Look Ma! No Bees! (or: How To Make Trees Breed Themselves)
- Thread starter Omicron
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Just experimented with this. The initial time to get the butterflies is at least eight hours. After that, the breeding of new trees takes less than an hour.
I got some grapefruit/plum crossbreeds with high yield and some blue mahoe/balsa crossbreeds with highest possible sappiness and saplings, in about four hours.
Last time took a couple days.
I got some grapefruit/plum crossbreeds with high yield and some blue mahoe/balsa crossbreeds with highest possible sappiness and saplings, in about four hours.
Last time took a couple days.
Awesome guide!
After reading this topic, I decided to give tree breeding a try, yay!
After my first butterfly finally spawned I did some searching and found out how to actually breed butterflies to speed up the process a bit. It took me about half a day to figure out the specifics
I just bred my first butterfly with a grand total of 2 butterflies !
Since nobody has mentioned it in this topic (don't read if you don't like spoilers!):
After reading this topic, I decided to give tree breeding a try, yay!
After my first butterfly finally spawned I did some searching and found out how to actually breed butterflies to speed up the process a bit. It took me about half a day to figure out the specifics
I just bred my first butterfly with a grand total of 2 butterflies !
Since nobody has mentioned it in this topic (don't read if you don't like spoilers!):
This only works for Forestry 2.2.8.0 and above.
I don't know what exact conditions the butterflies have for laying eggs, but i will keep researching
- Capture a butterfly with a scoops right click. The hit box is on the block beneath the butterfly!
- Put the butterfly in a escritoire and solve the puzzle. I think the higher the complexity of the butterfly, the harder the puzzle is.
- Craft the butterfly with the loot you got from solving the puzzle.
- Throw the "crafted" butterfly in your greenhouse with Forestry trees, it will put an egg on a leaf.
- Harvest the caterpillar from the leaf with again a scoops right click.
- Put the caterpillar on a "clean" leaf and it will hatch as a butterfly some(?) time later.
I don't know what exact conditions the butterflies have for laying eggs, but i will keep researching
After over 12 real life hours of waiting, I don't what else to do to get the butterflies to spawn. All of those tree were analyzed in the Treealyzer before being planted. I'm running FTB Unleashed.
Edit: Ok, closed and opened the server and the first butterfly appeared. Why, I don't know
Edit2: It vanished. Just perfect.
Edit: Ok, closed and opened the server and the first butterfly appeared. Why, I don't know
Edit2: It vanished. Just perfect.
Well, after the first one disappeared, two more spawned. I scooped them and dropped them back just to discover the species. They bred the trees really slowly, but no more butterflies showed up.
Nothing can be killing them, it's a closed space with no way out, except for a closed door, that I always close after leaving. The server just spent 14 hours running again and no new butterflies showed up. I've planted some flowers onto the ground (one from every type).
Also, I've never found a butterfly anywhere else in the server. No place else at all, and I've explored it A LOT.
Nothing can be killing them, it's a closed space with no way out, except for a closed door, that I always close after leaving. The server just spent 14 hours running again and no new butterflies showed up. I've planted some flowers onto the ground (one from every type).
Also, I've never found a butterfly anywhere else in the server. No place else at all, and I've explored it A LOT.
That's very odd indeed. The Unleashed pack should be running almost the same version of Forestry as I do... the only difference between 2.2.8.4 and 2.3.0.3 is the support for 1.6.x, the revised bee system and occasional bugfixes regarding sided inventories, item stacking and the rendering of stairs in hand. Butterflies should behave exactly the same.
I don't know why you have this issue, especially since other players report that it's working fine for them, but as a stopgap fix you could look for the Forestry config file for butterflies and up the spawn limit a bit?
Also, maybe you could try Drkevlars method of using butterfly breeding to get the two you have to generate offspring.
I don't know why you have this issue, especially since other players report that it's working fine for them, but as a stopgap fix you could look for the Forestry config file for butterflies and up the spawn limit a bit?
Also, maybe you could try Drkevlars method of using butterfly breeding to get the two you have to generate offspring.
I tried this same setup in the 1.6.4 server I play on. Started on an island and enclosed the entire thing in glass.
While the butterflies DO spawn, and they DO crossbreed trees - I dont think they breed trees any faster than bees. and based on observation between 1.5.2 and 1.6.4 - they are slower than a bunch of bees. I got tired of waiting and setup some bees.
Some observations:
Dont plant cactus, the butterflies will kill themselves on the cactus.
Keep your floor FLAT. they easily get stuck in 1x or 2x holes and trenches.
They seem to spend a lot of time trying to fly through my glass walls (rather than pollinating trees)
Start early. build a glass cage, put a forestry tree (or 2) in it and let them come while you work on other stuff.
While the butterflies DO spawn, and they DO crossbreed trees - I dont think they breed trees any faster than bees. and based on observation between 1.5.2 and 1.6.4 - they are slower than a bunch of bees. I got tired of waiting and setup some bees.
Some observations:
Dont plant cactus, the butterflies will kill themselves on the cactus.
