Dairy Core

In the dairy year

Spring: the barn is already running. Herd health comes from the animals and from the feed you grew. Last autumn’s soil is in this milk.

Summer: milk ages. Fresh, then at risk, then condemned. Collection is labour. A skilled worker does it faster and cleaner. A tired night shift costs more and leaves more behind. Premium contracts will not forgive a slipped herd.

Winter: you read the dairy line in the Financial Cockpit. Organic milk only counts if the ration stays over the organic-feed line.

The feel

This is per-barn dairy, not a decoration. Quality tiers run from Premium down to Poor. Spoilage is time. A barn on a honest daily round stays Fresh. A barn nobody visits ages to nothing.

Feed carries two hidden fractions: disease that rode in from a field, and how much of the pile is certified organic. Blend a dirty harvest with a clean one and the contamination dilutes. Stop feeding the dirty pool and it fades over a few days. Organic never fades. One conventional load dilutes it.

If Ritter’s Realistic Livestock is installed, the suite reads real animals: genetics, health, breeding. If it is not, the dairy uses a solid barn-level model. Either way the farm plays. Ritter is never rewritten.

How it works

Herd health is decided once when the save loads:

• Standard: the base-game production factor, plus Soil Fertilizer feed-field modifiers (organic matter, N/P/K balance, weed and pest pressure, legume rotation) when Soil is present.
• Ritter: a per-animal genetics and health read when Realistic Livestock is present. If that read fails, the barn falls back to Standard. Dairy Core never writes into Ritter.

Milk quality is Premium, Standard, Reduced, or Poor, from that herd-health score.

Spoilage is time since the last collection: Fresh, Ageing, At Risk, then Condemned. A barn on a precise 24-hour cadence stays Fresh the whole round. A barn nobody collects ages continuously. Contract settlement pays the effective tier after spoilage, not the pretty label on the tank.

The milk round notices milk leaving whichever way it went:

How it left	What the books call it
You or an AI tanker haul	Self or hauled, from the raw storage drop
A Worker Costs rota assigned to that barn	Rota. Skill is read. No invented pathing.
The office sale	Office. Sell from an admin action without a truck.

The office sale prices through the spot market, applies a tunable administrative margin, removes the milk the normal way, and credits the money.

Feed-source fields are named per barn. A free flag can say which field is at risk. The disease name only appears after you scout or pay for the report.

Feed provenance is one pile per farm per fill type. Grain harvests seed it from Soil Fertilizer: contamination from disease pressure, organic from certification. Contaminated heals toward zero each in-game day. Organic never decays. The organic milk premium reads this pile when the farm has harvest data.

Dairy contracts (four types) settle on the Time Guard clock. The host writes the money. Tax Mod can record the year for the audit. It does not take the payment.

Precision Farming: if that pack is in the save, Dairy Core stands down. The two livestock stories cannot share a save.

The console command dairyStatus dumps the live barn picture. Settings (enable, default collection interval, spoilage, contracts) can live on Settings Hub when that core is present.

How you use it

• Name the fields that feed each barn.
• Collect on time, with people whose skill matches the round.
• Chase a premium contract only if you can hold volume and grade.
• Watch the Organic app if you committed fields to the hard middle of transition.
• Use the office sale when you need the tank empty and no truck is free. Expect the admin margin.

The outs

Soil and crop stress decide what the feed is worth. Worker Costs decide what the round costs. Market Dynamics prices the milk. Time Guard says when a contract settles. Tax records the year. Pro Staff can soften vet supplies and dairy logistics as you climb. None of them are a master pack.

What you need

Dairy Core alone is a barn with a clock. Soil Fertilizer makes feed honest. Worker Costs make collection honest. Farm Tablet is the deep dairy desk when that app is present. Ritter is optional depth. Time Guard keeps settlement on the farm calendar. Skip any of them and the barn still runs, just quieter.