Plant Gardens

[Borg]

Augur on Where Plants Will Grow    

Posted on Friday, April 26, 2002, 6:25 PM EDT by Joshua Rowan (Stratics General News)

It is widely speculated that a new Plant Growing System will become active beginning with next week's chapter of Scenario 4. Augur posted the following in the UO.com Scenario Forum in a discussion about where plants will be able to grow:

Just a quick clarification, since I've seen this issue pop up alot, and it's not exactly spoilerriffic :

Plants can do their daily growth check :

1) If they are locked down in a house (and not in a container)

2) If they are in a container, and if - and only if - that container is inside a player (so a player's backpack or their bank vault).

A caveat of this is that if the container is inside a player, the plant will only do its daily growth check if the player logs in that day.

The reason for this is based off of the way in which objects are loaded if they are inside a player (that is, they are realistically "outside the game world" when the player is logged out). It would be too server intensive to have a plant do all its days of growth at once when the player finally logs back in. (Think of running the growth check for the 8 days you were logged out, for all 200 plants inside your pack).

So while you'll be able to grow plants in your backpack and bank box, you'll need to attend them more often (by logging in each day), as opposed to plants locked down in a house, which have a chance to grow once a day, whether you're online or not.

Hope that makes sense,

Augur

Plant Growing

Using special seeds harvested from slain monsters, you may grow uniquely colored plants to use as house decorations or to produce hybrid seeds and resources.

As your plant grows from a seed to a full-grown plant, it will need watering and alchemical care in order to protect if from insect infestations and harmful fungi.

Through the process of cross-pollination, you may even be the first person to grow a unique new hybrid plant type!

Plant Bowl

In order to plant a seed, you first need a special bowl. Plant bowls can be purchased from a provisioner for a small price.

Once you have an empty plant bowl, you’ll need to fill it with dirt before you can plant a seed in it.

To fill a plant bowl with dirt, double-click the bowl to use it, and then target a source of nice soft brown dirt. If you’ve targeted an appropriate patch of dirt, you’ll now have a bowl full of dirt. Add in enough water to soften the dirt, and you’ll have a perfect spot for planting a seed!

Plant Seeds

Plant seeds come in many different colors. When planted in a bowl of dirt and carefully tended to over time, plant seeds will grow into full-grown plants. These plants can be used for decorative purposes only, or as a source of new hybrid plant seeds and specially grown resources.

While you can tell what color of plant the seed will grow into by the color of the seed itself, the type of plant that results from a particular seed remains a mystery until the plant is fully-grown!

The first step in growing a seed into a plant is planting it in a bowl of soft dirt. In order to plant a seed, simply double-click the seed to use it, and then target a bowl of soft dirt. Freshly dug dirt isn’t soft enough for a seed to be planted in, so you’ll need to pour water into your bowl of dirt before attempting to place a seed in it.

Plant Growth

Plants take time to grow through their various stages. A plant has nine main stages of growth, from seed, to sapling, to fully grown plant. Plants will not grow in containers, unless the container is in a player’s backpack. If a plant is healthy and well-tended, it will grow one “stage” of its life-cycle in about a day’s time. If a plant is not healthy because it has not been well taken care of, then it will not grow. You must keep your plant in a healthy state by curing it of any maladies that might be affecting it, and then letting it heal naturally or help it along through alchemical means.

Plant Health

Plants have hit points much like your character. A plant loses hit points when it is affected by various maladies. If a plant has insects eating at it, then it will lose hit points each day. Other maladies that can affect a plant’s health include under or over-watering the plant, harmful fungi, poison, and disease.

Heal potions and a plant’s natural healing will raise the plant’s hit points back up to its maximum, but only if the plant has been cured of all maladies first.

If a plant loses all its hit points, it will die.

As a plant grows, its maximum health increases. Seeds and saplings are very weak, and can easily be killed if neglected for even a short while. Full-grown plants, on the other hand, could survive for several days without any help.

