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Overview
Farming in Outbound lets players grow crops, mushrooms, and plants in mobile garden beds attached to the camper van. Unlike traditional farming games with fixed plots on static land, Outbound's gardens travel with you. This means you can plant seeds in one biome, drive to another, and harvest your crops when they are ready, all without returning to a permanent base.
Setting Up a Garden
Garden beds are built using the modular building system and placed inside the van, on its roof, or in attached greenhouses. Building a crop plot requires resources gathered from the environment. Once placed, players can plant seeds and wait for them to grow. The technology tree unlocks additional garden types and tools as players progress.
Confirmed Crops
The following plants can be grown in garden beds. All have been confirmed through the demo, beta, or official wiki.
Crop | Use |
|---|---|
Wheat | Processed into Grain, used to make Bread |
Tomatoes | Eaten raw or made into Tomato Sauce |
Carrots | Eaten raw or used in recipes |
Herbs | Used to brew Herbal Tea |
Berries | Eaten raw or made into Jam |
Mushrooms (Amber Morel, Indigo Cap) | Eaten raw or used in Mushroom Soup |
Seeds and starter plants can be found while exploring the environment. Different crops may grow better in different conditions, though specific growth rate mechanics have not been fully documented.
Watering
Crops need water to grow. A watering can must be unlocked through the technology system for manual watering. However, crop plots auto-water during rain if left uncovered, as confirmed in alpha patch v0.5.9. This creates an interesting trade-off: covering your gardens with the van's greenhouse protects them from harsh weather but prevents free rain watering. Soil wetness visibility was improved in patch v0.5.15, making it easier to see which plots need attention.
Greenhouses
Greenhouses are vehicle upgrades that expand growing capacity. They attach to the van's rooftop or sides, creating enclosed garden spaces that protect plants from weather while keeping everything mobile. The van building guide covers strategies for fitting greenhouses alongside other features like solar panels and rooftop storage racks. Balancing garden space with power generation and storage is one of the key layout decisions in the game.
Crop Plot Mechanics
Crop plots track growth progress even while the player sleeps (confirmed fix in beta v0.7.8). Harvesting is synchronized in multiplayer (fixed in alpha v0.5.11), meaning all players see the same crop state. Grown crop loading was further refined in patch v0.5.15 to ensure plants persist correctly between play sessions.
Connection to Cooking
Farming produces the raw ingredients that feed into the cooking system. Harvested crops can be eaten raw for basic nourishment or prepared at cooking stations for improved effects. The full recipe pipeline is documented in the recipes list article. Together, farming and cooking form a self-sustaining food production loop that is central to Outbound's off-grid lifestyle theme.