40 — Property plots & player farming

Status: Design (roadmap). Not implemented.
Related: 37 — Economic map zones, 38 — Biomes & cultivate, 23 — Harvest, 13 — Workers, 20 — Buildings, 08 — Banks.

1. Summary

Players buy plots of land only inside property zones. A plot is a fraction of a zone’s footprint — not the whole crown parcel, and not arbitrary wilderness. Ownership unlocks cultivate / farm, later build and bank hooks, and a share of tax collected on that land when it overlaps a tax zone.

First playable vertical: farming. Cultivate owned cells → plant seeds → crops grow through gfx stages → harvest like a resource node (produce + chance of more seeds) → replant quickly.

Whole-zone crown buy/sell already exists as a thin slice (37 §5); this plan supersedes that UX with fractional plots while keeping zone YAML as the crown catalog of where land can be claimed.

2. Design principles

3. What can be bought

World cell (x,y)
  └─ inside property_zone Z?  → claimable (if free / seller)
  └─ else                     → not for sale

• Not every tile in Flatland — only cells covered by a property overlay.
• One property zone may host many plots owned by different players (and leftover crown remainder).
• Plots must stay axis-aligned cell rects on the plant/claim grid (same meter grid as movement).
• Reject claims that overlap another plot, leave slivers under a min size, or exceed zone max_area_m2 for a single claim (settings).

3.1 Plot record (runtime)

PropertyPlot {
  plot_id,
  segment_id,
  property_zone_id,     // crown terms come from zone YAML
  owner_character_id,
  rect: { x0, y0, x1, y1 },   // inclusive cell bounds or half-open — pick one in impl
  purchased_at_tick / day,
  upkeep_arrears_days,
}

Persist with world / character economy state (worker checkpoint + control-plane as for 37 ownership). Whole-zone property_ownership map becomes derived or migrated to plot set.

4. Purchase price & period cost

Zone YAML still defines crown terms (37):

For a plot of area A inside zone of area Z:

area_frac = A / Z

purchase = ceil(crown_price_copper * area_frac * tax_premium)
upkeep_day = max(1, ceil(upkeep_copper_per_day * area_frac * tax_premium))

4.1 Tax premium (period cost ↔ tax rate)

If the plot overlaps a tax zone, apply a premium so busy / high-tax land costs more to hold:

tax_premium = 1 + (rate_bps / 10000) * tax_premium_weight
# tax_premium_weight from server-settings (e.g. 0.5 → 5% tax ⇒ +2.5% price/upkeep)

Use the highest overlapping tax zone’s rate_bps (same z_order rule as tax sampling). Flat copper tax does not enter the premium (keep it simple).

Optional later: flat_copper adds a small daily surcharge per plot.

4.2 Buy / sell / reclaim

4.3 Tax share (owner benefit)

When a harvest (or later activity) pays tax inside a tax zone and the taxed cell lies on an owned plot:

owner_share = floor(tax_collected * owner_tax_share_bps / 10000)
crown_keep  = tax_collected - owner_share

Credit owner_share to the plot owner’s copper (ledger: Taxes / Rent). Discount (37 §4.2) still applies to the harvester’s bill when they own the land.

5. Ownership unlocks (phased)

6. Farming vertical (v1)

6.1 Flow

Own plot cells
  → Cultivate (timed; workers optional) → tilled cells
  → Acquire seeds (loot / vendor / prior harvest)
  → Plant seed type + quantity into free tilled slots
  → Grow over time (sprite stages)
  → At 100%: Harvest (same channel as resource nodes)
  → Yield: crop item (e.g. potatoes) + chance of extra seeds
  → Replant quickly

6.2 Cultivate

• Only on owned plot cells.
• Prefer cells inside a growth zone (37 / 38 cultivate gate): require_growth_zone + allowed_kinds / allowed_biomes.
• Timed channel (player and/or worker). Writes tilled / farm terrain delta (reuse cultivate transitions from 38).
• Cultivated cells stay owned; losing the plot clears them.

