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[jaked122]

it sounds like kobold quest, eating bugs... I've used bugs as weapons...
I'll never forget that nest of hornets in the pool

[Aquillion]

The game also doesn't tell us that Dwarfs drink twice as much as they eat. The game also doesn't tell us that their will be thief, be it monkeys or kobolds. The game doesn't tell us Elves only like certain things. The game doesn't tell us that the stock accuracy is based on in game perscion(sp) by the dwarfs. The game doesn't tell us that the dorfs perfer their own bedrooms. The game doesn't tell us that the dorfs for the most part, like to eat together.
The game doesn't tell us that cat will collect vermin and bring it back to its own owner, which it chooses by itself.

But those things are part of the game universe.  They have logical reasons expressed in the game universe.  The behavior of the 'cook' command is not logical and is not part of the setting; it is an interface and an AI issue.  It revolves around "secret tricks" where the player is left to discover on their own that the AI is crippled so (for no logical reason) seeds can only be recovered when brewing, milling, or processing, not when cooking.

Once a player knows about these bizarre behaviors, they can easily avoid it by not cooking anything with seeds, and cooking everything else.  Of course it's a workaround for the game's nonsensical handling of food, and given the fact that it is nonsensical it's not something anyone is likely to find out without spending a lot of time on the forum or wiki, but it's not a factor in the game for anyone but the rawest newbies, either, and it's only a factor for them because it is utterly unintuitive.

You are implicitly acknowledging this, but saying "Yes, I know its current behavior is illogical, unintuitive, and makes no sense, but I like it because it makes things hard."  That is a bad reason.  The interface should not be set up in order to be hard; challenges should come from things in the setting (hordes of locusts, say) not from a deliberately crippled interface.  (Although, as I noted, it doesn't make things hard.  There is no actual management involved because there are no actual decisions involved.  Cooking food that has seeds is currently a flat-out stupid decision, but the game defaults to doing it and gives no indication of that.  Anyone who knows about the issue can easily avoid it by growing food that has to be processed first.)

You still haven't answered my main question, either.  Seeds provide negligible food value when eaten.  There is no logical reason why anyone would destroy all their seed crops.  That being the case, it is not a management issue -- the player isn't "managing" anything, since management requires actual decisions.  It is a mindless and unproductive task.  In fact, forcing the player to perform mindless tasks like turning off cooking for seed-bearing foods takes away from actual management, because it distracts them from making actual decisions by forcing them to repeatedly press the "push this button to not lose" button over and over again.

How about a split. Somewhere down the line, we can choose to have certain like industry automated, for least player input. So you can concentrate on the parts you like.

Although this would make the game easier, and at times, especially for new or early fortress, less frantic game play.

This still misses the main problem.  The fact that cooking destroys seeds serves only one real purpose in the game -- it is a booby-trap the interface and AI set for new players by having the dwarves automatically do something silly.  Adding a "turn off the new-player booby-trap" button is a bad solution to this, because the people who most need it won't know that it's there.

I propose an alternate solution.  Have a 'preserve seeds' option in the kitchen menu which makes cooking take a bit longer, but preserve seeds as long as you have less than 200 seeds in stock (the number below which seeds stop being produced.)  Naturally, it defaults to on for anything that has seeds.  Then, people like you who want the fun of dwarves destroying seeds for no reason can just turn it off, without it booby-trapping the learning curve for new players.

[profit]

I have to agree with Aquillion on this...

Destroying seeds seems like retarded pointless newbie stumbling block type crap.

It adds no real difficulty and only makes things confusing for those who have not read the wiki...  It adds no realism... It adds NOTHING of value and only makes the game less intuitive.

IMHO it's only there because toady forgot to tell kitchens to produce seeds.

[AliceNread]

I turn off cooking booze and anything with seeds, bones, or shells as well.

No way. In cooking you can cook with all of those things.

[Neonivek]

I think they should just do what I'd assume real farmers do and collect seeds from some of the plants harvested. So it would be an action taken when the plants are picked up from the fields themselves rather then from what happens to the food afterwords.

If the player has any say in it it should be how many plants they should collect it from (since it often ruins or makes the food useless) and how many of those seeds can be used for other purposes.