Infestation

As a plant grows, it has a chance of being infested by insects. These insects will slowly eat at a plant, causing it to lose health and eventually die. Different plants have different chances of being infested. Flowery plants, over-watered plants, and bright plants all have a greater chance of attracting hungry insects, so they’ll need even more attention from their owner.

You can use poison potions on your plant in order to kill off the insects that have infested it. Be sure that you do not use too much poison, however, or your plant will soak up the poison, which can cause it to wither and die!

You can view your plant’s current Infestation Level in the Plant Health menu.

Infestation Level

The Infestation Level meter (grey bug image) shows the relative amount of insects that are currently attacking your plant.

A yellow + sign means the plant has a small infestation. A red + sign indicates a severe infestation.

Fungus

As a plant grows, it has a chance of being infected with harmful fungi. Fungi sap the plant of its health, which will cause it to wither and die. It is important to remember that fungi love moist areas, so over-watering your plant increases the chance that it will become infected by harmful fungi.

You may cure your plant of fungus by using cure potions.

You can view your plant’s current Fungus Level in the Plant Health menu.

Fungus Level

The Fungus Level meter (mushroom image) shows the amount of fungi that are currently sapping health from your plant

A yellow + sign means the plant has a small fungus infection. A red + sign indicates a severe fungus infection.

Poison (Plants)

You may apply poison potions to your plant to kill insects infesting it. If you apply too many poison potions, however, or apply poison potions when there are no insects on the plant, then your plant will soak up the poison and become sick.

When you apply poison potions, they will not take effect until the next growth check your plant performs (approximately once a day). Don’t worry, however, as insects only harm your plant during a growth check as well, so any insects will be killed off by your poison potions before they can harm your plant.

If you accidentally poison your plant, you can cure the plant of poison by using heal potions to counteract the poison.

You can view your plant’s current Poison Level in the Plant Health menu.

Poison Level

The Poison Level meter (skull image) shows the amount of poison that your plant has soaked up.

A yellow + sign means the plant is slightly poisoned. A red + sign indicates that the plant is severely poisoned.

Curing (Plants)

You may apply cure potions to a plant in order to cure it of harmful fungi. If you apply too many cure potions, however, or apply cure potions when the plant is not infected by fungi, you will infect your plant with a deadly disease which will cause it to wither and die.

When you apply cure potions, they will not take effect until the next growth check your plant performs (approximately once a day). Don’t worry, however, as fungi only harm your plant during a growth check as well, so any harmful fungi will be cured by your cure potions before they can harm your plant.

If you accidentally infect your plant with a disease by over-curing it, you can use heal potions to counteract the disease.

You may view your plant’s current Disease Level in the Plant Health menu.

Disease Level

The Disease Level meter (purple goo image) shows the strength of the disease affecting your plant.

A yellow + sign means the plant is slightly infected. A red + sign indicates that the plant is severely infected.

Watering

In order to keep your plant healthy, you must water it regularly. An under-watered plant will wither and die if left unattended. However, it is important to remember that over-watering your plant is also unhealthy. Over-watered plants become waterlogged and lose health, in addition to becoming perfect breeding grounds for insects and fungi.

Each time a plant performs its growth check (approximately once a day), the plant will soak up one dose of water, so you’ll need to keep a constant eye on your plant to make sure it has not dried out.

You can view your plant’s current Water Level in the Plant Health menu.

Water Level The Water Level meter (water pitcher image) shows the amount of water in your plant bowl.

Unlike other state meters, the Water Level meter displays both negative (under-watered) and positive (over-watered) levels

A yellow – sign indicates the plant is slightly under-watered. A red – sign indicates a severely under-watered.

A yellow + sign indicates the plant has been slightly over-watered. A red + sign indicates the plant has been severely over-watered.

Potions (Plants)

You may apply various potions to a plant in order to cure it of various maladies, help it to heal back up to maximum health, or strengthen it against infestations. Potions are applied through the Water button on the Main Menu.

