Fruit And Vegetables > Peppers

Overview

Peppers are vegetables that were introduced late in Tale 2. The first pepper seeds were awarded as prizes in the Phoenix' Race event that was held the weekend of August 20, 2005. The vegetable pepper is not to be confused with the Black Pepper Plant, Red Pepper Plant, or White Pepper Plant, all of which are Herbs and not vegetables.

Peppers grow from seeds. Unlike other vegetables, pepper seeds are not planted in sand or grass, but in patches of dirt, such as are suitable for Digging. Peppers grow at a variable rate: water them the right amount, and they will jump from knee-high to shoulder-height; use the wrong amount of water, and you will hardly see them grow at all. You can use at most 7 jugs of water on one watering.

Growth for peppers is similar to onions and is based around 10 teppyseconds watering ticks: if watered they will grow, otherwise they will shrink. Watering, waiting less than 10 teppyseconds and watering again will result in a reset to the counter, and the latest watering value will be taken to decide on the peppers' growth.

Exploring Watering Sequences

When growing peppers, there are two possible definitions to a successful sequence: either the watering ticks required, or the resulting yield.

Minimize watering ticks

1. Water the seeds with varying amounts of water, from one to seven. For each one, record the approximate growth (for example, "little", "medium" and "high", or alternatively use numbers). This is much easier when growing multiple seeds at once: you can easily compare them to each other.
2. Once you find the best growth for a given watering tick, start growing each seed with this amount of water, and go back to 1.

For example, I started growing my seeds, and noticed I achieve best growth when watering three jugs. I now start growing again, starting with three jugs, and on the second tick find out my best growth is one jug; I grow seeds with 3-1, find out on the third watering tick the best is seven jugs, grow with 3-1-7, etc.

• Tried the 3-1-7 Method In A 1st time is, 3. Second time is 1. Thrid time is 7 and forth is 3 and so on. -- HTHT

This is a "greedy" method; in each watering tick, we take the best result for the current watering tick. While the resulting sequence might not be the fastest, it is likely to end in five watering ticks, and is quickly discovered and used.

Answers to Questions

• What are the possible effects of a single watering on a plant (e.g. 1 unit, 2 unit, and 3 unit growth? 1x 2x 3x? Can a watering have NO effect?)
  • Once peppers are watered, they'll always grow.
• How does each watering affect the pepper yield? If 1-2-3 is optimal, is 2-2-3 just as good as 1-2-2? (This is the case for watermelons.)
  • This is unknown at the time. However, the yield doesn't seem to be related to the required steps till full growth: both short and long watering sequences can result in high yields (and vice versa).
• Will watering sequences give the same result on different days? At different places? For different people?
  • It appears to me that watering-sequences are avatar-dependent and I get the same yield at two diff (though not very far apart) spots. Time-of-day doesn't seem to affect my yield either, *but* the yield from the same watering sequence seems to change once a week or more. -- Waddles
  • I agree with Waddles on this one. Using the same watering sequence in Karnak and RSO (both near CS) resulted in identical yields. -- ShanVizen
• How many discrete growth levels are there between a pepper seedling and one ready-to-harvest?
  • There are several "ready-to-harvest" growth levels. The one above is several times higher than the "starting" size. I've experimented with growth phases and got more than forteen steps before I quit trying. -- ShanVizen

Questions

• Are peppers affected by the number of people standing nearby? Are they affected by any other activity (beetles and mushroom spawns have affected veggies in the past, and digging is another activity to suspect)

Research Results

The amount of water required is not dependent on the height of the peppers (having two peppers of the same height and watering them with identical amounts of water results in differnet growth), and is most likely based around the previous watering sequence. -- ShanVizen

Lose of growth, however, is proportional to the amount of watering done. The peppers will "try" to shrink back to seeds after an amount of ticks equal to the amount of watering ticks; for example, if you water the peppers three times, they'll require three ticks to shrink back to seeds. If the peppers become too small to shrink any further, they'll revert back to seeds faster. -- ShanVizen