use’ stamina impact reduction

Animal Feed - When fed to animals, this increases animal stamina and stamina recovery

Seed Oil - An intermediary resource that can be converted to biofuel or an alternative for the cured leather recipe

Arachnophobia Mode

We are currently looking at how we can introduce spiders and an arachnophobia mode into Icarus. The simplest way is to have a setting in the settings menu which allows for this to be toggled on and off. Below are some concepts of what the creatures could look like with this toggled ‘on’ (changing the character models into an alternative).

If you are someone who has any level of arachnophobia, or know someone who does, we’d love your thoughts on our proposed concepts. Feel free to leave your feedback in the comments below.

New Frontiers

We’re now under two weeks away from the New Frontiers expansion, and the response so far has been electric. If you haven’t caught up on everything that is coming with our first major expansion, click below to catch up:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1149460/view/3684558162502822183

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1648532/Icarus_New_Frontiers/

Support Our Development

If you like what we’re doing with Icarus, and want to support our continued development, consider purchasing one of our DLCs for a few dollars, it would mean a lot to us.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2445280/Icarus_Interior_Decorations_Pack

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1995690/Icarus_Styx_Map__Missions_Pack/

Changelog v1.3.10.114532

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