In the past I have played on servers with "smart planters". They work incredibly well and eliminate the issues with the extra entities and possible water malfunctions (which we all know how frustrating that can be). Removing the need for water would allow players to move their farms away from river and thus spreading them over a larger area on the map instead of having them all clustered together. Not too sure about the max level for free idea though. The leveling system would force some players to make build decisions base on net worth consumption. If smart planters were to be implemented, a good idea would be for them to cost net worth. That is the whole point of Survival, is to have fun building and creating net worth.
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