This idea/suggestion is Open. You can respond to ask questions or discuss the idea and either vote it up or down if you believe it should or should not be implemented, respectively. Popular suggestions and ideas will be considered by the development team to become reality in-game.
Proposal
Create a new set of classes dedicated to farming and agriculture
Justification
A new way to collect resources and introduce a new method of player interaction.
Motivation
Watching my son play slime rancher and thinking that SWG is the perfect medium to have a great farming system with new possibilities for player interactions.
So i was watching my son play slime rancher and an idea popped into my head.

I know this idea would take a VERY long time to implement but i believe it would be a lot of fun.
I myself grew up on a farm and love animal husbandry and was thinking that SWG would absolutely benefit from it. people right now have to go out and farm animals through hunting to get resources. why not give people the ability to have their own animal ranch.
It could be a whole new class called Novice Farmer with its own advanced classes.
YES I AM HIGHLY AWARE THAT THIS PROPOSAL WOULD BE A MONUMENTAL UNDERTAKING WITH LOTS OF DIFFICULTY TO IMPLEMENT.
  • (Planet biomes and soil would play and MASSIVE role in what plants can be grown and which animals can be raised. )
  • (This does not include animals or creatures that yield extremely rare and low rate drops that require groups to grind to get.)
IMPORTANT NOTE. ALL EARLY FARMING IS ACTIVE WORK. FARMERS MUST TEND TO THEIR FIELDS AND ANIMALS. EVEN WITH DROID ASSISTANCE PLAYERS MUST HARVEST OR GATHER RESOURCES MANUALLY. ONLY A MINOR AMOUNT OF STUFF WILL BE PASSIVE. ​

its four trees are:

1) Animal husbandry.
  • Breed livestock for milk, hides, meat, eggs and others resources.
  • Improve animal traits across generations.
  • raise young animals and improve survival rates.
  • Produce rare genetic traits for valuable livestock.
  • only low level common animals can be raised in this tree. think novice to low mid creature handlers.
2) Cultivation;
  • Grow vegetables, fruits, grains and alien crops
  • Breed plants for improved yields, quality or unusual properties
  • Manage soil, irrigation, fertilizer and growing conditions
  • Produce seeds and rare botanical ingredients
  • Grow plants used by chefs, doctors, artisans and other crafters.
3) Land Stewardship;
  • Improve soil fertility and crop yields
  • Build and maintain irrigation systems
  • manage land quality and environmental conditions
  • Improve farm plots, storage and production efficiency
  • Develop advanced hydroponic or controlled-enviroment farms
4) Harvesting and farm management; This fourth tree would support the other three by making farming more productive and profitable.
  • Increased Harvesting speed and resources yields
  • Reduce spoilage and improved storage
  • Process raw agricultural materials into trade-ready goods
  • improve livestock feed efficiency and crop rotation
  • manage production cycles and large scale farm operations
You would then hit Master Farmer which would provide large stat boosts for each tree. From there you can continue into the any of the 3 advanced classes. All three would require the harvesting and farm management tree.

1) Master Rancher; The animal specialist.
The four trees would be;
  • Animal husbandry: Acquire and manage animals and creature. Each block increases rarity of animals.
  • Genetics and Breeding: Breed offspring with desirable inherited traits. Each block increases the base stats and abilities of each generation. (Think reverse engineering where you try for selective traits)
  • Livestock care and Nutrition: Increases the quality of resources generated by livestock
  • Livestock production: Increases the amount of resource generated by livestock
  • Finally the Master Rancher block will combine all four trees to produce the highest quality resources if livestock is bred well. Master Ranchers will also be able to breed animals that can be use as pets for Creature handlers.
2) Master Botanist; The plant specialist
The four trees would be;
  • Botanical Genetics: Develop a variety of plants with desirable medicinal properties. Increase yield quality
  • Soil science & Horticulture: Optimize nutrients and growing conditions.
  • Cultivation: Grow the plants efficiency at commercial scale. Increase yield amount
  • Botanical Products: Harvest and sell the resulting materials.
  • Finally a Master Botanist block will combine all four tree to produce the highest quality resources if crops are cared for properly. Master Botanists will also be able to cultivate rare botanical species.
3) Master Agronomist: Farm construction and management specialist.
The four trees would be;

  • Farm infrastructure: increase the number or capacity of supported farm structures. unlock specialized barns silos and storage facilities. improve form plot layouts. unlock advanced agricultural facilities.
  • Mechanization & Automation: Improve automated feeding and watering systems. unlock mechanized planting and harvesting. Reduce maintenance requirements. improve production efficiency through farm machinery.
  • Storage and preservation: increase agricultural storage capacity. reduce spoilage of perishable products. improve preservation of meat, produce and botanical materials. unlock specialized storage for rare agricultural products.
  • Logistics & production management: Improve the efficiency of collecting and moving farm products. coordinate multiple production facilities. reduce operational costs. Unlock advanced farm management capabilities.
  • Finally the Master Agronomist block reduces operating costs and improves automation efficiency.

