Ranching

Ranching is part of the core gameplay in Fields of Mistria.

Ranching Skill Perks

The Ranching skill can be increased by taking good care of the animals on The Player's farm. This can be done by feeding and petting them daily, as well as letting them outside in good weather conditions.
Trading in collected Essence at  Caldarus' Statue on The Farm allows The Player to gain bonuses to their ranching skill.

Tier 1 (Lvl 1)

Skill Perk		Description	Cost
	Feeding Frenzy	Hay and Grass Seed drop at double the usual amount from Cutting Grass.	15
	Close Bond	Animals that have been Pet and Fed for the day will receive an extra Heart Point increase.	25
	Barnyard Bounty I	Chickens and Cows will sometimes drop extra Produce.	30
	Currency of Care	When animals eat crops, either by hand feeding or by grazing, they will drop the currency Shiny Beads.	25

Tier 2 (Lvl 15)

Skill Perk		Description	Cost
	Welcome Home I	Newly brought or born animals will start at 1 Heart Level.	20
	Feed Prepper	The Craft Time for all animal feed in reduced by 10 minutes.	40
	Currency of Care II	Animals that have been Pet and Fed for the day will sometimes drop Shiny Bead the next day in addition to their regular Produce.	50
	Discount Treats	Heart shaped treats sold by Hayden will have a 10% price reduction.	40

Tier 3 (Lvl 30)

Skill Perk		Description	Cost
	Currency of Care III	Animals can now be fed cooked dishes and will reward more Shiny Beads based on the dish's star level.	75
	Welcome Home II	Newly bought or born animals will start at 2 Heart Level.	70
	Barnyard Bounty II	Ducks and Horses will sometimes drop extra Produce.	80
	Wind Down	The Mill Time for all mill recipes will be reduced by 10 minutes	145

Tier 4 (Lvl 45)

Skill Perk		Description	Cost
	The Bell Tolls	You will receive the Big Bell crafting recipe. When rung, the Big Bell calls out or sends in all animals into their buildings.	155
	Maximum Milling	Crafting Animal Feeds at the mill will sometimes drop an additional item of the same kind.	150
	Barnyard Bounty III	Sheep and Rabbits will sometimes drop extra Produce.	145

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Hearts and Heart Points

Animals will accumulate heart points through proper care and feeding. Every action can either increase or decrease the heart points of an animal. Upon reaching the required heart points, animals will gain another heart.

Heart Points Required for Each Heart
Hearts	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Points	100	220	360	520	700	900	1100	1330	1560	1800

Actions	Points towards gaining s
(Hand) petting	5
Feeding
Going outside in good weather
Playing with toys	2
Offspring born	10
Being left outside overnight	-5
Going outside in bad weather

Ending a day without petting or feeding an animal will decrease their points by 5 for each action missing. If an animal was both fed and petted, their heart points are increased by an additional 2 points (for a total of 12 points).
While the Animal Sprite Statue marks an animal as pet, it does not grant the 5 heart points that hand petting does. Meaning that, while it is still possible to get the 2 bonus points if they are also fed, they can no longer get the 5 points for hand petting that day (so will receive a total of 7 points).
Hand feeding animals also provides additional point bonuses.

For details of which Crops and Forageables can be fed to Livestock, see Shiny_Bead § Amount_of_Shiny_Beads_dropped_by_Livestock.

Feed Item	Points towards gaining s	Requirements
Quality Small Animal Feed Quality Large Animal Feed	1	None
Deluxe Small Animal Feed Deluxe Large Animal Feed	3
Ultimate Small Animal Feed Ultimate Large Animal Feed	5
Certain  Crops /  Forageables
Cooked Dish ( 1)		Currency Of Care III
Cooked Dish ( 2)	6
Cooked Dish ( 3)	7
Cooked Dish ( 4)	8
Cooked Dish ( 5)	9

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Production Tiers

Production tiers are a hidden mechanic in Fields of Mistria that benefit The Player and encourage them to bond with their animals. Unlike color tiers, production tiers actually do affect gameplay! By raising the hearts of an animal, it will offer The Player better products and chances for more drops.

The requirements for each Production Tier are as follows:

Tier	s required	Products dropped	Additional products dropped?
Tier 0	0	1 product
Tier 1	2	1 product	20% chance for additional product
Tier 2	4	2 products
Tier 3	6	2 products	20% chance for additional product
Tier 4	8	2 products	10% chance for additional golden product
Tier 5	10	1 golden product	10% chance for additional golden product

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Breeding

Animal breeding is a feature that allows The Player to breed rare color variants of animals. In Fields of Mistria, breeding and colors are for cosmetic purposes only. Products and production cycles will not be affected by the color or rarity of the respective animal.

How to Breed

Breeding can be done by giving the parents their respective heart shaped treats. These treats can be bought from Hayden's Shop.

Once the animals are given treats, a stork symbol will appear next to their statuses in the Animal menu (This indicates that breeding was successful). After 4 in-game days, the mother will then give birth to the offspring (or - in the case of Chickens, and Ducks - hatch).
Note: The offspring's gender and color is locked in as soon as the two parent animals are fed treats.

The parents must be:

• The same species
• Different sexes (one male, one female)
• In the same  Barn or  Coop
• Given treats on the same day
• There must be at least one additional empty space in the barn/coop

The offspring will then take a few days to grow into an adult. (See Obtaining Animals for how long adulthood will take for each specific animal species.)

Breeding Mechanics

Higher color tiers can be bred by breeding two animals - Both parents of the same color and different colors will be able to produce offspring in new colors.

It should also be noted that the baby animal colors are picked at random from the available colors in its tier. The gender and/or color combination of the parents does not appear to matter as to what the resulting offspring turns out as - it does not go by the logic of "red cow x blue cow = purple cow".

Given that x is the color rarity tier of the "lower" parent, ways to get offspring of higher tiers are the following:

• T(x) + T(x) = T(x+1)
• T(x) + T(x+1) = T(x+1) or T(x+2)

The first has a 100% chance of obtaining a offspring with a higher tier color (except in the case of T6, seasonal animals) and the latter has about a 50% chance.

Seasonal Variants/Tier 6

Seasonal variants of animals, with the color rarity of tier 6, are the highest tier in the game. There is only a slight chance to obtain them, if not breeding T6 x T6 already.

Breeding a T5 x T5 will only give a chance at obtaining the seasonal. T4 x T5 is also able to produce a seasonal offspring, but at a much smaller rate. Likewise, T6 x T5 will also produce seasonal offspring at a higher, but not guaranteed, rate.

The only surefire way to obtain a seasonal offspring is to breed T6 x T6 - This will result in 100% a T6 offspring.

The T6 offspring that is born will correspond to the season they are conceived in (i.e.: feeding the parents the treat in  Summer will cause a  Summer offspring to be born on  1 Fall). There are 4 different possible seasonal variants and each seasonal animal variant comes with a unique default animal cosmetic as well (this is equipped once the animal reaches maturity) .
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History

• v0.12.0:
  • All skills can now be leveled up to level 45
    • New Tier 4 skill perks:  The Bell Tolls Skill,  Maximum Milling Skill,  Barnyard Bounty III Skill
  • 🌼 One new Tier 3 Ranching Skill Perk has been added:  Wind Down Skill