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2023-01-04 New Savegame Creation
2023-01-04T20:25:00Z Just finished compiling and installing PMC Cereal Region 32km v0.2.1 release. Created Start From Zero - Getting Started and Rules savegame, using farm-manager game-mode, removing money with dev console gsMoneyAdd -1500000 and doing basic game settings before saving to savegame1 dir.
Then went to my savegame7 which is the autodrive MASTER savegame for AutoDrive_config.xml file, copied that over to savegame1 which is this Start From Zero. Then loaded savegame1 back up again.
2023-01-04T20:37:00Z Checked that autodrive etc works OK, everything did, we are good to go. Tons of contracts available, did x refresh hammering and I think most that are available are on the board now. On quick overview there are several small harvest contracts which are easy to do... assuming selling point is not 20km away 
So guess there is nothing more to do than to starting finding our first contract
First thing I looked up is what is the selling point name for the one that is on the dealership, meaning right close up to these new small fields for Start From Zero savegames, its name is Cereal Western LLC.
NONE of the small contracts were for this selling point, dang, well it was worth the try. Looks like on average most harvest contracts deliver to the same two selling points, hmm wonder why its so limited and will these be randomized on each contract refresh. Just feels a bit too odd / convenient that dozens of contracts only use couple of selling points.
Half of the harvest contracts were delivery for Specialty Crops CO and Cereal Agri Partners, I stopped scanning them at half way through the list, its clear that they all are for only these two selling points, interesting.
Specialty Crops CO selling point is located in central east, its three full section fields (road grids) away from the east edge. Cereal Agri partners is located at, well basically opposite side of the terrain in central west. If you would drive small tractor from the dealership to these locations lets say more than 3 times, both ways... man, I'm telling you all you would do is to drive that slow tractor 
My only sane contract option was F443 13ha silage baling. ETA 1hrs 34min, must deliver 742.6k and can keep 82.5k liters of silage. Umm I would not exactly say this is a small first contract... but then again this is fucking 32.7km terrain so if you want small go to useless piece of shit little girlie men BRITISH MAPZ terrain
I walked (ran) to F443 which is 13ha, it doesn't sound too large as number but man when you are standing on the field and imagine baling all that stuff... whoah dude, I don't think this would be movie duration contract haha!
Was eyeballing oat harvest contract for F455 7.9ha, ETA 33min, must deliver 82k and can keep 6.2k liters, Cereal Agri Partners selling point for delivery. Yes this is insanely long drive but borrowed vehicles are john deere x9 combine, mack 6x4 semi-truck and wilson pacesetter... so I'm sort of thinking that obviously the biggest part is the driving back and forth, but maybe it would be doable with that semi-truck hmm hmm.
Half an hour harvest time obviously wont take into account the selling point driving time, better contracts has no idea how big of a terrain player is playing on (well it could find it out but anyways you know what I mean). Cereal Agri Partners is six full section fields away in west, that is no joke even for 83km/h speed semi-truck. Must deliver is 82k liters so three wilson pacesetter loads.
Hmm hmm 
Decisions, decisions...
But hey, its only... time? something? haha I don't know maaan... I'm going to accept that harvest contract, lets see how it plays out.
2023-01-04T21:04:00Z Accepted contract harvesting oat F455.
Hook 'em up!
2023-01-04T21:06:00Z Started contract harvesting oat F455, manually driving.
Here we go.
Feels so crazy to play Start From Zero in 32.7 kilometers x 32.7 kilometers terrain
2023-01-04T21:13:00Z John Deere X9 1100 combine harvester grain hopper tank is full, calling up the semi-truck.
First combine unload to semi-truck wilson pacesetter grain trailer.
Going to cut this field in endless headland mode.
2023-01-04T21:21:00Z Combine tank full, unload time.
Another unload.
Got wilson pacesetter front hopper full with this unload.
2023-01-04T21:28:00Z Combine full again.
Semi-truck was full from this unload, I shut down combine and went to take a restroom break before heading out towards west to cereal agri partners selling point
2023-01-04T21:33:00Z Semi-truck is leaving F455 towards cereal agri partners...
My office for who knows for how long time now driving back and forth three times
2023-01-04T21:43:00Z Arrived at Cereal Agri Partners, unloading.
