Farming technology is a surprisingly under-rated area of our industry. While we’re only talking about driverless technology for cars and trucks now, the farmers have had that technology for years. Admittedly they operate in a fairly controlled environment, but the days of brute forcing crops with man power are well behind us thanks to technology.
From maximising crop yields through nutrient science, through to climate science to understand weather patterns, and pest detection, farmers are in many ways are on the forefront and bleeding edge of technology. Essentially farming is a business, whatever scale the individual farm operates at and while all business has some level of focus on efficiencies, because of the limited resources, small margins, farmers maximise everywhere.
While the land required for farming means the location of farms is away from major towns and cities, this means farmers often have to rely on some fairly terrible internet, but what they do benefit from greatly is the satellites in the form of GPS co-ordination of equipment.
More recently farmers are employing drone technology to fly down the rows of plants and use complex image recognition algorithms to accurately predict future yields and fix problems before its too late.
With an understanding of how important farming is to the world, it’s with great delight to see the release of Farming Simulator 17 which is out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. If you’re a farming nerd, or just love technology, then chances are, you’ll get a lot of enjoyment out of this one.
The Farming Simulator franchise has serviced millions of players over the years, thanks to its unique blend of progressive gameplay and rewarding management within the universal theme of farming and agriculture, featuring hundreds of vehicles from the world’s biggest agricultural brands.
If you missed it, Farming Simulator 17’s Launch Trailer gives a taste of all the activities players will be able to take.
In this year’s release, you get to immerse yourself in a huge open world loaded with a yield of new content. Explore farming possibilities over hundreds of acres of land, including a detailed new North American environment (Let’s hope for some more Aussie DLC). You’ll get to be behind the wheel of over 250 authentic farming vehicles and equipment from more than 75 manufacturers, including huge new brands such as Challenger, Fendt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra.
There’s a multitude of crop harvest types, including for the first time sunflowers and soy beans. Of course no farm is complete without livestock, so expect to be dealing with cows, sheep, chickens and now pigs. This game is really well thought through with and end-to-end simulation of the process including forestry, and the challenge to sell your products to expand your farm!
There’s also challenges like transportation of your goods with trucks and trailers, and the loading process and operation of trains for your produce to reach its destination.
Its 2016, so naturally no game is played in isolation, which leads us to the multiplayer aspect of Farm Sim 17. You get to grow your farm online with other players, and download community created mods across each platform for an ever-expanding Farming Simulator experience.
If you’re a farming geek, or want to be, then you definitely want to check out Farming Simulator 17 on your favourite platform, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC (sorry no VR support yet).