6.3 Plant grid & capacity

Planting uses a coarse grid over cultivated land (settings), e.g. 1 seed slot per 1×1 m or per 2×2 m cell:

max_slots = floor(cultivated_area_m2 / plant_slot_m2)
used_slots = count(active crop instances on plot)
free_slots = max_slots - used_slots

Player UX:

1. Choose seed type (inventory template with seed_for: potato / crop_tags).
2. Enter quantity (cap = min(stack, free_slots)).
3. Confirm → seeds consume; crop instances spawn on free slots (nearest empty tilled cells / auto-fill).

6.4 Crop instance

CropInstance {
  id,
  plot_id,
  cell: (x, y),
  crop_id,              // catalog: potato, carrot, …
  planted_at_tick,
  growth_progress: 0.0..1.0,
  sprite_mode,          // grow_10 | grow_20 | grow_60 | grow_100
}

6.5 Growth rate

base_ticks_to_mature = crop.def.grow_ticks
fertility = growth_zone_at(cell).fertility or 1.0
biome_mult = biome catalog grow_mult (default 1.0)
weather_mult = regional weather (default 1.0 until weather ships)

progress_per_tick = 1.0 / (base_ticks_to_mature / fertility / biome_mult * weather_mult)

Clamp fertility via existing economy_zones settings. Weather stub stays 1.0 until weather lands — same pattern as 37.

6.6 Sprite growth modes

Presentation / resource catalog for each crop tile id exposes optional modes:

Gfx already selects sprite_mode on resource nodes; crops reuse that path. Missing modes fall back to nearest lower stage or default tile.

6.7 Harvest

At grow_100, crop is a harvestable resource (23):

• Same interact / channel / cancel-on-move rules.
• Yield table on crop def, e.g. potatoes quantity_min/max + seed_drop_chance / seed_quantity.
• After harvest: cell returns to tilled empty (ready to replant); no long wild respawn unless configured.

6.8 Seeds & crop catalog (content)

# illustrative
items:
  - id: potato_seed
    tags: [seed, potato]
    seed_for: potato_crop
  - id: potato
    tags: [food, vegetable, potato]

crops:
  - id: potato_crop
    seed_item: potato_seed
    grow_ticks: 18000          # ~10 min at 30 Hz — tune in content
    crop_tags: [potato, vegetable]
    harvest:
      item: potato
      quantity_min: 2
      quantity_max: 5
      seed_item: potato_seed
      seed_chance_bps: 6000    # 60%
      seed_quantity_min: 1
      seed_quantity_max: 2
    presentation_tile: crop.potato

Vendors / world loot can sell or drop seeds; first loop may seed Ada / farm NPC with a small seed stock.

6.9 Workers

Optional v1.5: hire worker job cultivate / plant / harvest_crops on employer plots (13). Not required to ship solo farming.

7. Client / UX sketch

Dashboard (04 §4.8) may list plots / upkeep later.

8. Settings knobs

property_plots:
  plant_slot_m2: 1.0
  min_plot_area_m2: 4.0
  tax_premium_weight: 0.5
  owner_tax_share_bps: 2500          # 25% of tax collected on owned cells
  sellback_bps: 5000
  claim_must_be_in_growth_to_farm: true

farming:
  default_weather_mult: 1.0
  wither_on_reclaim: true

9. Implementation phasing

Ordering vs other Tier 4 work: after banks (4.13) preferred for clean copper/upkeep; can start P0 in parallel with ability (4.14). Biomes/weather improve P2 multipliers but are not blockers (stubs = 1.0).

10. Exit criteria (farming vertical)

• Player buys a partial plot inside a property zone; cannot buy outside zones
• Daily upkeep scales with plot area (+ tax premium when taxed)
• Cultivate → plant N seeds capped by cultivated area → see grow_10…grow_100
• Harvest mature crop grants produce + occasional seeds; replant works
• Growth faster in higher fertility growth zones (biome/weather mults when present)

11. Non-goals (this plan)

• Buying land outside property zones
• Stock-market land speculation / auctions
• Full greenhouse / multi-story farms
• Particle “growth VFX” beyond sprite modes
• Replacing wild resource nodes (carrots on roads stay 23 / growth-zone respawn)

12. Open questions