Fertilizer

Based on game build 714014 | Last updated: 2026-03-03

Overview

Fertilizer is a lightweight component that encapsulates fertilizer-specific metadata—namely nutrient values and application behavior—for entities representing fertilizer items (e.g., Bone Meal, Compost). It integrates with the finiteuses and stackable components to handle usage depletion and item removal, and it signals application via a customizable callback (onappliedfn). The component also marks the entity with the fertilizer tag upon initialization.

Usage example

local inst = SpawnPrefab("bonemeal")
inst:AddComponent("fertilizer")
inst.components.fertilizer:SetNutrients(10, 5, 0)
inst.components.fertilizer.onappliedfn = function(fertilizer, is_final_use, doer, target)
    -- Custom logic on application, e.g., soil enrichment
    target.components.grower:Fertilize(fertilizer.components.fertilizer.nutrients)
end

Dependencies & tags

Components used: finiteuses, stackable
Tags: Adds fertilizer on construction; removes heal_fertilize on removal from entity.

Properties

Property	Type	Default Value	Description
fertilizervalue	number	1	Legacy field; no longer used in current logic.
soil_cycles	number	1	Legacy field; no longer used in current logic.
withered_cycles	number	1	Legacy field; no longer used in current logic.
fertilize_sound	string	"dontstarve/common/fertilize"	Sound path used on application (not currently referenced in the component).
nutrients	table of three numbers	{0, 0, 0}	Nutrient composition: {nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium}.
onappliedfn	function or nil	nil	Optional callback invoked during OnApplied(). Signature: (fertilizer, final_use, doer, target).

Main functions

SetNutrients(nutrient1, nutrient2, nutrient3)

• Description: Sets the nutrient values for the fertilizer. Accepts either three separate numeric arguments or a single table containing three numbers.
• Parameters:
  nutrient1 (number or table) — First nutrient (nitrogen) or a table {n1, n2, n3}.
  nutrient2 (number, optional) — Second nutrient (phosphorus), only used when first argument is a number.
  nutrient3 (number, optional) — Third nutrient (potassium), only used when first argument is a number.
• Returns: Nothing.

OnApplied(doer, target)

• Description: Handles item consumption upon application. Decrements finite uses (if applicable), triggers a user-defined callback, and removes the item once depleted.
• Parameters:
  doer (entity or nil) — The entity that applied the fertilizer.
  target (entity or nil) — The target of the application (e.g., soil or plant).
• Returns: Nothing.
• Error states:
  • If finiteuses is absent, no usage decrement occurs.
  • If stackable is absent, the entire inst is removed when depleted; otherwise, stackable:Get():Remove() is used to remove just the applied instance.

OnRemoveFromEntity()

• Description: Cleanup method invoked when the component is removed from its entity. Removes the heal_fertilize tag if present.
• Parameters: None.
• Returns: Nothing.

SetHealingAmount(health) — Deprecated

• Description: No-op placeholder for legacy healing functionality. No effect.
• Parameters: health (number) — Ignored.
• Returns: Nothing.

Heal(target) — Deprecated

• Description: Always returns false. Legacy healing support, unused.
• Parameters: target (entity) — Ignored.
• Returns: false.

Events & listeners

None identified.