The following potions may be used on plants:

Heal Potions

Cure Potions

Poison Potions

Strength Potions

Heal Potions (Plants)

You may apply heal potions to a plant in order to cure it of poison or disease. Heal potions are applied during a plant’s normal growth check, so you will need to apply new heal potions each day if you want the plant to continue applying their beneficial effects.

If heal potions are applied to a plant that is not poisoned or diseased, and the plant has no other maladies currently affecting it, then the heal potions will be used to help increase the plant’s current hit points (in addition to the natural healing a plant performs if it is not currently infected by any maladies).

Strength Potions (Plants)

You may apply strength potions to a plant in order to help it resist insect infestations and fungus growth. Each strength potion applied will lower the chance of infestation by harmful maladies. Strength potions are soaked up by a plant during its normal growth check, so you will need to apply new strength potions each day if you want the plant to continue applying their beneficial effects.

Cross-Pollination

When a plant first reaches its full-grown state, it will sprout its full foliage, no longer contained within the plant bowl. At this stage of the plant’s growth, it will begin to produce pollen. You can view your plant’s current Pollination State in the Plant Resources Menu. The plant will eventually self-pollinate if left unattended, and the plant will begin to produce seeds. Seeds produced by a self-pollinated plant will grow up into an exact duplicate of the ”parent” plant.

Another method of pollination is called ”cross-pollination”. Once a plant reaches the pollen-producing stage, its pollen may be gathered by the owner by using the Cross-Pollination button. Gathered pollen may be used on another full-grown plant. When you pollinate one plant with pollen from another plant, the targeted plant will produce seeds that will grow into a hybrid of the two plants. The color and type of each ”parent” plant are combined to produce a new type of seed that will grow from the targeted plant.

While you may continue to gather pollen from a plant throughout its entire life cycle, once a plant has been pollinated (either by itself, through natural pollination, or through manual cross-pollination from another plant), no further combinations may be performed. The seed type that the plant will produce is determined the first time the plant is pollinized, and cannot be changed afterwards.

In very rare circumstances, cross-pollination may result in a ”mutation”. If mutation occurs, the targeted plant will not produce seeds that are a combination of the two ”parent” plants, but will instead produce ”mutated” seeds that grow into mutant plant varieties.

Pollination State

The Pollination State indicator displays the current pollination state of a plant.

A yellow – symbol indicates that the plant has not yet produced any pollen, as it has not reached full-grown level.

A red ! symbol indicates that the plant has entered its pollen producing state, and can have pollen gathered from it, or be cross-pollinated to.

A green + symbol indicates that the plant has been pollinated (either by itself, through natural self-pollination, or by the pollen of another plant). While you can still gather pollen from a plant in this state, the plant can no longer be the target of cross-pollination.

Seed Production

When a plant reaches its maximum growth level, it will no longer grow in size, but will instead produce seeds any time a growth check is performed.

The type of seed that a plant produces is determined by whether it pollinated itself, or if pollen from another plant was applied to it during the cross-pollination process.

A plant will produce once seed per day, up to a maximum of eight seeds. A plant will only produce a seed if it is healthy.

You may gather seeds from a plant by using the Gather Seeds button on the Resources menu. You will pick all available seeds from the plant and place them in your backpack, if there is room.

The number of seeds available is displayed next to the Seed # indicator (seed image in an empty box).

A red X symbol indicates that the plant has been set to decorative mode, or has produced its maximum amount.

Resource Production

Certain plant type and color combinations result in a plant that can produce unique resources.

A plant will begin producing resources at the same time it produces seeds, when it reaches its maximum growth level.

One resource is produced per day, up to a maximum of eight resources. A plant will only produce resources if it is healthy.

You may gather resources from a plant by using the Gather Resources button on the Resources menu. You will pick all available resources from the plant and place them in your backpack, if there is room.

The number of resources available is displayed next to the Resource # indicator (petal image in an empty box).

A red X symbol indicates that the plant has been set to decorative mode, or has produced its maximum amount.

Resources produced by unique plant combinations have special properties dependant on the resource type and color.

