Grass Not Spreading

[Rishy 103]

Well.. over the course of one month not a single grass tile has spread to an adjacent tile.

Let me explain my situation:

I have an 11x14 animal pen enclosed by an iron fence that holds about 8 horses, a bull and four champion deers, that used to be fully covered by grass. Once a grass tile turned into a packed dirt tile, it would usually become a grass tile again after several days. Nothing to worry about, since the grass would spread faster than the animals would pack it.

Since I wanted to catch up with the farming and beverages skill a bit, I planted strawberrys and repeated this cycle five/six times. After that I got tired of farming again and planted some steppe in a cross-pattern (like planting all the black or white tiles on a checkerboard) to recover the dirt into grass once again.

After 4-5 days, I noticed that not a single grass tile had spread: the ones that neighboured the grass outside the pen (which had an iron fence inbetween). IF a single grass tile would have spread, I would have noticed by either a new packed dirt tile or a new grass tile, which didn't appear in these 5-6 days. So that's when I submitted my first /support call. Nothing much came out of that one: I should wait some more and plant some more grass, since this was not a known bug. And since I didn't have that many animals in the pen, grass still should spread faster than being packed.

To keep the animals fed, I planted some flowers now inside the pen instead of steppe (about 1/3rd of the whole pen in a rectangular shape), since I wasn't sure whether steppe did spread or not; and the community gave varying answers. After another 10-14 days, none of the grass tiles inside the pen had spread, neither the one adjacent to the iron fences. Most of the steppe was packed by now, so I kept cultivating those during the 5 days to keep room for new grass.

That's when I made a second support call. Apparently the CA didn't fully understand the situation so it took some time to explain. Again, this was not a known bug and couldn't appear locally, since, everyone would suffer from it or no one at all. So I was suggested to post this in the forum.

After some discussing, I had an Eureka moment. All the grass I planted inside the pen had flowers on them. Maybe that the flowers would prevent grass from being spread. So I ripped these flowers out of the grass and used them to plant even more grass tiles in rectangular shapes. And still, after a week or two, none of the grass tiles had spread in(to) the pen. My animals are fat but starving now

Side notes:

YES, I am aware that grass does not spread on packed dirt, or at least, not as fast as on normal dirt tiles. And yes, I cultivated all the packed dirt to prevent this!

I have a second farm (6x6) with 8 horses that has the same issue. Not a single grass tile had spread over the course of a month, without replanting anything, but with cultivating after the second week.

[MetalDragon 1,630]

This is strange. I've been doing some work ontop of a mountain recently, i have roughly a 15x15 area that is completely dirt. I went down to town for a few days to use up the mass amount of sleep bonus gathered. I went back up there yesterday and found the grass had already started spreading over the packed dirt on the edges i've been away for at most a week. I don't have any problems here. What server do you happen to be on?

[yarnevk 257]

I missed sowing a tater spot on my farm and it turned to grass, so I would say grass spread is not bugged. Also made a packed dirt road that is already falling victim to grass spread.

There have been many tweaks due to many complaints about packing algorithms though which is probably what you are seeing. It seems logical to me that grass seeds blowing in the wind never get a chance to seed when they get walked on.

Make a checkerboard of grass and one of steppe in an empty pen for proof what the problem is.

Edited December 23, 2012 by yarnevk

[Protunia 735]

how big are these pens??

[Wiro 370]

Possibly related, I noticed mycellium never seems to disappear.

[Rishy 103]

@ Yarnevk

(...) It seems logical to me that grass seeds blowing in the wind never get a chance to seed when they get walked on. (...)

That might be it. But every single animal has an average of 12 tiles to eat from. Logically speaking, grass should still spread faster than it is eaten per animal, since they can't possibly eat and pack and prevent grass from growing over twelve tiles per..

I could try to make a checkerboard of grass and steppe, but I think that won't solve anything, since it just doesn't seam to spread a single tile; since I already planted ~80 grass tiles on this 154 tiles sized animal pen, and if only one single grass would have spread in these four weeks, I wouldn't have posted this in the forum.

@Metaldragon

(...)What server do you happen to be on?

Independence (13x:11y)

@ Protunia

how big are these pens??

I have an 11x14 animal pen enclosed by an iron fence that holds about 8 horses, a bull and four champion deers, (...)

Side notes:

I have a second farm (6x6) with 8 horses that has the same issue. (...)

[yarnevk 257]

You should not be logical when it comes to packing, there are people with 4 tiles per or even 10 tiles per and they are getting packs when rolf himself said only below 4 per should get packs. So it is wurmlogical that if they are getting packed, that they also nerfed the practice of self-grassing pens.

My point is if others are posting grass is spreading outside pens, then your issue is related to packing algorithms.

Edited December 24, 2012 by yarnevk