After everything I have read in this thread, I've come to the conclusion some of the plant growth problems I've been experiencing are there by design. Mainly to stop gardening from being used as a cash grab. And that conclusion then leads me to the new canning feature coming up in Cottage Living, and how important it will be to have an inventory of certain canned foods that will then be used in recipes whenever those crops are not in season. That makes sense to me. It will make the gardening system more difficult while adding a big dose of reality to the game. I'll have to learn to stockpile certain crops such as the soy wax for my candle making Sims, and have them craft candles in the off season after switching over to another crop that is in season and can be used for canning or cooking. I can also store the 'seeds' of all my plants in storage bins to keep for the next season. Farmers rotate their crops with the seasons so they can use their land year round, so it makes sense to have crop rotation in the game.
It will be very difficult to have greenhouses in this new world without having to choose between the new animals sheds or having a greenhouse that might look a bit out of place. But rotating seasonal plants in the outside gardens is the more realistic way to go so we have enough space for the animals that provide milk, eggs and wool. I guess my next question about CL is how long stored or canned food stays fresh, and if the 'Fresh Chef' reward trait will help keep everything fresh forever as it does now. And will that trait matter if we use ice in our off-the-grid fridges.
Although I can see there is a problem with a few of the values currently being used for plants, I feel there are ways to work around those that will make gardening more realistic overall. At least now I know what is at the root of these 'bugs', and I'm not as worried as I was that my game is imploding, or I am doing something wrong. If the bug fixing team doesn't make some adjustments so the plants don't revert except when they are out of season, I will use a mod that allows me to reset those plants. But I am not going to let using a cheat for that stress me out any longer because I know nothing I am doing is causing these issues. And knowing the reason behind the issues is just as important as finding some kind of fix or mod to me. Many thanks to @crinrict, @83bienchen and @LittleMsSam for taking the time to help us understand all the intricate details surrounding this problem. I am now even more excited for CL. Yes, there will be a few hurdles along the way, but it's nice to know we have you to answer our questions and find solutions.
I watched James Turner's video today, Converting the Barn #7 of his Rags to Riches Cottage Living. He had a Pomegranate tree that reverted back to a dirt pile.
Interesting. You can see how he also used the wrong (because bugged) method of fertilizing that tree just before it reverted. You can see that he chose the same fertilizer for more than one plant and the pomegranate tree that reverted to a dirt pile was the second to be fertilized with the bird of paradise harvest and it reverted to a dirt pile as a result (because the game was actually unable to use the fertilizer chosen before because it was already gone after fertilizing the first plant with it). The first plant he fertilized was completely fine.
That is exactly what I was talking about earlier.
This game cannot handle to fertilize with the same kind of fertilizer in a row, even if you have more than one of it in your inventory. You can also see it in game: When you check the number of fertilizer you have before fertilizing and then fertilize several plants, you will notice that afterwards, the number of fertilizer has only decreased by 1.
Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
Interesting. You can see how he also used the wrong (because bugged) method of fertilizing that tree just before it reverted. You can see that he chose the same fertilizer for more than one plant and the pomegranate tree that reverted to a dirt pile was the second to be fertilized with the bird of paradise harvest and it reverted to a dirt pile as a result (because the game was actually unable to use the fertilizer chosen before because it was already gone after fertilizing the first plant with it). The first plant he fertilized was completely fine.
That is exactly what I was talking about earlier.
This game cannot handle to fertilize with the same kind of fertilizer in a row, even if you have more than one of it in your inventory. You can also see it in game: When you check the number of fertilizer you have before fertilizing and then fertilize several plants, you will notice that afterwards, the number of fertilizer has only decreased by 1.
So that means we need to use two types of fertilizer and alternate between the two if we have many plants. Such as the super fertilizer for the first plant then a fish for the second plant. Then continue alternating between the super fertilizer and something else until all the plants have been fertilized? If that's the case, I have been doing it all wrong because I use the super fertilizer on all my plants, using fish only when I run out of the super fertilizer. And to think my gardening Sims keep many locust houses, and spend a lot of time keeping those bugs happy, only to find out my plants would be happier if I used other stuff for fertilizing. Good grief. One of the perks of using the super fertilizer is being able to fertilize several plants with one bag, and now I find out that isn't working. That's a big glitch, teams. One I would think is easy to fix. I wonder which bug they thought they had fixed with the June update.
