Wait, are you saying we can have tree farms now? O_O
You mean the plant/tree merge I mentioned? No, unfortunately. I think it was mostly a save compatibility thing: "I unified the trees and shrubs raws (though they are still split for all intents and purposes when it comes to playing the game, so you can't start planting trees or anything like that at this early stage). The join will be handy for future additions [...]"
(also I'm amazed anyone actually read the raws I posted)
Thanks for this, Footkerchief. The full quote from that is:
1203. I unified the trees and shrubs raws (though they are still split for all intents and purposes when it comes to playing the game, so you can't start planting trees or anything like that at this early stage). The join will be handy for future additions, although if there are bugs with dwarves eating oak mushrooms or chopping down wild strawberry trees, it won't come as a surprise.Now, I get that we're not trying to give Toady more work to put in before the release, but if those 'bugs' actually became true, it would be totally cool with me. Deforestation should be a lot more permanent (in terms of relevant years), multiple logs or multiple units of charcoal should result from it, and reforestation should be possible. Tree farms would be a great step forward.
The way I am interpreting that quote (from December 2008, where he predicts a Frebruary release he he he) is that the raws of trees and plants use the same tags. And perhaps there is a tag which says, "This is a tree that gets cut down by choppers," and one that says, "This is a plant that gets plucked by flowerpicker pansies". But to me, that would mean that there might be a creative combination of tags that the community can fiddle around with to make it possible to grow trees in a farm plot.
I doubt it though. A tree tile doesn't share space with buildings ever, while a farm plot is a building in this sense. So that leads me to a question:
What does the unification of plant and tree raws entail? Is there anything new that modders can do with trees and plants because of this?