Talk:Food/@comment-44284270-20191101044351/@comment-30175469-20191101153543

The issue isn't necessarily being easy, its how rng dependent it is, and the fact gardens are just far more effective. Literally for every egg cycle there is a 5% for an elder to form. And its range in time varies from 6 to 16 hours.

Statistically speaking in order to match the production of a max tier garden with your average coop production, and any form of safety net you want a ratio closer to 8 or 9 roostros to 16 or 15 hens. This then leads to 32 or 30 seperate elder checks, which statistically speaking you are getting 1 elder during. You then need rng on your side to keep your roostro production up because the moment 1 drops, all your others are taxed with more elder checks, which makes each of them as individuals more likely to elder.

This doesn't even get into the fact drones can't properly deal with chickens, compared to gardens, their ai telling them to keep chickens near their worst production rate, and the fact catch up doesn't work well with chickens.

Hell even chicks should ideally be seperated from your production coop to keep your production up, and this has to be done manually.

Compare this to gardens, which are consistent at the max they can produce, twice a day, works with drones, works with catch up, and doesn't need much of your own effort to do anything.

In the end it isn't that chickens are hard that makes people not use them, its that they literally can't compete with the efficiency of gardens in any meaningful way while holding any semblance of consistency themselves. They can match production statistically, and fall short in every other manor due to all the extra work needed to keep at that level.

23 per 12 hours is the average roughly for the ratio i listed above, but the range is anywhere from 0 to 60 per 12 hours, depending entirely on rng (the 60 also isn't likely by any stretch and demands 60 elder checks, statistically getting 3 elders, with half being for a roostro, but if they are a hen they reduce your production until you fix it, and note depending on when the check turned them elder, it can reduce your cap from 60 to 58, or rng can turn this entire thing to a range of 8 to 16. The 0 isn't likely either but it just needs 15 random egg cycle length determination processes to throw things into the 13-16 hour range. 15 checks with a 30% chance each compared to needing 30 checks to hit 10% chance for the 60.)

Compare this to a static 23 (with a chance for more from what our tests have shown although the code doesn't seem to back it up from what i can find) in a static 12 hours, that is supported by drones and catch up...

So yeah again, its not necessarily that chickens are hard, its that their competition is just way out of their league. This doesn't even account for the additional 6 hours needed for a chick to grow up to an adult which slows this process down