The never ending problem of trying to find optimal Farming Simulator 22 (FS22) "seasons" days config.
In old school Farming Simulator 19 (FS19) when playing on 8.1km or 16.3km terrains I'm using on savegames early stages 9 days seasons config but then extend it to the full length of 24 days once farm operation grows, this is essential on 16.3km size terrains like PMC Grande Gardens 16km where you simply run out of time otherwise on harvest season. Even on 8.1km I ran out of time and crops withered when playing with not maxed out days config.
The problem is that if you don't have enough farmland, fields to work on, then those extra days spent time accelerating will be just waste of time, however what if you make the fatal choice of choosing lets say 3 day seasons config but you end up with 3000 hectares to plant and then harvest, are you sure you manage three thousand hectares of high yielding corn in only three days when you have to skip the dark nights when you cant see where to drive etc? (just an example situation/question, no idea if the 3k ha would be doable in 3 days).
In FS19 you time accelerate 6000 speed which works OK with FS19 Seasons mod as it synchronizes the game data after all time acceleration, however FS22 has no sync feature, so you might end up with bad desync on field stage switching and such. Also all FS22 production chains FREEZE if you time accelerate faster than 1000 speed, even the giants farmhouse sleep of 5000 speed will make production chains to freeze when you sleep. Time accelerating in 1000 speed in-game 24hrs day takes a while, if you run 9 day seasons config or more, this real life gaming time spent will increase greatly, its very painful and frustrating to get through dec, jan and feb when there is nothing to do other than to get into mar when spring field work begins again.
2025-10-14T20:44:18Z
Today I finished harvesting barley in PMC Undefined Farms 20km. This was in the south central area, around farm yard east of F1455. I used two claas lexion 8900s with midwest durus 18.2m headers, grain hauling was working very well what these two combines outputted. This whole operation took three real life gaming days over the span of in-game jun 1st and 2nd, it was over around 1800hrs or so on jun 2nd.
These fields got harvested:
1536, 1537, 1482, 1481, 1480, 1479, 1478, 1538, 1539, 1540, 1541, 1508, 1535, 1545, 1544, 1543, 1542, 1509, 1534, 1546, 1547, 1548, 1549, 1550, 1533, 1555, 1554, 1553, 1552, 1551, 1556, 1557, 1559, 1561, 1558, 1560, 1566, 1564, 1563, 1562, 1565, 1567, 1568, 1569
Yeah a long list I know, overall though the field sizes were not that large, they were just nice for 2 * 18.2m headers but there was many fields that were too small for two combine harvesters. Those field numbers alone mean nothing on paper if we don't know the hectares, but at least now there is basic info that it was 44 fields and even if it was assumed each hectare size would be modest 2ha, that would already be 88ha and if it would be 4ha per field which I assume is much closer to reality, it would be 177ha. A lot of time got spent (wasted if you ask me) on moving vehicles from field to field and setting everything up, it would have been much faster to harvest 4 massive fields than 44 tiny.
I am struggling on this savegame with 9 day seasons config as there is just mind numbing amount of time accelerating on winter months when getting from oct/nov to mar when field work activity continues again.
The feeling you get when crops wither because you ran out of harvest season days is quite devastating, I still remember the sadness on PMC Texas Rowena 8km New Farmer game-mode when huge amount of hectares of perfect soybeans withered as winter came before I managed to finish harvesting all the fields, this was a huge mistake as there literally was "half the terrain" still to harvest when I ran out of time. I promised to myself that from that day on I'm going to run maxed out seasons days config to prevent this issue.
This especially applies in FS22 with huge PMC terrains that make FS19 alike 16.3km terrains look like little girlie men crap BRITISH MAPZ
However, I still have almost no clue what would be the optimal seasons days config for what amount of fields to work on. So I'm just maxing out days in FS19 and in FS22 so far in my current savegame I've had it on 9 and 12 days (two different saves come to mind), I bet if you'd try to harvest even 25% on those over 20km terrains, it would probably require the whole FS22 28 days option to have peace of mind that you don't run out of days during harvest season when winter is bearing on you soon.
What about changing seasons config mid-savegame or mid-year?
edit: especially this day config change mid-savegame came out messy if not outright confusing, sorry, again.
Well, that is tricky, I believe you have to change the config, save, exit FS22, restart FS22, load the save back up and then the new seasons day config should take affect in the next month, otherwise its mar next year before it takes affect. Also it still takes one "buffer month" in between changes. Like this:
Nov, change 9 day config to 1 day, save and restart game
Dec, 1 day config in affect, quick time accelerate
Jan, 1 day config in affect, quick time accelerate
Feb, 1 day config in affect, change it back to 9 day, restart game, quick time accelerate
Mar, 9 day config in affect
However I am not sure if it works like that, I never actually tried it out
I've been looking for a way to quickly get past winter months with production chains not freezing (no pun intended) while time accelerating, but have no idea how it could be done. You could of course time accelerate letting production chains do nothing but bleed money from you for no reason as property maintenance and production cost fees are still running with 6000 time acceleration speed.
Ugh its a mess, I know
If anyone knows a way to get around this, or operate seasons day config changes safely, please reply and let me know.