Tags:

Farming Ocean Underwater Sea Crafting Food

Author:

Crazybmanp

Side:

Both

Created:

Jan 20th at 2:04 AM

Last modified:

Jan 20th at 2:11 AM

Downloads:

857

Latest release (for Vintage Story 1.21.6, outdated):
SeaweedFarming.zip  1-click install

A lightweight, performance-focused mod for Vintage Story that adds renewable, farmable seaweed.

I originally built this to help with the sushi recipes in Expanded Foods, creating a simple way to keep the kitchen stocked without needing to constantly forage the ocean floor.

🚀 Features

• Cultivated Visuals: Cultivated Seaweed grows in perfectly straight, aligned columns without random offsets. This is intentional, providing a uniform, "farmed" appearance that is distinct from wild seaweed.
• Whole Stack Breaking: Breaking any part of the seaweed stalk will break the entire column above and below it, simplifying the harvest process.
• Performance Focused: Utilizes a lightweight BlockEntity. Only the cultivated roots you plant are active, meaning no unnecessary overhead for the rest of the ocean. The tick rate for growth checks is fully configurable.
• Renewable Resource: Turn a single piece of seaweed into an infinite source of food and crafting material. It requires compost to craft new roots.
• Safe for Existing Worlds: Does not alter terrain generation or biomes. It is strictly a gameplay addition that is safe to add to established saves.

🛠️ The Gameplay Loop

Farming seaweed is a simple, rewarding cycle:

1. Craft: Combine 1x Seaweed + 1x Compost to create a Cultivated Seaweed Root.
2. Plant: Place the root underwater (must be submerged in Salt Water).
3. Grow: Wait for it to grow! It will slowly reach up to the surface (max 10 blocks).
4. Harvest: Break any part of the plant. The entire column will collapse, dropping vanilla Seaweed.
   • Note: Breaking the plant destroys the root.
5. Repeat: Use the harvested seaweed to craft more roots (with compost), or use it for food and crafting!

⚙️ Configuration

The mod generates a SeaweedFarming.json config file in your ModConfig folder upon first launch.

Option	Default	Description
MaxHeight	10	Maximum height (in blocks) the cultivated seaweed can grow.
BaseGrowthHours	36.0	Average in-game hours between growth stages.
GrowthVariance	0.25	Random variance percentage for growth to keep farms feeling organic (0.25 ±25%).
TickIntervalMinutes	1.0	How often the server checks for growth (in real-world minutes).

📦 Installation

1. Download the latest release (or build from source).
2. Place the SeaweedFarming.zip file into your Vintage Story Mods folder:
   • Windows: %appdata%/Vintagestory/Mods
   • Linux: ~/.config/Vintagestory/Mods
3. Launch the game.

💻 Technical Details (For Developers)

This mod uses a Custom Block Class (BlockCultivatedSeaweed) paired with a BlockEntity (BlockEntityCultivatedSeaweed) to handle growth logic.

• Scheduled Growth: The BlockEntity polls via a tick listener to provide efficient growth timing. Randomness is calculated at the start of each growth cycle to set a specific target time, ensuring predictable performance and average growth rates (~1.5 days ± 25%).
• Safety Checks:
  • Liquid Integrity: Growth checks strictly for LiquidCode == "saltwater" AND BlockMaterial == Liquid.
  • Custom Block Assets: Uses custom cultivatedseaweed blocks primarily to enable the BreakWholeStack behavior (ensuring easy harvesting) and to provide uniform alignment.

🏗️ Building from Source

Requirements:

• .NET 8.0 SDK
• Vintage Story v1.21.6+

Steps:

1. Clone the repository.
2. Configuration: Ensure VINTAGE_STORY_PATH is set in SeaweedFarming.csproj to match your game installation (Default: %appdata%\Vintagestory).
3. Run the build command:

   dotnet build

4. The build script will automatically package the mod into SeaweedFarming.zip in the project root.

📄 License

MIT License - Feel free to include this in modpacks or modify for your own server needs.

Maintenance Note: If I am ever unavailable to update this mod, you have my explicit permission to create and publish 'continued' versions. I only ask that you kindly link back to this original version in case I return to the project.