Decorative Mode

When a plant reaches its maximum growth level, a Decorative Mode symbol will appear in the Resources Menu. This symbol is displayed as a leafy plant with a red / symbol through it.

Pressing this button (and clicking Yes to apply) will set the plant to Decorative Mode.

A plant set to Decorative Mode will not produce seeds or resources, and cannot be used for cross-pollination. A Decorative Plant does not need upkeep, however, and is always in a healthy state.

Decorative Mode should be activated if you simply want your plant to be used as a house decoration, and therefore do not want to have to water it or keep it healthy.

A Decorative Plant will have the tag [decorative] displayed above it when single-clicked.

IMPORTANT NOTE : Once a plant is set to Decorative Mode, it cannot be set back to its normal state. A Decorative Plant will never produce seeds or resources again.

Emptying the Bowl

If you would like to empty your plant bowl of the plant or seed and start over again, you may use the Empty Bowl button on the Main Menu.

If the plant in the bowl is in the seed or sapling stage, emptying the bowl will result in a bowl and the seed placed in your backpack.

If the bowl only had dirt in it, or the plant had grown beyond the sapling phase, emptying the bowl will destroy the plant, returning only the plant bowl to your backpack.

[Balandar]

Well, I doubt I can keep a plant alive in the real world. Wonder if I can keep one alive in a virtual world...

[Lan]

I hear ya Bal, wonder if we can hire gardeners here.....hmmmm

[Shun'kata]

ooo!  ooo!  I makes em grow good!

I'm a good gardunur!

*nod nod*

                         

[Borg]

Additional comments from Augur

Three things real quick :

1) If a plant is locked down, only the person that locked it down can interract with it in any way.

2) If a plant inside a player has been "logged out" for a day or more, it will still grow 1 day when the player logs back in with it. But it will only grow a maximum of 1 day, no matter how long its been logged out. So yes, you could theoretically log out with your plants in your pack to avoid losing them if you cannot log in for many days.

3) Actually you have 250 item slots you can "log out with", since you can fill your backpack with 125 and your bank with 125.

4)Partially grown plants (those still in their bowl, not yet "fully grown") will not block movement.

5)Fully grown plants will block movement, based upon the type of plant they are. That is, we have not changed the properties of the art for any of the plants, so if they block movement in the game map, they'll block movement when grown through the plant system.

An example of a blocking plant is a cactus. An example of non-blocking plants would be the various flower types.

6)Plants are normal items in terms of lockdowns. You carry around a bowl, say, then drop it on the ground. Then target it for lockdown with the standard "I wish to lock this down."

7)You can lock down a plant anywhere you can lock down anything else. It's important to remember that since plant bowls (which can be walked through) have the ability to grow into certain plants which cannot be walked through (say, a cactus), that you won't be able to lock them down near stairs or a door, just like any other blocking object.

8)Seeds will indeed be unstackable : but there's actually a reason for it this time.

Each seed has a variety of information stored on it that makes it different from other seeds. So, even if you had 18 red seeds, they might actually be completely different Types of seeds (that is, they produce different red plants). Since stacks of items aren't great at storing multiple pieces of information about the singular items within them, seeds will not be stackable.

[We thought about allowing seeds of the exact same type (that is, same color, same type, same brightness) stack, but thought it might be confusing as to why some seeds stacked and others didn't, when there was no visible difference (plant type cannot be discerned in the seed stage).]

A few ideas have been tossed around (seed bags that act much like potion kegs), but none of them worked satisfactorily enough for the first pass - so seeds will be singular for now

Auguroooooo!

NOTE: Someone in the Empire can show you what a Bloody Red Palm looks like.....hmmm wonder who that could be?

[Borg]

From Augur.......

To clear up what the Codex is saying a bit :

You can never apply more than 2 of a particular potion type to a plant per growth cycle. (If you try, you get the message "The plant is already soaked with this type of potion!")

All potions are "used up" by the plant when it hits its growth cycle check, however. So when it tries to grow, it applies all potions that have been poured on it. After that, you could add 2 more for the next growth cycle.

