[DEVBLOG#316] Flowers and Blooming

Hey everyone! Good evening!

I'd like to tell you a bit more about our upcoming Vanilla Plants Expanded - Flowers mod, because it shaped up really nice recently.

Generally, the idea is very simple at its core: we want to allow players - you - to make beautiful gardens. This means:

We want your gardens to look visually interesting, and;

We want your gardens to have a high beauty value.

Now, I have designed flowers to ensure they meet both of these criteria, so let me explain to you how flowers work:

The flowers in this mod are governed by a special system focused on Blooming, Aging, and seasonal changes.

Blooming: Flowers enter a special blooming state where they change their graphic, gain a significant beauty multiplier, and can boost VFE-Medieval 2 apiaries (counting as 4 flowers instead of 1).

Conditions: Blooming only occurs when the flower is fully grown, is within a specific seasonal timeframe and meets a minimum temperature requirement.

Re-blooming: If conditions become unacceptable, a flower will revert to a non-blooming state, but some flowers can bloom later in the season if conditions improve.

Aging: Flowers do not have a lifespan and can be kept forever.

Beauty Bonus: For every year they exist, they receive a stacking beauty modifier added to their base beauty, making older flowers more beautiful when they bloom, up to a specified maximum.

Seasonal Survival:

Leafless State: In winter or when temperatures drop, flowers typically enter a leafless state. In this state, they become ugly, producing negative beauty, and the age beauty modifier is ignored.

Cold Death: While leafless, flowers can survive standard cold but will instantly die if the temperature falls below their specific deadly cold temperature threshold.

Minifiable:

Minification: Flowers can be "extracted" (minified) and replanted elsewhere, retaining their age and growth. They will die if not replanted within 3 days.

Now, each and every flower in this mod has its own blooming conditions and duration. They also come with different beauty multipliers when blooming, as well as beauty bonuses from age. Some flowers may start off with low beauty, but gain a lot of beauty as time goes on. Some other flowers may not be impressive when not-blooming, but will have a large bloom beauty modifier!

Your job is to design gardens that have a lot of different flowers that bloom in different times, to ensure that there's always some high-beauty blooming plants for your colonists to see!

Now, let's see some of the flowers that are coming!

ROSE

Description: A beautiful cultivated flower, the rose has been a symbol of love since Earth's ancient era.

Blooms from 10th day of spring to 5th day of fall.

This is just the standard base game rose. It's being changed into a blooming flower.

ROSE BUSH

Description: A dense, woody shrub known for producing vibrant, classic roses. With its thick foliage and striking blooms, it serves as an excellent ornamental centerpiece for any garden.

Blooms from 10th day of spring to 5th day of fall.

DAISY

Description: A common, cheerful flower with white petals and a yellow center, often found in fields and lawns. It's a symbol of innocence and purity.

Blooms from 12th day of spring to 10th day of fall.

LAVENDER

Description: A fragrant perennial herb, known for its calming properties. It's highly prized for its scent and vibrant purple flowers, and its presence can uplift the mood of everyone.

Blooms from 12th day of spring to 5th day of fall.

TULIP

Description: A classic spring flower known for its vibrant, cup-shaped blooms on a single stem. They are symbols of perfect love and new beginnings.

Blooms from 3rd day of spring to 10th day of spring.

DAYLILY

Description: A cultivated flower with wide petals but a short blooming period. Daylilies are very beautiful, but look best when blooming.

Blooms from 2nd day of summer to 12th day of summer.

This is just the standard base game daylily. It's being changed into a blooming flower.

HYDRANGEA BUSH

Description: A popular, dense shrub known for its large, round clusters of flowers that bloom for a long season. Their color often changes based on soil acidity.

Blooms from 2nd day of summer to 14th day of fall.

PANSY

Description: A cultivated hybrid flower famous for its bright, "face-like" blooms. It thrives in cool temperatures and is often one of the first flowers to appear in spring.

Blooms from 1st day of spring to 5th day of summer, and will re-bloom in the fall.

MARIGOLD

Description: A vibrant, sun-loving flower known for its brilliant orange and yellow blooms. Its presence is sometimes associated with repelling insectoids, though some varieties can have a distinct, pungent scent.

Blooms from 5th day of spring to 14th day of fall.

LILAC BUSH

Description: A highly fragrant, woody shrub known for its dense clusters of purple or white flowers that signify the start of summer. Very resilient and cold-hardy.

Blooms from 5th day of spring to 10th day of summer.

HYACINTH

Description: A highly fragrant, dense flower known for its clusters of bell-shaped blooms. As a bulb flower, it is one of the earliest signs of spring and is highly valued for its sweet scent.

Blooms from 5th day of spring to 10th day of spring.

CROCUS

Description: A small, low-lying flower that is one of the very first signs of spring, often pushing its blooms through the last of the winter snow. Its beautiful, cup-shaped bloom brings a brief but powerful moment of color to the early year.

Blooms from 14th day of winter to 7th day of spring.

AMARYLLIS

Description: A majestic, showy bulb flower known for its large, trumpet-shaped blooms and long, elegant stalks. It is highly valued for its striking beauty and ability to bloom during the deep cold, when conditions are right.

Blooms from 10th day of winter to 5th day of spring.

There's many, many more, but I'm running out of time to list them. At the end of the day, I also want you to be a bit surprised when you see the mod hit the workshop! I can only tell you can expect a lot more from the mod when it's out!

Now, some of you have suggested that these flowers should have some functions. Defending flowers, healing flowers etc.

That is not our intention. This is only a decorative mod. Their function is decoration. While some of them have some interesting quirks (marigolds, when blooming, will prevent insectoid infestations in the rooms they're in), our goal is NOT to give you 'solutions' to base game problems in the form of flowers. The only solution the flowers aim to be are the solution to ugly environments!

Let me know what you think so far!