Garage and farming machines
The garage is the building where you construct what the game officially calls agricultural machines, and what players have come to call farming machines. One group of machines runs in the background all the time and gives a permanent passive bonus, the other group you have to activate by hand and it only works for a limited time. Before the garage opens up for you at all, you need to have bought the gourmet farm.
Permanent machines are worth building as soon as you can, because they run by themselves and even a small bonus to reputation or storage adds up while you play. I treat the production machines as an extra for the moments when I am preparing a bigger batch in a production building or a big harvest, you just have to watch the material for the activation and the maintenance time, otherwise the machine simply will not start.
The garage opens only once you buy the gourmet farm
The agricultural machines icon stays locked until you buy the gourmet farm - only that purchase unlocks the garage and the whole range of machines. Until you get that far, there is no point counting on the garage in your farm development plans.
The garage has its own agricultural machines level, and as it grows, further machines or higher versions of them unlock. I have noticed that some buildings list a specific agricultural machines level among their upgrade requirements - the garage is therefore not an isolated building, it keeps shaping what you can afford to expand elsewhere on the farm.
Permanent machines give a passive bonus without you lifting a finger
Permanent machines do not need to be started in any way, their effect applies non-stop from the moment you build them. The difference between them lies mainly in what bonus they give and whether it applies only on the main farm or on all farms at once.
- Combo thresher - adds extra workers, applies only on the main farm.
- Retro classic - adds extra happiness, applies only on the main farm.
- Multi-combine - adds extra reputation points, applies on all farms.
- a machine with a bonus to certificates from completing missions - applies on all farms.
- a machine with a bonus to certificates for harvesting products and crops.
- a machine with a bonus to fishing experience (XP).
- a machine with a bonus to storage capacity.
What worked best for me was having the one that adds reputation built, because it applies everywhere and comes in handy all the time, while bonuses tied to the main farm only pay off where you spend the most time.
Activating a production machine has its own rules
Production (activatable) machines you have to start yourself from the list of activation options. To start one you need enough material - if you do not have it, the game shows a lack of material and the activation cannot go through; if you have everything you need, the machine can be activated right away.
Once activated, the machine does its job and then needs what the game calls maintenance - for that time it is out of service and counting down before it shows up as ready to activate again. Plan the activation around when you are actually going to harvest or produce, so the effect does not run out for nothing.
The bakery has one more safeguard of its own - if its boost is already running, you cannot activate a new one until you collect the finished products from the bakery. In my experience this is the most common reason an activation seems to fail even though the material and the waiting time are both fine.
Each production machine targets a different part of the farm
The range of production machines covers almost every main resource on the farm.
- Farm buggy - speeds up the transport of ingredients to the bakery and adds a little extra baked goods when you collect; the same name is carried by the version that raises the yield from orchards.
- Amphibian - increases the amount of fish caught on all farms, and the catch Oleg Fisher brings in for you counts too.
- a machine for the yield from animals - on the main farm it raises the yield from all animal buildings, and the effect lasts one hour.
- a machine for the yield from production buildings.
- humus presses - they make premium humus for fields or special humus for the greenhouse, and both raise the yield from that area.
- a dream point press - temporarily adds more dream experience points.
- a machine for postponing a mission instantly - it lets you postpone a mission without having to produce something first, and there is a version for the dream farm as well.