My Sims have actually fertilized their crops multiple times without any problems of them reverting and they always use the same plant (or dog poop) to fertilize multiple crops, as many as I can until it's all used. It just took about two weeks in game that they suddenly all reverted, there were no single crops in the greenhouse that didn't revert, also the one that was first fertilized did revert too.
Only the ones that were growing outside didn't revert and I didn't fertilize them at the same time.
I have a question. Does anyone else have issues with splicing...sometimes? Actually, it's been a while since splicing worked for me. I never end up getting the blended harvestable, like orchids or whatever, just the two that I spliced together even though it says the other harvestable is there? And why is gardening so complicated on a technical level it's one of my favorite things to do!
You can use the same fertilizer more than once, but you can not queue it all up at the same time. So when you only use two different types of fertilizer, you will only be able to queue up to interactions and then wait until the Sim is done to queue up more fertilize interaction.
There's a similar problem when trying to eat more than one of the same harvestable from your inventory. It's not possible, you have to click every single item (which you can actually do in your Sim inventory, but cannot do when choosing harvestables).
The revert to dirt pile bug does not always happen though. My guess is that it is more likely to happen to plants that are having something else going on at the moment they are fertilized (like either harvest as it was in Jame's case or weeds, bug infestation or a moisture problem.
I actually don't use splicing, but I know it is meant to only produce a new type of harvestable if you are very lucky. The chances of getting a new one are also even lower the more seldom the new plant is (I'm not 100% percent sure if I remember that correctly though). I don't know anything more on splicing.
Gardening is actually a science on it's own in real life, so I personally really like the challenge it brings to correctly tend your garden in TS4. But I'm generally not a big fan of things getting too easy.
Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
@83bienchen No and i won't upload it, because it is just for this purpose atm to see if all plants have something in common. In which Tuning exactly gets the Planted State triggered when Evolution is 1-20? Or does that happen Script/Core sited?
This thread makes me so curious about starting a gardening sim and try to see how it works. Thank you for talking about the importance of fertilizing plants, the value of the fertilizer and how to do it. Haven't used that in ages and it will be interesting to see how it will impact my sims plants.
Thanks a lot for all your info @83bienchen@crinrict you validated something that I saw in my game: using the same fertilizer issue. I never do that, is like when your sim try to eat the same fruit several times: the queue fail. But I did it once for distraction and I got the dirt piles. I was able to replicate the issue so I avoid doing that.
But I have the same problem with the Supersale feature for high gardeners, only in some lots (I play rotational). The Supersale triggers the Cowplant issue if it is near other plants.
My bugged lots are those that change out of the blue into the green footprint At that lots the green footprint is not stable, it change to neutral because my sims travel a lot... and return to green without logic. This issue it's getting worse: now it triggers a traveling issue: if my sim travel when the footprint is neutral the travel never ends, I need to force the closing of the game. I always save before traveling, the weird thing is that when I open my game and return to the same lot the footprint is green! (no neutral as it was before the traveling loop. I do not get any lastexception file neither a crash file).
BTW @crinrict should I report the traveling issue at the Answers HQ?
@emere without mods ? There's a huge bug with the onsen lot that can trigger endless saving all over so could it be related to that ?
I also found some info re: Bug babyjane is seeing. I believe that issue is unrelated to the eco footprint and quality as it's very much reproducible and the conditions that trigger the bug seem also reproducible (although I haven't tested a fresh save to see if it happens there to, holding off with that till after the patch).
So let me describe the issue I see on babyjane's save.
1. There are sheltered plants.
2. When you travel while the seasons changes, one of this plants changes to a dirt pile when you come back.
3. The interesting part is, that this plant is out-of-season when you leave the lot and in-season when you come back.
4. when I play on for a week and try another season change, the same happens to another plant (that is also currently out-of-season and now in-season when you come back)
So basically, when you leave the lot, the plant is sheltered/out of season and when you come back it's sheltered/in season. It looks like that somehow the game gets a wrong signal and thinks the plant is still out of season but now outside and turns it into a dirt pile. I don't check the codes like bienchen and LMS do as I'm not a modder, I try to check bugs from a symptom/can I replicate kinda angle and to me it seems, there must be a bug where the information on the plant status is wrong at one point which triggers the game to revert it.