Additionally, you can never increase a plant's HP beyond its max. (MaxHP for a plant is a base # multiplied by the plant's current growth level - so plants get hardier over time)

And a tip from Augur how to check if your plant is really growing comes from this thread:

Here's the best way to think about plant growth :

Once your plant has grown its first stage (the "free day" where the 24 hour timer is ignored), if it's already grown within the last 24 hours, don't expect it to grow again until the plant is "loaded" sometime after 24 hours *have* passed.

Plants can be "loaded" by server maintenance, or logging in with one in your pack. If they're "loaded" but 24 hours have *not* passed, you'll have to wait until they're "loaded" again and 24 hours *have* passed.

One note : when I use the word "grow", I actually mean "do a growth check". This implies that the plant *tries* to grow. If the plant is not healthy or vibrant, it will try to grow, but will fail, but that still counts as your "day's worth of growing".

There's also an intentional (read : not a bug!) way that you can accelerate your plant's growth, but I'm not spilling the beans on that one! Part of the discovery process! ^_^

Final note : If you ever think that you have a plant locked down that should have grown but didn't, go ahead and try putting it in your pack, logging out, and logging back in. This fires the "loaded" trigger immediately on login, and will be a perfect test to see if your plant is ready to grow but was waiting for the load trigger.

Augur

[Borg]

While I won't reveal the exact numbers (since I know everyone has fun speculating on stuff!), there are three "properties" for each plant that identify its uniqueness :

1) Type (the physical look of the plant : in this case the art tile)

2) Color (the hue of the plant)

3) Brightness (a modifier to the hue of the plant, that makes it a "bright" or "dull" version of the Color property)

Augur

[Borg]

The Plant System

Question 1: I hear that I'm supposed to be able to use potions to cure my plants and to rid them of infestations. How do I apply the potions-if I use a poison potion to poison the bugs, I'll end up poisoning myself!

Answer: In order to apply any type of potion to a plant, you will want to use the Water Pitcher button on the Plant's Main Menu. Double-click your plant to open the Main Menu and click the Water Pitcher button in the top-right corner of the Main Menu. A targeting cursor will appear. Target the potion you wish to apply to your plant, and you will pour it on the plant. Remember that the potion must be of at least Greater level!

Question 2: It has been said that there is a method that can accelerate the plant growth process. Is true? If so, does this mean that the plant skips growth cycles, or will it speed up the growth process (and gardeners will have to remain in game all day to make sure our plants do not die)?

Answer: Yes, there is a method to accelerate your plant's growth. We haven't revealed the exact method to do this-it's part of the discovery process-but if your plant is prepared to take advantage of this method then each time the plant is scheduled to grow a day there is a percentage chance that it will gain an extra day's worth of growth!

This "bonus growth day" will not affect the plant's health, as there is not a second fungus or infestation check for the bonus day (although there is still a health check for the normal growth of that day).

The number of bonus days a plant can receive from accelerated growth is capped at a maximum number as well. You can think of the plant as having "bonus growth" charges that are used up whenever the bonus growth occurs.

Question 3: We know that new resources are a major part of the new plant growing system, yet almost no information has been divulged as to its nature. What sort of resources can we expect, to whom will they be useful, and will there be any official guide as to how they can be used?

Answer: The Plant Growing System initially starts out with two resources. In order to retain some of the fun of discovery for players, the exact details on the resources will not be revealed at this time. Suffice it to say, the details of these resources are pretty self-explanatory once the resource item is used. Using them will give a special message, which should quickly give players an idea of how to utilize them and what their effects are.

In addition to these two starting resources, we expect to add more to the Plant System in future updates, most likely capping at 6 total resource types. Whenever we add a new resource in the future, any new plants that produce that resource type will produce them as normal. Additionally, any plants that would grow the resource that are currently in the game will instantly be able to grow the resource whenever they hit the resource-growing stage. So if you have a plant that is producing seeds but no resources, and we add a resource to that plant type, the next day you would see your first resource grown on that plant.