Farming is not a very important part of Atlas, but it may come in handy when your vitamins are low and you are in need of a quick meal, to satisfy your appetite. Farming makes it very convenient to get vegetables and fruit within the safety of your base, so you might want to look into our Atlas Farming Guide.
Atlas Farming
In order to get started, you will first have to invest some skill points into the skill tree. Start by putting a point in “Cooking” under Survivalism tab though before you can unlock “Cooking”, you will need to unlock “The Basics” and “Water Keeper” first.
After that head over to “Cooking and Farming” tab, here start with “Water Storage” then make your way to “Basic Farming”. When both of these are unlocked, you are pretty much set and can get working.
However, if you have some extra points, it is a good idea to unlock “Soil Tilling” as well.
Required Resources for Farming
When you have unlocked all of the necessary skills, you must find some seeds as well as raw materials to construct farming plots and an irrigation system.
Crop Seeds
Seeds can be found from plants when harvesting a vegetable from it. However, there is a very slim chance of getting a seed when plucking it by hands, so you will have to use either a sickle or an animal to harvest it.
Different types of seeds you can plant in the crop plots are Chickpea Seed, Beet Seed, Carrot Seed, Bean Seed, Cactus Seed, Onion Seed, Pepper Seed, Rice Seed, Turnip Seed, Wheat Seed, Edible Greens Seed, Chili Seed, and Maize Seed.
Fertilizer
Additionally, you will also need some fertilizer. Fertilizers can be crafted in your inventory. Sometimes you have to get your hands dirty to get the work done.
In order to make yourself a batch of fertilizer, you have to collect one sample of feces; it can be of any animal and a heap of thatch, about 50.
Water
Water is very important for plant growth. In rainfall areas, the need for water can be fulfilled by rains but in other areas, you will need a water pipe system in place to irrigate the crop plots.
You will need Water Reservoir for that which can be either Stone Water Reservoir or underground. If a crop plot is placed in the water, you don’t have to further irrigate this plot.
You can construct a small crop plot and some irrigation pipes from basic raw materials found around the map.
Soil Types
You have to start by placing the small crop plot on the ground, depending on the biome you place the plot over, the type of soil you will get in your plot. For example, Tropical Grass is generated by placing a crop plot on grass in a tropical biome.
Some crops can be grown only on certain soils, so you have to take the type of soil into account. Each biome has different types of soils. When hovering over the seed, you can read the information about where it will be able to grow.
How to Plant Crops
Once you have chosen a soil and planted a plot. You will have to fertilize it by pressing hold the use key and selecting the option. After that, plant a seed in it, with the same method.
You will be able to view now when looking at the plot, the type of seed planted and how much fertilization it has received. There will also be a bar to indicate the water it has received.
Water is also a raw ingredient for farming; it can be acquired by rain or irrigation. Therefore, if rain is not expected, then you will have to build a water reservoir. Connect pipes from it and lead them over the crops you need to water.
The part just over the crop has to be connected with the irrigated water pipe. In order to acquire the pipes or the irrigated pipe, you will have to make pipes from the inventory. The pipes can be changed to one of five types by pressing “T”.
One of those types is a normal pipe and one is an irrigated pipe. To fill up the water reservoir you have to again either rely on the rain or fill it up manually using a water jar. Crops soak up water very slowly, so lack of water supply is not a big issue.
Soil Tiling
Ideally, it takes forever for your plant to grow, so to speed things up you need to start tilling.
As previously mentioned, you should be able to unlock “Soil Tiling” from the Cooking and Farming tab, you can also further increase your tiling attempts by unlocking Improved and advanced tiling skill.
Essentially tiling increases the rate of growth and it also can increase the yield of a crop, so instead of getting 1 item per crop, you may end up getting a few more.
To initiate tiling, equip the shovel and approach the crop plot, you will be able to interact with the plant. Upon interacting, you will have to play sort of a mini-game. Each successful attempt at the mini-game will increase the growth rate.
With the tiling ability maxed out, you will receive 3 attempts at the game for each time you try. Scoring successfully consecutively will get you the best bonus, but it has no set back even if you miss one or two tries.
Harvesting
Once the plant is ready to harvest you can harvest it by going to the plant and pressing the Use e. In case you have seeds or fertilizer in your inventory you have to hold the “E” button for harvesting the plant
Even when your plant has fully grown and harvested, you will still be able to till the soil, but this time instead of the growing bonus, you will receive more vegetable from the crop for your successful attempts.