All this is purely an idea to give more reason to diversify players individual characters. while i understand artisans survey for their resources and have automated harvesters i do feel these classes would add a much more rich and diverse way for artisans to gather their resources. Also i think it would be cool to walk into a city to find an area where there are entire groups of livestock grazzing. i hope others will, enjoy this idea. im aware there are probably redundancies in the trees.
 
Cool concept, different game entirely. This would throw chef into a completely different prof that has its own gathering attached to it which is unnecessary and I can't even begin to imagine how it would be balanced, not even just the gathering or the chef aspect but the majority of profs rely on foods for buffs, which means if you touch chef this much, you're looking at tweaking everything. There currently is ways to manually harvest all forms of resources, whether it be animal or non animal by-products. Those could get looked into but to create a whole new prof based on it is a bit much. At the max, I could see bits of this idea develop into some bonuses for a prestige system.
 
So I disagree that SWG is not the game for this kind of thing. Low stress NON-COMBAT activities are one of the things that makes SWG so much better than many other MMORPGs. In general i like the idea of a farming & ranching profession, though I admit it would need to be CAREFULLY planned out to maintain balance...

Ranching - Maybe instead of creating a new class... you tweak bioengineering to utilize ranching to create creatures with desirable stats.... You could breed creatures over time to create offspring with desired resource stats, or combat stats... And to prevent runaway power-creep... you can only breed wild tamed creatures, not the offspring you create. Rancher COULD also be a new class based on 'Domestic Arts' and 'Harvesting' and 'Organic Chemistry' I guess.

Farming - Would probably need to be a new class similar to the suggestion above. Where you could potentially create small crops of specialized plant resources. Again, one time hybrids of two wild harvested resources.

Anyway, upvoting to help keep the conversation going because I think that broadening the game is generally desirable.
 
Personally I think it's a great start, I know of many a Crafter Main who would jump in with both feet just to enhance their Business Tycoon Star Wars Fantasy... Further more, I believe it would be poor logic to dismiss it so readily, when it has the potential to add something new and engaging to this game we all love. Maybe it's not your cup of tea, but that's ok.

I believe a Project of this size would require a lot of planning guaranteed, if not only to maintain the balance of the resource pool as it is and not make Farming the End all/Be all of one Particular Profession, but I could see it being a nice contribution (not replacement) to resource management of our Player Economy. Balancing would have to not override or undervalue other Professions like Scout/Ranger for Flora/Fauna Harvesting or make Farming/Ranching a Necessity for certain Professions either. I think as well it might have to be rolled out in stages, or even compacted into just 1 Profession, 3 whole new Professions might be a tad much, but I want to hear what other people think as well.

I know there are many a 3D modeler lurking out there in this community who would love the opportunity to come up with some interesting and aesthetic Placeable Structures. The whole point of this Forum is to discuss new ideas that could be Implemented to Enhance our great game to be more engaging and enjoyable.

Definite Upvote from me.
 
A thought occured to me... if you make the BASE tree for the Farmer profession pretty extreme.. (like all three tress i mentioned in my previous post)... then it would make it a rather costly (skill point wise) profession. which would help prevent the "End all/Be all" you mentioned.
 
After reading the whole block of text , it really screams that you had this idea and just asked Chatgpt to make an elaborate class based on your idea without really thinking how it affects or interacts with the existing systems in the game.
-Master Rancher : this class really invades the current Bio Eng space , then you go on about how it increases the quality of resources generated , so basically creating possible server best organics out of thin air because you did not elaborate the process furthermore in order for this to even be considered as an alternative you would need to create millions of units given that a scout can harvest millions of units when a good organic spawns
-Master Botanist: same thing but now you are competing with harvesters , and if a Botanist can produce server best flora then that defeats the purpose of ever harvesting anything in the wild and finally
-Master Agronomist: this one is the one that might have a somewhat future in being able to collect eggs, milk and fish in larger amounts in a ranch setting but even this idea with the upcoming city update there is a specialization that increases the yield on those products
So again all this is just a make a wish class that is not needed at all ....Downvote
 
