Patchy soil--HOW?

[irulethegalaxy]

Anyone got tips on how to keep soil in the "patchy" condition? I've been hunting those pearl onions, but I can't seem to get an area to consistently stay in patchy. I've noted not a lot of mutations (if any??) REQUIRE patchy soil; so should I even be trying in patchy? Only thing I can think to do is to block off half of the water stream in my lush area and hope for the best. Either that or spam relentlessly for rain in my dry area. Neither way seems fun with 31 (well, 28...I've never gotten onion crops to mature at the lowest 3 levels) elevations, 5 base seeds, and umpty-hundred fertilizers!

(Only mutation I see that seems to require patchy is the purple potato; I seem to remember getting those on something other than patchy but it's been "years" in my game)

[Getaris]

The only times I get to see a lot of patchy soil is when it rains a lot and dry soil becomes grass. You would only need to reload for rain in the days right before the crop grows for harvest, I think.

However, I think there's always a bit of patchy soil between the lush and dry soils, you can try planting in that small margin, too.

[irulethegalaxy]

Yeah, I thought about that, but it doesn't seem like enough of an area to really state "nope, this is a fail". At best it's 2-3 patches wide, moves, and is dependent on weather.


I think I'll run a quick purple potato test; if I can get those to show up on either dry or lush I think it'd probably be safe to say that patchy soil is simply an intermediate state that acts as either lush OR dry. If that's true, it's a HUGE amount of testing we can simply ignore. And even if I get the potatoes to show up, go through all the other testing and I am still pearl-onionless...then hey, I just proved my fool self wrong and we've eliminated all the other soil types as possible variables XD.


Yes, I realize I am insane.

[K.D.]

Purple Potatoes 100% need patchy soil. I have tried getting them on Lush and Barren before with no luck. I keep a patch of Lush and a patch of Barren on either side of my potatoes so the formation is


L L L L L L L L L L L L
P P P P P P P P P P P
B B B B B B B B B B B

B= Barren, L= Lush and P=Potatoes. The patches with Potatoes stay Patchy this way.

[irulethegalaxy]

Dang. Well, I think I still might leave any patchy testing (other than maybe a good ol HE-3 batch) for LAST, because really...it's just a royal pain. I wish I could remember what I did for unlocking the purple potatoes; it seems like I came up with a method of sorts but it involved a lot of place-the-soil-remove-the-soil.

I'll mess around with my lush zone and see what happens. I'm thinking if I just shut off one of the two streams I should get a zone of patchy. Still, testing area will be REALLY small. I've been thinking that my 6-wide swampy and dry zones are really smaller than they ought to be for proper testing. This will be at most 2-3 wide, so finding anything that requires patchy will mean getting some massive good luck.

[K.D.]

When my landscaping is done, I should have a Swampy area, a Lush area and a Barren area. Also, be warned, having 2 small rivers with 4 spaces of land between will result in Swampy. My Scallion to Red Onion project got rekt like that.

[irulethegalaxy]

When my landscaping is done, I should have a Swampy area, a Lush area and a Barren area. Also, be warned, having 2 small rivers with 4 spaces of land between will result in Swampy. My Scallion to Red Onion project got rekt like that.

LOL, yep, something I learned the hard way. I think I have my lush area about 10 wide; unless I get a really bad stretch of rain this stays lush without going swampy except occasionally at the edges. I got 5 straight days of rain and THAT turned my lush area into big swampy mess for a week or so (luckily I wasn't working with it at the time).

Might be interesting (and useful) to experiment with and set down some numbers for changing one soil type to another...how long it takes soil to go from dry to lush if you set a stream down the center etc. SO many variables with the seasons and rainfall though..

[Lirishae]

There's just no good way to make patchy soil, that I've found anyway. I tend to just use whatever random patchy spots I can find around the valley whenever I want to plant in patchy soil specifically.

[irulethegalaxy]

There's just no good way to make patchy soil, that I've found anyway. I tend to just use whatever random patchy spots I can find around the valley whenever I want to plant in patchy soil specifically.

Y'know, it's reasons like this that I named the spreadsheet/checklist dealie I made up for pearl onion testing "ONION *H-E-Double Hockey Sticks" (only as Ralphie puts it, "Except I didn't say 'h-e-double hockey sticks'.").

[Cherubae]

I've got a pretty good patch of patchy soil by making a large terrace with water running down one side. The farther out the land is from the water, the drier the soil.

There's about 3 to 4 blocks of grass soil, 2 to 3 blocks of patchy, and then a run of dry along the side if it hasn't rained for a while.

[irulethegalaxy]

I've got a similar setup for testing, but with a stream running down each side. I might play around with this...turning one stream entirely "off" would mean having just those 2-3 squares in patchy. I'm wondering if I leave "on" every 3rd or 4th (or 5th, or 6th LOL) one if I could get a larger and slightly more consistent area. Or even alternate on/off streams once a week (tedious) or possibly set up the stream so that the "on" side alternates back and forth between the sides...


Hmm, this is food for though...I'll play with it. If I can come up with a decent method, I'll post. Three missing mutations and a soil condition that is a royal PITA and a known mutation that does require it. Seems like there is a fair chance we'll find one of our other mutation requires it as well.

[Getaris]

I've got a pretty good patch of patchy soil by making a large terrace with water running down one side. The farther out the land is from the water, the drier the soil.

There's about 3 to 4 blocks of grass soil, 2 to 3 blocks of patchy, and then a run of dry along the side if it hasn't rained for a while.

And right after you posted that picture, CeeCee shares it in their social media accounts.

It's like she's a ninja

[Cherubae]

My terrace has two water paths on the far side there (you can see one in the picture), so there is two rows of vertical swamp land in between. If I add another row to the area next to the dry, I can probably get more luck with dry testing (sometimes the rain turns it to patchy, and it is just at the right spot where the water is close enough for some parts of it to say patchy, yet not far enough for it to become dry 100% of the time.)

I've got a similar setup for testing, but with a stream running down each side. I might play around with this...turning one stream entirely "off" would mean having just those 2-3 squares in patchy.

That's a good idea. Turning off one of your side waterways should dry out the soil after a little bit, and allow for some patchy ground to stay there consistently.

It's like she's a ninja

But seriously, developers are always looking at what the fans are talking about in regards to their game. No matter which forum or media you are browsing, it is safe to assume that *someone* close to the project is there too, whether Gamefaqs, Reddit, Nintendo Miiverse, other message forums, etc.