When 40.7k liters were dumped contract said 48% transported for F455. When driving back to the field I realized that Start From Zero rules say you have to own land and vehicle before using courseplay or GPS etc... however that rule is meant to prevent luxurious automated driving right off the bat, it doesn't forbid for RECORDING autodrive network wayoint routes, so on the next load I'll bring up autodrive waypoints and record route to my destination and back.
Not sure if I've gotten used to 32.7km terrain already but this semi-truck round trip to western selling point doesn't feel that bad, I mean relatively speaking of how horrible I expected this contract to be. Sure I'll probably have different opinion when returning from the THIRD trip but...
This contract pays something like 14k, it doesn't allow much "can keep" liters and oat wont pay much anyways, so this is not really mega kickstart to this savegame, its barely a basic solid fertilizer budget so I can start doing fertilizing contracts with borrowed vehicles.
Coming back, baby!
2023-01-04T21:53:00Z Back unloading combine already. Semi-truck grain hauling round trip is 20min then 
2023-01-04T21:59:00Z Combine full.
2023-01-04T22:06:00Z Regular headland is now done, just need to mop up these leftovers.
Harvest part was surprisingly fast.
Last bits...
2023-01-04T22:12:00Z Leftovers mopped up, now last dump to grain trailer.
Hmm semi-truck grain trailer is 95% full.
Wonder if this contract finishes because according to contract info page we must deliver 41.3k but trailer only has 39k
2023-01-04T22:14:00Z But now, its my lunch break time...
While I'm eating I'll also drive semi-truck towards west, its 270 heading road so not very hard to drive with one hand while shoveling some food to your pie hole
2023-01-04T22:42:00Z Feeding time is over, lets haul that semi-truck load of oats and see if this contract finishes. During feeding I managed to drive semi-truck to cereal agri partners but didn't want to sell before getting my hands free.
Sold first hopper and contracts shows 72% transported, sold second hopper and ...
Oh no! 
This sucks
Contract board shows worked field 100%, delivered 79.7k and to go 2.3k liters.
Fucking piece of shit buggy farming simulator 22!
Cancelled the contract.
2023-01-04T22:47:00Z Accepted contract silage baling F443.
This silage baling contract should not fail, its just those piece of shit harvest contracts that got neutered in some recent giants game upgrade.
2023-01-04T22:50:00Z Started contract mowing grass F443, manually driving.
Last pass...
2023-01-04T23:19:00Z Finished mowing grass F443.
Hmm this contract did not give windrower, didn't even realize it until now when seeing that field work task in my copy-paste list heh. Oh well, lets do it the hard way with baler then.
So far I'm having a good time, but I must admit that harvest contract failing really bums me out.
2023-01-04T23:22:00Z Started baling grass F443, manually driving.
Ugh, I'm not a big fan of this vermeer thing
2023-01-04T23:33:00Z Piece of shit vermeer got stuck on top of a bale, had to reset it back to the dealership, wasted time for such farmsim geometry stupidity!
2023-01-04T23:51:00Z I'm starting to feel like this silage baling without windrower and crappy vermeer baler was a big mistake, mainly because the field is so large, yes sure the reward will be probably 100k but even that tells you that "its too much" for first ever contract in a Start From Zero, yes its a big terrain but this doesn't really feel like "from zero" when your first contract reward already breaks one hundred kay mark. Maybe I should have been time accelerating and just waiting for some better contracts, hmm, but dunno, if harvest contracts are now pretty much out of the question because buggy fs22, then dunno man. Maybe I need to create some absolutely tiny grass field to give better options for beginner farmers.
Uuuh ...
2023-01-05T01:37:00Z Finished baling grass F443.
Uuh...
2023-01-05T01:41:00Z Started wrapping grass bales F443.
2023-01-05T02:02:00Z Quite bored wrapping these bales
Once this contract is complete I'm going to document the durations (which I'm doing right now), to warn me in the future to not create huge grass fields and do huge grass contracts while playing.
I thought that baling took a long time but this wrapping is the real killer.
Uuh zombi mode is slowly creeping in, this is so mind numbing...
Last row started...
Last bale, wrapping up!
2023-01-05T03:28:00Z Finished wrapping grass bales F443.
Then drove to the dealership, picked up bale collector and went to work collecting bales and delivery to animal dealer.
