Introduction
I had a little trouble at the start, so I figured I'd write a simple guide for new players.
This guide assumes you start on 'Normal'
At the start of the game there are a few hints on the different objects, read these as they can help you later on.
Press 'P' to bring up the shop menu. This will allow you to buy and sell items. Have a look and see what you can buy before continuing with the guide.
At the start, you should have 3 cheap tractors, Kramer KL 200s. Sell these, you won't use them and you need the money.*
*According to OsWaMar (MMOGA Fan), you shouldn't sell them via the PDA. You get around 20% more money if you drive them to the shop and sell them.
After selling the tractors, I would consider buying a bigger transport. Sell the Krome Emsland, a smaller tipper, and buy the Gilibert 1800 pro. It can hold around 5 times as much. This means you don't have to waste time driving back and forth.
I would also suggest buying the Amazone D9 3000 Super sowing machine. This will allow you to sow your crops a little faster. Sell the Amazone D1 unless you have a friend who will play with you.
Ok, now you're ready to get started!
Getting Around
Press 'I' to bring up the map, and '9' to zoom out.
Press 'tab', use the 'q' key to pick up one of the weights in front of you, then drive your tractor north to the shop. You will need to pick up your purchases. Drive the tipper and the sower back to your farm. Use the 'q' key to pick them up.
Don't worry too much about crashing. The game has no damage. But be careful you don't get stuck. If this happens you'll have to reset the vehicles from the load game menu. I've never had to do this yet. [EDIT] You can reset individual vehicles in the map screen (the option at the bottom). Usually you can just flip them with another vehicle.
Once you're back at the farm you have a couple of choices.
You can either sell all the grain in your silo and pay off some of your loan or you can start farming:
Start Farming
Load your sower with seed, for now any seed apart from grass is ok. Grass is the last type, it has a picture of a flower in it. The seed is taken from the South East corner of the your farm area, near the start position.
Once you've filled your sower. Drive it near your field, the one marked by a green number on the map.
Next you need to cultivate your field. Grab the blue cultivator and use this before sowing the seeds. I think this increases yield.
Once you have sown the seeds, use 8 to speed the game up to 120x. Wait until the crop is ready to harvest. If you try to use the combine before it's ready it seems to delay the growth of that area, but it doesn't do anything too bad. Use the tutorials in the front end menu to recognize how they should look.
Once you have harvested the crops, drop it in your silo or sell it.
That's your first harvest!
Sell Off Grain
You may want to skip this step. It might be better to wait for high demand. It depends if you would rather have around half the money now or more later.
Drive the tipper under the huge grain storage silos in your farm. You can only collect one type at a time. Take the contents to market to sell. You can check which markets offer the best prices for different types in the menu using 'I' and '9'. Take it to the market and sell.
General Hints & Tips
Avoid keeping too many machines you don't need, you have to pay maintenance.
Use a sprayer or fertilizer to double your crop yield. UPDATE: These do not combine. So use whichever one you prefer. I like the sprayer, but if you want the fun of running your own manure farm, you could use the fertilizer.
Consider buying anything that earns you a passive income. Things like bee hives may be a good long term investment.
Don't expand too quickly. Buying a lot of farm land is great, but if you don't have the machinery or money to work it, it'll be a waste of time and money.
Don't hire labourers until you have a decent cash reserve. At the start you're better off using the money for something else. Update: This totally depends on your play style.
If you have anything you'd like to add to the list, please comment!
Corn, Potatos And Beets (To Be Written)
Yet to add content.
Silage (WIP)
What is it?
Silage can be used to feed animals.
How do I get some?
Making it is a lot easier than I thought.
The grass method
You will need a way to cut grass, a way to collect the cut grass. Ideally you will be able to collect enough grass to fill up a collector like the KRONE ZX 550 GD. You may also be able to do this with hay bails, but I haven't tried this yet. Once you have filled up your vehicle, you want to take the grass to a compacting area. I use the ones near the cows. When facing the cows from the south, you will have the manure heap on the left and the silage area on the right. Simply drive the vehicle into the area and release all the grass. Once you've done that, you'll need to drive over the grass in a tractor to flatten it out. I think you need at least 10% of the area full to then cover the grass. It will then take a short while to turn into silage.
The corn method
Structures (WIP)
There are two main types of structures; passive and active. The passive structures just need to be bought. These are great investments when you have a little money to spare. The active structures require you to do certain things to keep them producing. If you are a lazy player, you may want to avoid these.
Passive Income
Beehouse
Solar Panels
Wind Power Plants
Just buy these and place them. They will generate income over time. I used these to offset my expenses from my machinery. Now I have a little extra money, I use them to generate income over time. If I ever need money, I just speed up time (assuming I have no crops ready to harvest).
Active Income
Greenhouses:
tomatoes
lettuce
herbs
With these you need to add manure and water. It's a fairly simple process. I would advise placing these near an area where you can easily get manure and water.
Manure
Manure is actually fairly simple. All you need is a few cows. When you feed them, they will produce manure over time. They will also produce liquid manure (slurry). The manure can then be used to feed plants or fertilize fields. Slurry can only(?) be used to fertilize fields.
The main advantage to using manure or slurry to fertilize is you don't have to pay any extra to refill your chemical sprayer. It is also more natural. So your virtual customers will be healthier! But to be honest, the spreaders don't really match up to the chemical versions.
Mods
Sources:
I've used both of these sources with no problems. I've downloaded quite a lot of different mods and they really seem to add to the game. More things to buy is always a good thing.
http://www.gamemoding.com/farming-simulator-2013-mods
http://fs-uk.com/mods
Installing mods:
Taken from: http://ls2013-mod.com/?page_id=11
"1. EXE These are the easiest to install. Once the file has downloaded just double click on it and when it runs it will install itself, done, run the game and test it.
2. RAR These are compressed files, these can contain any files or folders which have been compressed to make downloading quicker. When the download finishes you need to extract all the files within the rar file. You will usually end up with either exe files or zip files. RAR files are also used for the map downloads and will usually require extracting to your data folder.
3. ZIP These too are compressed files. Check to see what files are contained within them. If there are zip or exe files then these will need to be extracted and exe files run. If a zip file contains the mod itself then the zip file needs to be copied into the mods folder of the game.
XP: User\My Games\FarmingSimulator2013\Mods
Vista: Documents\My Games\FarmingSimulator2013\Mods."
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=114080002
More Farming Simulator 2013 guilds
- All Guilds
- Guide to the moreRealistic Mod
- Farming Simulator: The Guide
- The Farmer's guide to: Crops
- Farming Simulator 2013. -
- How to Feed your Cows
- Installing Farming Simulator 2013 Mods
- The Collector Achievement
- Farming Simulator 2013
- Always Have Hourly Incoming Money | Secrets of Bees, Solar, Wind