So, this to me proves that there are multiple bugs/factors at play here and it's hard to find them all.
@crinrict I never used CC or mods... now, it is not the Onsen bug (my save is old)... it is a random travelling issue, from different lots to another lots (not the Onsen neither the SE festivals). The only constant is the crazy footprint change. I only need to test if turning the footprint off stop it.
This reverting thing is too complicated to understand, so I'll just give up and cheat the reverted plants back to blooming. I hope they can fix it some day. It would make much more sense if it happened every time, but I basically have done the same thing with fertilizing the plants for two game weeks and everything was fine at first and then suddenly the plants reverted, all of them.
It's annoying because the Cottage Living is coming and the essential part of the game is still broken, but I guess we'll have to live with it.
@83bienchen The Tuning i made basically overrides the Names of the Debug Set Gardening States Options and adds a Tooltip to the Interaction which shows the exact Value of the commodity. Two bugged Dirt Piles have the Planet Growth State with the Value of 60+, though it should be 0-2 only.
I did some further testing and some things just don't add up for the eco footprint being the main culprit.
I have several before/after saves from folks over at AHQ and while I haven't been able to duplicate the error on any of them, I can check the values with LMS's mod and the evolve status is always either ready to evolve or at least > 50 on track in all the before and after saves. Like it hardly changed at all.
I have one pair that's really close together and the before is 96.72 while the after (a alien tree. forget the name) is at 96.20 .. so only slightly lower. The growth state on the other hand reverted to < 2 (not > 2 as in LMS example above)
I also tested the fertilizing bug and also had an interesting result. I queued two plants with a plantain and while only one inventory items was used both showed as correctly fertilized. Even the evolved value increased for both. So not sure what's going on there.
From videos and saves it seems, there's several instances
Happens on travelling while season change (see my post above)
Happens randomly at a certain time to a bunch of plants at the same time. They kind reset revert
Happens randomly when some garden action is taking place (watering/fertilizing/weeding)
Happens on eco footprint change.
The case in LMS example where the planted value is too high (this can be solved by putting the plant in the inventory and back, the plant will then revert to blooming
So honestly, I don't see a pattern except that first case. Cases 2/3 could of course be the same issue and it's just a coincidence that the Sim is actually gardening at the time.
I'm going to give up on this for now and see what the patch brings
I am trying a workaround solution rn which "repairs" the bugged Piles. No promises yet though. I will also wait for the next patch to see if it still happens that Plants indoors revert to dirt piles before i let volunteers who are big gardeners ingame test that solution.
It seems gardening is glitched in so many ways that it is hard to find the root of the several issues (which might be the same for some of them, but not necessarily).
Now now EA, don't be stinking up our lovely lavender bath with your shopping fart. - My TS4 mods - Gallery ID: 83bienchen
Interesting. You can see how he also used the wrong (because bugged) method of fertilizing that tree just before it reverted. You can see that he chose the same fertilizer for more than one plant and the pomegranate tree that reverted to a dirt pile was the second to be fertilized with the bird of paradise harvest and it reverted to a dirt pile as a result (because the game was actually unable to use the fertilizer chosen before because it was already gone after fertilizing the first plant with it). The first plant he fertilized was completely fine.
That is exactly what I was talking about earlier.
This game cannot handle to fertilize with the same kind of fertilizer in a row, even if you have more than one of it in your inventory. You can also see it in game: When you check the number of fertilizer you have before fertilizing and then fertilize several plants, you will notice that afterwards, the number of fertilizer has only decreased by 1.
Sorry to complicate matters but I had an instance with a tree which doesn't fit the above. My sim fertilized with the bug box super fertilizer. It was one fertilizer and one plant, I hadn't queued for any others to be fertilized as I only had the one. The tree promptly reverted to a soil pile. It was at magnificent quality at the time I think and as gardening was the skill I was levelling, my sim was weeding or watering as necessary every day.
