[2021] Why is rotting flesh REQUIRED to do basic farming?

Originally posted by Donnie: I just realized that gardening tools are no longer part of this game. Instead you have to use rotting flesh to craft a farm plot?

Why does this sound so ridiculous to me?

I mean, You could plant willy nilly before for no return- Right up until you used rotten flesh to craft fertilizer. So...it's not all that different, all considered. You're still preparing a space of land for planting using rotten flesh and nitrate either way. Just, with the new way, you don't need a tool that gets used a few times then never touched again; And you can retrieve your garden boxes instead of where you planted being an essentially permanent choice.

Originally posted by Donnie:

Originally posted by JustFreezer: You had to craft fertilizer to have any return on investment in previous alphas. I don't remember the amount of materials, but I'm pretty sure it was at least the same amount of nitrate powder and rotten flesh that were required to craft them, just like the garden boxes. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but after you use them once there is no way to consider this system more complicated than the previous one. You can even pick them up without a loss and move them, while in previous alphas the fertilized plot was permanent.

I haven't played this game in quite some time, and none of this was true the last time I played. You could simply find a plot of ground, take care of the soil with tools and plant just about anything and it would grow if you gave it sunlight.

Grow, Yes; Produce more than you planted, No.

Since Farming was implemented up till A18, A seed cost 1 crop, And would grow 1 crop unless it was on fertilized soil, where it would make 2 doubling the return.

Without the fertilizer, it was a net neutral task.