Hello farmers,

The long awaited, highly requested crop farming update is finally here! Read on for details on the update plus exciting news on the future of Ranch Sim!

Today's update adds three plots at the end of your Ranch, near the mountains, where you can plant crops and farm various seeds.



There are also 2 new vehicles to purchase from the car shop: the tractor and harvester, plus a number of attachments for each, available at the hardware store.

Drive the tractor to cultivate your land, spread your seeds and fertiliser, and transport the crops in a grain trailer once harvested.

Driving the harvester, you can harvest the various crops, using the appropriate equipment attachments (sunflower/corn/grain). Once crops have been harvested, you can empty the harvester into a grain trailer. Harvested grain can be used to fill up a granary to provide feed for your livestock - or you can simply sell it to make some extra cash.

The Future of Ranch Sim + Unreal Engine 5 Upgrade

We have come to the end of our previously announced roadmap, so it's time to share with you the exciting next steps for Ranch Sim!

Unreal Engine 5 Upgrade - Enhanced Visuals, Performance and More

Up next, we're taking the time to upgrade Ranch Sim from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5. This is a big undertaking development-wise, but one which will improve game quality in some key and exciting ways.

We estimate that the UE5 upgrade work will take between 6 - 8 months. Along the way, we will provide regular sneak peeks and news updates to keep you all in the loop! Here's some of the reasons we're excited about the engine upgrade, and we hope you are too!

Enhanced Visuals
The engine upgrade will allow us to push visuals to the next level, with enhancements to lighting, environments and more.

Optimisation Improvements
Something we've been hearing loud and clear from you, the community, is that performance needs improving. Especially for larger ranches with more livestock, we expect to see notable improvements to framerate for some of you, depending on your PC and specs, once we have upgraded to UE5.

New Content and Improvements - Pets, Controller Support, Achievements and more!

We're delighted to reveal what we have planned following the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade, including a number of community-requested features and enhancements:

• Pets - yes, we can confirm that dogs and cats are coming to your ranch! 🐶🐱
  
• Steam achievements
  
• Controller support
  
• Animation rework
  
• Various gameplay improvements based on community feedback
  

1 Dec 2022 Full Patch Notes

New:
- Tractor, plus attachments: cultivator (to prepare the land for seeding), seeder, fertiliser trailer and grain trailer (to transport grain once harvested)
- Harvester, plus attachments: sunflower header, corn header, grain header (to harvest appropriate crops)
- Grain can be sold at the store, or used to fill the granary to feed livestock
- 3 farming fields located on the ranch [warning: if you have any buildings here they will need removing to use the farm land. We have also lowered the ground so buildings or items left may be floating - please move those]
- Christmas tree + decorations are back for December! Check the tree each in-game day for a present.



Happy ranching, happy holidays to those who celebrate, and keep an eye out for regular dev updates next year on the Unreal Engine 5 upgrade!

Thanks,
The Ranch Sim Team