This issue definitely seems to be caused by more than one issue going on. Good job nailing them down as much as you have! I would offer to send this save but my sims moved house and lost their trees, they were selling instead of going into the household inventory as I was packing. I don't know why because the none trees packed fine, thus I didn't notice what was happening right away.
Thanks a lot for all your info @83bienchen@crinrict you validated something that I saw in my game: using the same fertilizer issue. I never do that, is like when your sim try to eat the same fruit several times: the queue fail. But I did it once for distraction and I got the dirt piles. I was able to replicate the issue so I avoid doing that.
But I have the same problem with the Supersale feature for high gardeners, only in some lots (I play rotational). The Supersale triggers the Cowplant issue if it is near other plants.
My bugged lots are those that change out of the blue into the green footprint At that lots the green footprint is not stable, it change to neutral because my sims travel a lot... and return to green without logic. This issue it's getting worse: now it triggers a traveling issue: if my sim travel when the footprint is neutral the travel never ends, I need to force the closing of the game. I always save before traveling, the weird thing is that when I open my game and return to the same lot the footprint is green! (no neutral as it was before the traveling loop. I do not get any lastexception file neither a crash file).
BTW @crinrict should I report the traveling issue at the Answers HQ?
The lot I have last been having problems with lately is a neutral footprint in Brindleton Bay. and traveling or going into planned outfits sometimes causes my plants to revert too, as well as fertilizing them does, so I always save before traveling now too. I have to end the game without saving now sometimes when I go into a build lot to change things and then try to come out of it ( I have been adding the landfill trait to community spaces so the dumpsters are full ) forcing my way out of the game in na new bug for me. I’m not sure how to force the game to close except getting out of origin and shutting down my computer. I just did another save as of my game though and it seems like it might be working a bit better. My last plant revert was on the first day of winter after the save as. My winter plants, a blackberry bush and a spinach bush inside my green house reverted. I just went with that one and saved anyway because I’m wanting the family to earn a bit more money before their move to Henford. I have been having him make stuff from the handiness table and her knit and sell all the stuff on plopsy, ( except the large furniture which I sell out right, as I can’t depend on their plant’s anymore. I guess there is a new bug that is not bothering me. After getting out of my game the the other night and coming back in last night the burnt furniture from the dumpsters ( in the inventory ) returned to regular furniture, so I sold them. I tried using some of the burnt furniture on the recycling machine but I didn’t get bits and pieces from them.
I’m new at using the dumpsters and recyclers, so I don’t know what’s normal or not there.
I may repair my game before going in again. I hate having to force myself out of the game, on the few occasions it’s been occurring.
I just hope they can get these problems ( bugs ) fixed, it seems like there are so many reasons my plants are reverting.
I kind of sad this is still happening. Love the gardening a lot, and I was so excited when I had read they had fixed it. I just tried to put some plants indoors in my newest save. They haven't reverted to dirt piles yet, but they aren't putting out harvestable ether, nor can I water, fertilize or do anything with them but hire a gardener. I'll try putting some outside today, since that's where I usually put them.
Comments
It will be very difficult to have greenhouses in this new world without having to choose between the new animals sheds or having a greenhouse that might look a bit out of place. But rotating seasonal plants in the outside gardens is the more realistic way to go so we have enough space for the animals that provide milk, eggs and wool. I guess my next question about CL is how long stored or canned food stays fresh, and if the 'Fresh Chef' reward trait will help keep everything fresh forever as it does now. And will that trait matter if we use ice in our off-the-grid fridges.
Although I can see there is a problem with a few of the values currently being used for plants, I feel there are ways to work around those that will make gardening more realistic overall. At least now I know what is at the root of these 'bugs', and I'm not as worried as I was that my game is imploding, or I am doing something wrong. If the bug fixing team doesn't make some adjustments so the plants don't revert except when they are out of season, I will use a mod that allows me to reset those plants. But I am not going to let using a cheat for that stress me out any longer because I know nothing I am doing is causing these issues. And knowing the reason behind the issues is just as important as finding some kind of fix or mod to me. Many thanks to @crinrict, @83bienchen and @LittleMsSam for taking the time to help us understand all the intricate details surrounding this problem. I am now even more excited for CL. Yes, there will be a few hurdles along the way, but it's nice to know we have you to answer our questions and find solutions.