2023-01-05T03:33:00Z Started collecting silage bales and delivering them to animal dealer.
2023-01-05T03:37:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T03:45:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T03:51:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T03:58:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T04:05:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T04:11:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T04:18:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T04:23:00Z Lunch break ...
2023-01-05T04:49:00Z Feeding time is over, back to hauling silage bales.
2023-01-05T04:51:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales.
2023-01-05T04:57:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales. And with this delivery contract was finished and I already got 14.3k profit for my own pocket.
2023-01-05T05:03:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales, budget now 54k.
2023-01-05T05:10:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales, budget now 93.9k.
2023-01-05T05:16:00Z Delivered 24 silage bales, budget now 133.3k.
Next pickup was only 6 bales, all the bales have been collected now.
2023-01-05T05:21:00Z Delivered 6 silage bales, budget now 143.5k.
So yeah... think about that, 140k just from that extra silage bale profit, heh crazy.
2023-01-05T05:22:00Z Finished contract baling grass F443, collected reward 59.2k.
Budget now 202.2k.
Heh first contract and two hundred fucking grand...
This was 13ha silage baling field and 200k money, just crazy. But then again we have to take a look at the time too, the contract was accepted 2023-01-04T22:47:00Z and it was finished 2023-01-05T05:22:00Z, so that makes it over six hours of work. I bet with straight up fertilizing contracts non stop for six hours you could have made more money.
My brain just cant wrap itself around the fact that this was the FIRST contract and I am already well WELL past just buying solid fertilizer for borrowed vehicles contracts, sure 202k is not really enough for bredal + tractor, well maybe some crappy one, but usually Start From Zero's first contract makes 2k maybe 5k, USUALLY. Often times its a big deal when you break the magical limit of 10k budget heh, now right off the bat I broke ten, fifty, hundred... and two hundred thousand magical limits.
I still feel like this was a valuable lesson in terrain editing, contracts and Start From Zero savegames. For terrains you need to make various size of starter fields, from tiny 1-3ha to get started nice and easy, then some 5-10ha sizes for a bit more larger scale stuff. For contracts you should not believe what the fuck better contracts ETA says, wasnt this silage baling contract ETA some ridiculous 1.5hrs or some shit, hehe. For Start From Zero savegame, be cautious of fs22 v1.8.2 harvest contracts those are bugged, be very cautious with silage baling field sizes, don't immediately take some massive field contract which rips you from the will to live haha.
Bredal K105 with extensions cost 54.3k, fendt 314 vario with GPS would cost 137k, there might be some other tractors even cheaper I think kubota M6-141 which I used in previous savegame is less than that, so right now I could already buy my own vehicles.
Cheapest land area is farmland 37 for 38.9k, that is the tiny field opposite of the dealership.
Then farmland 49 is 65.4k, 48 is 71.9k, 39 is 89.7k, 44 is 82.2k... so there are several less than hundred grand costing nice compact sizes land areas.
Overall very very rough estimate to kickstart autodrive, courseplay and GPS usage would take 65.4k + 54.3k + 137k == 256.7k total.
Well, lets start to aim for 260k even number now then
I have to repeat myself, I did one contract which was not even suffering from manual driving because there really was no accuracy involved like in fertilizing, it was relaxing, boring but relaxing, and now I have almost enough money to buy my own starter setup which allows me to use automation tools within Start From Zero rules. This feels really too fast, hmm hmm, hehe.
But hopefully I get to do few fertilizing contracts to get into that Start From Zero groove
And another thing I kind of forgot before realizing it now when looking at contracts list, is that I have massive 202k budget which can be used for crazy amount of fertilizing/spraying product purchases, on normal more tight budgeted Start From Zeros you always have to calculate if you are even able to buy enough solid fertilizer to finish ONE nice contract, now I absolutely don't have to do none of that stuff, I can take any contract I want.
Cooky.
Now I'm actually enthusiastic again to do fertilizing contracts to get more money, just finished eating days third meal so still have long time left before bed time, will be fun.
2023-01-05T06:01:00Z Accepted contract fertilizing F453 and F200. Borrowed vehicles came from F453 which is 6.5ha field and and F200 is bigger 26.6ha field without borrowed vehicles. Equipment was basic tractor + amazone spreader.