After reading the whole block of text , it really screams that you had this idea and just asked Chatgpt to make an elaborate class based on your idea without really thinking how it affects or interacts with the existing systems in the game.
-Master Rancher : this class really invades the current Bio Eng space , then you go on about how it increases the quality of resources generated , so basically creating possible server best organics out of thin air because you did not elaborate the process furthermore in order for this to even be considered as an alternative you would need to create millions of units given that a scout can harvest millions of units when a good organic spawns
-Master Botanist: same thing but now you are competing with harvesters , and if a Botanist can produce server best flora then that defeats the purpose of ever harvesting anything in the wild and finally
-Master Agronomist: this one is the one that might have a somewhat future in being able to collect eggs, milk and fish in larger amounts in a ranch setting but even this idea with the upcoming city update there is a specialization that increases the yield on those products
So again all this is just a make a wish class that is not needed at all ....Downvote
While I can see why you would say that the entire idea was my own. I did ask chat GPT for help figuring out the name for Master Agronomist. Never heard that name before. But no this was my idea. I grew up going through school before large language models were a thing. Early 2000s. I know how to do my own research and as I mentioned I grew up on a farm so my own personal lived experience influenced it.
 
While I can see why you would say that the entire idea was my own. I did ask chat GPT for help figuring out the name for Master Agronomist. Never heard that name before. But no this was my idea. I grew up going through school before large language models were a thing. Early 2000s. I know how to do my own research and as I mentioned I grew up on a farm so my own personal lived experience influenced it.
I did not say it wasn't your idea , just pointed out that it looks like Chatgpt developed all the points for it , and you did not address any of the concerns i listed.
Growing up in an Iowa, farm life was all i knew till i moved so even though i love the farm and ranch lifestyle i don't think the ideas you listed are compatible with the current systems in place
 
I did not say it wasn't your idea , just pointed out that it looks like Chatgpt developed all the points for it , and you did not address any of the concerns i listed.
Growing up in an Iowa, farm life was all i knew till i moved so even though i love the farm and ranch lifestyle i don't think the ideas you listed are compatible with the current systems in place
Well in all honestly I dont know how the system works in SWG. It was simply an idea that popped into my head and I started writing. The only reason I stopped was be cause my wife told me it might be too much. But when it comes down to it in reality the vast majority of people wouldnt realistically be gathering their own resources. I understand its a game but it would be far more realistic to have classes dedicated to getting those resources versus crafters doing it themselves. Yeah id be okay with a total reinventing of the system for it but im also aware its not resonable. These were just ideas that popped into my head.
 
Well in all honestly I dont know how the system works in SWG. It was simply an idea that popped into my head and I started writing. The only reason I stopped was be cause my wife told me it might be too much. But when it comes down to it in reality the vast majority of people wouldnt realistically be gathering their own resources. I understand its a game but it would be far more realistic to have classes dedicated to getting those resources versus crafters doing it themselves. Yeah id be okay with a total reinventing of the system for it but im also aware its not resonable. These were just ideas that popped into my head.
Again you are not addressing any of the points i raised and i get that its just an idea. There is already a class dedicated to gathering organic resources it is called Master Scout and just because YOU are ok with reinventing the whole system and the current systems and classes be damned , it does not mean the whole server is ......
 
Again you are not addressing any of the points i raised and i get that its just an idea. There is already a class dedicated to gathering organic resources it is called Master Scout and just because YOU are ok with reinventing the whole system and the current systems and classes be damned , it does not mean the whole server is ......
Never said anyone was. At this point it just feels like you want to argue for fhe sake of arguing which im not here for. Youve critized me and my idea enough at this point
 
Never said anyone was. At this point it just feels like you want to argue for fhe sake of arguing which im not here for. Youve critized me and my idea enough at this point
How did i criticize you ? I criticized your ideas because you posted them in a PUBLIC online forum, if your ideas crumble at the slight criticism from anyone then perhaps they were not good ideas to begin with.
 
for the record... I am not 100% against replacing BioEngineer with the Rancher... same results, with some potentially more engaging play to get there.. Farmer might be a bit trickier.
 
for the record... I am not 100% against replacing BioEngineer with the Rancher... same results, with some potentially more engaging play to get there.. Farmer might be a bit trickier.
See what i had envisioned would be that a rancher could only raise regular animals not mutated. So the rancher being able to raise livestock that have curated stats or genetic traits would lend well for further mutation when the rancher gives the egg to the bioengineer. As I mentioned I dont want the rancher being able to get the super rare exotic creatures that you can only gain through collecting the DNA in drops. I believe the nexu is a decent example. You need to grind the DNA as a drop i believe. Only animals that can he tamed on a similar level of the creature handler.
 
I think it is not just your idea. Ideas can be great but still not a go. Taking time to understand how the game works here along with the various systems so you can get an idea that at least tries to take into account unintended consequences and such. You idea would be a lot of time and effort for very little reward and very few players. Iirc Legends has farming and ranching for the NGE garbage if you want to see what it looks like. This not being NGE means it would be much more disruptive to do your ideas here. It really pays off to research before posting a PV on things to help avoid feeling attacked when people object to your suggestions.