That is exactly what I was talking about earlier.
This game cannot handle to fertilize with the same kind of fertilizer in a row, even if you have more than one of it in your inventory. You can also see it in game: When you check the number of fertilizer you have before fertilizing and then fertilize several plants, you will notice that afterwards, the number of fertilizer has only decreased by 1.
Yeah, mine messed up with fertilizer one day, and going into plan outfits made a lot of my tree’s revert to dirt after going into plan outfits.
So that means we need to use two types of fertilizer and alternate between the two if we have many plants. Such as the super fertilizer for the first plant then a fish for the second plant. Then continue alternating between the super fertilizer and something else until all the plants have been fertilized? If that's the case, I have been doing it all wrong because I use the super fertilizer on all my plants, using fish only when I run out of the super fertilizer. And to think my gardening Sims keep many locust houses, and spend a lot of time keeping those bugs happy, only to find out my plants would be happier if I used other stuff for fertilizing. Good grief. One of the perks of using the super fertilizer is being able to fertilize several plants with one bag, and now I find out that isn't working. That's a big glitch, teams. One I would think is easy to fix. I wonder which bug they thought they had fixed with the June update.
Only the ones that were growing outside didn't revert and I didn't fertilize them at the same time.
You can use the same fertilizer more than once, but you can not queue it all up at the same time. So when you only use two different types of fertilizer, you will only be able to queue up to interactions and then wait until the Sim is done to queue up more fertilize interaction.
There's a similar problem when trying to eat more than one of the same harvestable from your inventory. It's not possible, you have to click every single item (which you can actually do in your Sim inventory, but cannot do when choosing harvestables).
The revert to dirt pile bug does not always happen though. My guess is that it is more likely to happen to plants that are having something else going on at the moment they are fertilized (like either harvest as it was in Jame's case or weeds, bug infestation or a moisture problem.
@tasmabel:
I actually don't use splicing, but I know it is meant to only produce a new type of harvestable if you are very lucky. The chances of getting a new one are also even lower the more seldom the new plant is (I'm not 100% percent sure if I remember that correctly though). I don't know anything more on splicing.
Gardening is actually a science on it's own in real life, so I personally really like the challenge it brings to correctly tend your garden in TS4. But I'm generally not a big fan of things getting too easy.
Thanks a lot for all your info @83bienchen @crinrict you validated something that I saw in my game: using the same fertilizer issue. I never do that, is like when your sim try to eat the same fruit several times: the queue fail. But I did it once for distraction and I got the dirt piles. I was able to replicate the issue so I avoid doing that.
But I have the same problem with the Supersale feature for high gardeners, only in some lots (I play rotational). The Supersale triggers the Cowplant issue if it is near other plants.
My bugged lots are those that change out of the blue into the green footprint
BTW @crinrict should I report the traveling issue at the Answers HQ?
for more take a look at my showcase:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/918679/emere-osiazul-showcase-new-steampunk-karaoke#latest
I also found some info re: Bug babyjane is seeing. I believe that issue is unrelated to the eco footprint and quality as it's very much reproducible and the conditions that trigger the bug seem also reproducible (although I haven't tested a fresh save to see if it happens there to, holding off with that till after the patch).
So let me describe the issue I see on babyjane's save.
1. There are sheltered plants.
2. When you travel while the seasons changes, one of this plants changes to a dirt pile when you come back.
3. The interesting part is, that this plant is out-of-season when you leave the lot and in-season when you come back.
4. when I play on for a week and try another season change, the same happens to another plant (that is also currently out-of-season and now in-season when you come back)
So basically, when you leave the lot, the plant is sheltered/out of season and when you come back it's sheltered/in season. It looks like that somehow the game gets a wrong signal and thinks the plant is still out of season but now outside and turns it into a dirt pile. I don't check the codes like bienchen and LMS do as I'm not a modder, I try to check bugs from a symptom/can I replicate kinda angle and to me it seems, there must be a bug where the information on the plant status is wrong at one point which triggers the game to revert it.