Lets get started
Purchased 8 big bags of solid fertilizer for 14.5k * 2. F200 is corn in 5/6 (forage) growth stage, meaning absolutely zero visibility for the already spread parts, ugh this is going to suck.
2023-01-05T06:06:00Z Started contract fertilizing F200, manually driving.
Hmm I could use the corn rows to steer my tractor
2023-01-05T06:27:00Z Finished contract fertilizing F200, collected reward 50k.
2023-01-05T06:29:00Z Started contract fertilizing F453, manually driving.
Now I get to cheat with minimap (9) compass
2023-01-05T06:35:00Z Finished contract fertilizing F453, collected reward 10.9k.
Alright first two contracts done, could not see anything where I was spreading, just had to use first corn rows to guide me and then on second field used "cheat" minimap (9) compass old school style hehe.
Budget now 233.8k and I have bunch of solid fertilizer left, in-game day starts to get late so going to time accelerate to morning daylight, maybe that brings new contracts to these small fields. If there was some huge 213ha field contract for fertilizing with just planted ground type I could do that as I can see where I'm spreading, it removed much of the stress. I cant tell what else would be that stressful than doing something blind.
Sep in-game 0655hrs, good morning PMC Cereal Region 32km beast of a terrain.
Checked contracts and huge number of seeding contracts came up. Also huge amount of money to be made on those, but as usual they also take huge amount of time. Luckily with seeding contracts you can very easily see where you have already seeded. Well I mean, assuming its not direct drilling into harvested ground that is somewhat difficult to see, but anyways.
Well surprise surprise... suddenly there are no viable contracts for me, meaning there are HUNDREDS of very lucrative contracts but they all take hours and hours of field work, I'm not ready to do 213ha field work. There was decent spraying contract... but it was on fully grown corn where you cannot see where you've sprayed before. Heh, difficult to choose your next contract
Accepted contract spraying herbicide F446... but the whole contract disappeared, huh what?
Time accelerated to in-game 1221hrs, just because. Maybe there is some contract changes. Nope nothing... so decided to time accelerate to the next day. Nov in-game 1026hrs.
2023-01-05T07:41:00Z Been time accelerating like crazy, now its the next year ... dec in-game 0957hrs, world seems quite static so I'm going to do SOMETHING.
2023-01-05T07:43:00Z Accepted contract for cultivating F454.
2023-01-05T07:44:00Z Started cultivating F454, contract, driving manually.
2023-01-05T07:59:00Z Finished cultivating F454, contract, collected contract reward 10k.
Been time accelerating more, seems like the game world is in similar state like in FS19 PMC Iowa Garden City 8km Start From Zero (unofficial) story where I learned that you have to do cultivating contracts to "open up" fields for seeding and after that fertilizing contracts. AI is extremely lazy to work on his own fields, don't confuse this with better contracts lazy AI feature which actually FORCES AI not to work on his fields. So it might be a very very long time before fertilizing contracts come up, maybe its something to do with 32.7km size terrain with 16,384 x 16,384 pixel resolution density images, who knows, but as said, game world seems super slow.
Every year there has been baling contracts... but the thing is as we just saw with the silage baling contract I did, crazy good money but also took a fucking life time to get it done, I am certainly not taking such contract again heh. There is grass hay baling contract for the 4ha field which would be doable... unfortunately hay is so low value that the contract only pays 29k, it also is not worth my time.
2023-01-05T08:25:00Z I'm getting very tired too, I'm scared phone alarm goes off in any minute now indicating that I've been up 17hrs which basically means I should go to sleep and today is over for this Start From Zero savegame and I honestly haven't got much done, just two fertilizing contracts which is rather silly.
Activated better contracts lazy AI for fertilizing, all others are off. I'm trying this as I noticed that AI was offering contract to seed F454 where I'm actually standing in 3D world, I time accelerated and... then nothing happened, the contract disappeared, almost like AI offered it and did not do the field himself. Hmm. Maybe thats why no progress is being made in most of the game world, there are cultivating contracts but if players don't do them AI is not doing either.
Its funny that as long as I have now time accelerated... I could have done one of those smaller hay baling contracts in this time, probably, heh. But yeah, about 30k is not worth the effort.
2023-01-05T08:47:00Z Okay that is it, time to call it a night, I'm in yawning full zombie mode. Saved game and shutdown fs22, nites.
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