Seeds that have been dormant for too long could become dry and an instant food ingrediant. (I don't know if this is true... I have no idea if seeds have a shelf-life)

[Aquillion]

Also, plants that wither in the field or rot for whatever reason should probably leave seeds, since seeds last a lot longer than the plant outside them (they evolved that way, since they'd be ineffective at reproducing the plant otherwise.)

[G-Flex]

I would say to abstract the entire seed process out, and have plants drop them when harvested (implying that some crop is wasted in the process).

The problem is, this takes the strategy out of it all, and you'll never, ever have to worry about seeds again in your life.

Is this realistic or good for gameplay? I don't know. Maybe seed storage should be more volatile in some way, so that you'd still have to actually pay attention.

[Derakon]

What strategy is there currently related to seeds? "Don't cook plants if you want seeds"? That's not much of a strategy.

If you can come up with an interesting way to make seed management strategic, then by all means, but as it stands, it's a pretty lame process. Having seeds get generated at harvesting time makes as much sense as anything else and has the added benefit of keeping seeds close to where they'll be used. Heck, you could probably turn your seed stockpiles off and just wait for the farmers to dig a little hole in the ground.

[peterix]

I don't know about strategy, but this is how I think it should be:

Some plants have to be grown for seeds if you want them. It renders them useless for other purposes though.

Some plants have the seeds as their primary product.

And some plants produce fruit, where said fruit has seeds inside.

Also some plants produce nuts, which act like seeds, but need to be 'processed into fruit' to be of any further use.

All plants have:
1) Roots - useful for extracts
2) Plant matter - like hemp for making ropes and crude cloth
3) Seeds - Some seeds require extra processing (i know a few plants/seeds that need to get through bird stomach to sprout). Some can be used to make extracts (oils, etc.), some are ground to flour.
4) Fruit (several types) - It should be possible to ferment these or extract the juice where applicable (love me some chestnut alcohol ).
These should be available in different parts of the growth cycle. Some plants have 'fruit' inside seeds (all kinds of nuts). Some have seeds inside fruit (apples and similar) - this distinction is important due to how they are processed.

Some plants keep growing where you put them. Like trees and grapes. You have to protect them from wildlife and other bad stuff. Also, they need a lot of care for optimal results (removing unwanted/dead branches, etc.).

Also, I miss beekeeping and making honey

Obviously, all this requires some kind of user interface. Most of plant-related work should be 'automated'. For each plant, there should be a list of tasks with percentages (I want to grind all wheat seeds to flour) and a hard number OR percentage of available planting space 'of seeds to keep'. Say you want to plant strawberries on 30% of your available land or plant exactly 100 of them. Where seeds are required for processing (grinding, extraction, etc.), the 'keep seeds' part is applied first so that you don't use up all your seeds.




EDIT: there should be some obstacles - dead seeds that won't sprout, not enough water, wrong climate, pests, fire, more pests and plant diseases, goblins wrecking your orchards and farms for fun, bears destroying your beehives, etc.

[TerminatorII]

You grow new strawberries from shoots which come from burying the runners (long plant tendrils) that they send out all year long. Also, Strawberries can produce fruit for years before needing to be replaced.

[Spey]

really this problem shouldnt be handled in a vaccum, but when toady updates the whole of the farming system in general.

if the farming system becomes more realistic, i think it would be more likely to see a crop planted in one season, and then later harvested in another, yielding both usable crop and seeds/spawn/whatever for next season. it could just be abstracted that the farmers are smart enough to maintain a supply of seeds for the next crop.

right now its a little unrealistic, as farmers in the real world dont grow crops and then wait for their eventual consumption before getting seeds back, it would just be a case of designating part of the harvest as seed reclamation

[irmo]

I don't know about strategy, but this is how I think it should be:

This is way too complicated and nobody will want to put up with it.

[Silverionmox]

I don't know about strategy, but this is how I think it should be:

This is way too complicated and nobody will want to put up with it.

I would :p

[sweitx]

Seeds that have been dormant for too long could become dry and an instant food ingrediant. (I don't know if this is true... I have no idea if seeds have a shelf-life)

If I remember correctly, seed only get bad if they get infected or got mold.  Many dried seed has an amazing ability to "resurrect" after being dried (even for centuries).

[Spey]

This is way too complicated and nobody will want to put up with it.

Isnt this the slogan for DF?