Revision - farming - Outbound Wiki

How Farming Works

Farming is the player's renewable supply chain in Windrose. The system covers crop saplings, the Seedbed placement structure, the watering loop, and the Farming Contractor automation hire. Properly farmed plots remove most of the foraging time required to keep Cooking, Alchemy, and trade-good production fed at scale, so a player who plans to live in their base and run repeated dungeon or boss loops will eventually invest in farming infrastructure regardless of build.

Seedbeds and Ground Planting

Crops grow in two ways depending on the species:

Seedbed planting: 13 of the 14 saplings are seedbed crops. A built Seedbed section costs 5 Fertile Soil and holds up to 4 plants. Seedbeds are placed on flat ground inside or outside, and they accept any of the seedbed-compatible saplings interchangeably.
Ground planting: The Lime Sapling is the only sapling in the launch build that plants directly into the ground rather than into a Seedbed section. Lime trees grow as standalone saplings outside a seedbed and require open soil rather than the prepared bed.

Build a Seedbed near your Bonfire so the comfort bonus is in range and the plot is inside the build claim, which protects against animal incursions that can flatten unprotected saplings.

The 14 Crop Saplings

The launch build ships 14 crop saplings, each crafted from a one-seed plant on the Seedbed (or directly on open ground for Lime). Cooked recipes and alchemy products that consume these crops are documented in the Cooking and Alchemy articles.

Aloe Sapling feeds Sunmilk Tonic and other healing recipes.
Banana Sapling the workhorse fruit for Endurance and Precision dishes.
Bean Sapling cornerstone of Bean Soup and the Beans-with-Mushrooms-and-Sweet-Potato Rare meal.
Bromeliad Sapling decorative-but-functional plant tied to a side quest line.
Cocoplum Seedling feeds Cocoplum Pie and Spicy Swamp Juice.
Corn Sapling Cornmeal source for Tortilla, Burrito, Tamale, Taco, and Cocoplum Pie.
Flax Sapling Flax Fiber input for Linen Fabric at the Spinning Wheel; the only sapling that feeds the textile chain.
Healing Herb Sapling Healing Herbs feed every Healing Potion tier at the Alchemy Table.
Leek Sapling used in Gazpacho, Tamale, and Meaty Croc Kebab.
Lime Sapling the only ground-planted sapling. Limes feed Sweet Lime Juice and Spicy Swamp Juice.
Pepper Sapling Cayenne Pepper for Spicy Skewered Crab, Spicy Breaded Kebab, and Spicy Swamp Juice.
Sweet Potato Sapling feeds Hearty Egg Broth, Chowder, and the Beans-with-Mushrooms-and-Sweet-Potato Rare meal.
Tomato Sapling base for Tomato Juice, Crab Soup, Meat Salad, Gazpacho, and Taco.

Crop Growth and Watering

Crop growth runs on an in-game timer once the sapling is planted. Watering speeds growth and fertilizing increases the yield per harvest; both interactions are covered on the Crop Growth mechanic page. The Water Barrel is the standard renewable water source; build one near every farm cluster so a watering pass does not require a trip to a coast or river.

Farming Contractor Automation

The Farming Contractor is a hireable NPC sold by the Recruitment Vendor in Tortuga town. Once placed, the Contractor automates farm-plot maintenance for a small recurring Piastre cost. A Contractor on a fully-built farm cluster removes the daily watering chore and lets the player focus on loops outside the base. The hire is separate from the four named workers (Rosalinda Mercer, Jasper Crowe, Black Axel, Mortar Joe) and uses Guinea or Piastre rather than the named-worker 500 Piastre fixed cost.

Where Farming Plugs Into the Rest of the Game

Cooking: most Uncommon and Rare recipes need at least one farmed input. Skip farming and the Cooking loop bottlenecks at the highest-tier meals.
Alchemy: Healing Herbs and Aloe drive the Healing Potion and Sunmilk Tonic chains. Without farmed Healing Herbs, the player has to clear Ancient Ruins chests for every potion.
Textiles: Flax is the only path to Linen Fabric, which gates Fabric Arborum and Epic-tier cloth armor.
Trade: surplus crops sell to faction trade-goods merchants for Piastre, although the per-unit margins are smaller than artifact flips.

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