So, this to me proves that there are multiple bugs/factors at play here and it's hard to find them all.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
AHQ Tutorial
@crinrict I never used CC or mods... now, it is not the Onsen bug (my save is old)... it is a random travelling issue, from different lots to another lots (not the Onsen neither the SE festivals). The only constant is the crazy footprint change. I only need to test if turning the footprint off stop it.
for more take a look at my showcase:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/918679/emere-osiazul-showcase-new-steampunk-karaoke#latest
This is just on that one save or all of them ?
I don't really want to derail this thread though so feel free to make a report.
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
AHQ Tutorial
Thanks @crinrict I will play more and see how it goes
for more take a look at my showcase:
https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/918679/emere-osiazul-showcase-new-steampunk-karaoke#latest
It's annoying because the Cottage Living is coming and the essential part of the game is still broken, but I guess we'll have to live with it.
I have several before/after saves from folks over at AHQ and while I haven't been able to duplicate the error on any of them, I can check the values with LMS's mod and the evolve status is always either ready to evolve or at least > 50 on track in all the before and after saves. Like it hardly changed at all.
I have one pair that's really close together and the before is 96.72 while the after (a alien tree. forget the name) is at 96.20 .. so only slightly lower. The growth state on the other hand reverted to < 2 (not > 2 as in LMS example above)
I also tested the fertilizing bug and also had an interesting result. I queued two plants with a plantain and while only one inventory items was used both showed as correctly fertilized. Even the evolved value increased for both. So not sure what's going on there.
From videos and saves it seems, there's several instances
So honestly, I don't see a pattern except that first case. Cases 2/3 could of course be the same issue and it's just a coincidence that the Sim is actually gardening at the time.
I'm going to give up on this for now and see what the patch brings
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
AHQ Tutorial
Please do not send me PMs/post on my wall if you're looking for help. I can't attend to those. You can find me at AnswerHQ.
How to report bugs at AnswersHQ
AHQ Tutorial
Sorry to complicate matters but I had an instance with a tree which doesn't fit the above. My sim fertilized with the bug box super fertilizer. It was one fertilizer and one plant, I hadn't queued for any others to be fertilized as I only had the one. The tree promptly reverted to a soil pile. It was at magnificent quality at the time I think and as gardening was the skill I was levelling, my sim was weeding or watering as necessary every day.
This issue definitely seems to be caused by more than one issue going on. Good job nailing them down as much as you have! I would offer to send this save but my sims moved house and lost their trees, they were selling instead of going into the household inventory as I was packing. I don't know why because the none trees packed fine, thus I didn't notice what was happening right away.
The lot I have last been having problems with lately is a neutral footprint in Brindleton Bay. and traveling or going into planned outfits sometimes causes my plants to revert too, as well as fertilizing them does, so I always save before traveling now too. I have to end the game without saving now sometimes when I go into a build lot to change things and then try to come out of it ( I have been adding the landfill trait to community spaces so the dumpsters are full ) forcing my way out of the game in na new bug for me. I’m not sure how to force the game to close except getting out of origin and shutting down my computer. I just did another save as of my game though and it seems like it might be working a bit better. My last plant revert was on the first day of winter after the save as. My winter plants, a blackberry bush and a spinach bush inside my green house reverted. I just went with that one and saved anyway because I’m wanting the family to earn a bit more money before their move to Henford. I have been having him make stuff from the handiness table and her knit and sell all the stuff on plopsy, ( except the large furniture which I sell out right, as I can’t depend on their plant’s anymore. I guess there is a new bug that is not bothering me. After getting out of my game the the other night and coming back in last night the burnt furniture from the dumpsters ( in the inventory ) returned to regular furniture, so I sold them. I tried using some of the burnt furniture on the recycling machine but I didn’t get bits and pieces from them.
I’m new at using the dumpsters and recyclers, so I don’t know what’s normal or not there.
I may repair my game before going in again. I hate having to force myself out of the game, on the few occasions it’s been occurring.
I just hope they can get these problems ( bugs ) fixed, it seems like there are so many reasons my plants are reverting.