Keep your floor FLAT. they easily get stuck in 1x or 2x holes and trenches.
They seem to spend a lot of time trying to fly through my glass walls (rather than pollinating trees)
Start early. build a glass cage, put a forestry tree (or 2) in it and let them come while you work on other stuff.
It depends on the number of butterflies. One bee house is going to be faster than one or two butterflies. On the other hand, six bee houses didn't even begin to measure up to a swarm of 40+. It's really the numbers that make this work. And due to the changes in 1.6.4, only one fifth of your bees are fully capable to survive in apiaries, so if you want automation then the numbers advantage of butterflies is going to be even more noticable.
Of course, you can do bees while you wait for the butterfly numbers to build up
Of course, you can do bees while you wait for the butterfly numbers to build up
I've found that, after you've built the enclosure, the time it takes to get a lot of butterflies is faster than the time it takes to crossbreed one tree with bees. And the time it takes to crossbreed with butterflies is around an hour.
It takes 1/2 to 2/3 of a day to get enough butterflies. And it takes about a day to crossbreed with bees. Though with the randomness involved it varies.
It takes 1/2 to 2/3 of a day to get enough butterflies. And it takes about a day to crossbreed with bees. Though with the randomness involved it varies.
I have started breeding them in the Escritoire, but I can't get new species, I always get the same species again. I have now 10 butterflies, but no other butterfly spawned on itself.
Also, I didn't change awnything in the config from default FTB Unleashed configs:
The area is correctly chunkloaded, with the CL radius ending beyond the glass walls.
Maybe the greenhose is just too small?
Also, I didn't change awnything in the config from default FTB Unleashed configs:
# Forestry
# 2.2.8.4 (611)
#
# Config files:
# base.conf - Contains Forge configuration for block and item ids
# common.conf - Contains all options common to Forestry
# apiculture.conf - Contains all options for bee breeding
# backpacks.conf - Contains custom configurations for backpacks
# pipes.conf - Configures item id for the apiarist's pipe
# gamemodes/ - Configures available gamemodes
#####################
# ENTITIES
#####################
# determines the global butterfly entity count above which natural spawning of butterflies ceases.
entities.spawn.limit=100
# determines the global butterfly entity count above which butterflies will stay in item form and will not take flight anymore.
entities.maximum.allowed=2000
# 2.2.8.4 (611)
#
# Config files:
# base.conf - Contains Forge configuration for block and item ids
# common.conf - Contains all options common to Forestry
# apiculture.conf - Contains all options for bee breeding
# backpacks.conf - Contains custom configurations for backpacks
# pipes.conf - Configures item id for the apiarist's pipe
# gamemodes/ - Configures available gamemodes
#####################
# ENTITIES
#####################
# determines the global butterfly entity count above which natural spawning of butterflies ceases.
entities.spawn.limit=100
# determines the global butterfly entity count above which butterflies will stay in item form and will not take flight anymore.
entities.maximum.allowed=2000
The area is correctly chunkloaded, with the CL radius ending beyond the glass walls.
Maybe the greenhose is just too small?
Hrm. So, I'm going to summarize some things I've read through the thread. I have not done any testing of this, personally. This is just a summary of the responses in the thread.
Butterflies:
Pros:
Pros:
Conclusion:
Butterflies will take a long time to start up, but eventually, they'll grow to be faster than bees, without your intervention at all, beyond harvesting the saplings. Bees don't really change hteir speed at all, but they'll be faster to start with. If you need some new trees RIGHT NOW, bees are probably your best bet. If you can be patient waiting for it, then go for butterflies. Also, if you just don't have access to bees, butterflies will work. Also if you HATE bees, butterflies will work. Of course, if you like bees, there's no reason not to do both.
Butterflies:
Pros:
- Faster in the long term.
- Does not require sunlight.
- No Bees
- Slow to start
- Can be a bit buggy, it seems (no pun intended)
- Requires a specialized, closed-in building.
- Does not work with Vanilla Trees (they need a genome)
- There can be some unwanted leftover pollen when you switch to get some different tree types.
Pros:
- Quicker start
- Works with vanilla trees (though slower than with genome'd trees)
- Does not require a closed-off space.
- Gives resources other than trees in the process.
- Bees are annoying.
- Butterflies will be faster in the long term
- Bees are annoying
- Requires sunlight (not counting Binnie's, for now)
- Bees are annoying.
Conclusion:
Butterflies will take a long time to start up, but eventually, they'll grow to be faster than bees, without your intervention at all, beyond harvesting the saplings. Bees don't really change hteir speed at all, but they'll be faster to start with. If you need some new trees RIGHT NOW, bees are probably your best bet. If you can be patient waiting for it, then go for butterflies. Also, if you just don't have access to bees, butterflies will work. Also if you HATE bees, butterflies will work. Of course, if you like bees, there's no reason not to do both.
Just always keep in mind that on a populated server, there might already be a lot of butterflies out and about in the world. By default, Forestry spawns only up to 100 butterflies in the entire world; all additional butterflies have to be created by the player (see: post #25).