Farming Simulator has been around for a while. And it’s still one of the best games to sit back, relax, and enjoy the farm life.
It might not always be easy though, as you’ll be tasked with managing a legitimate farm business – having to make sure you’re turning enough profit to eventually expand and do better for yourself.
While FS 19 is the latest installment in the series, FS17 is still one of the best farming sims you can play. And still a lot of fun!
Whether you plan on giving it a try, or are looking for ways to make the game more interesting after playing for years, you’re sure to find some useful mods here to enhance your day-to-day on the farm.
To start us off, let’s take a look at some of the smaller quality of life mods you can get to make managing your farm so much easier.
First off, we have the Unit Convert mod.
The mod description is simple enough: it allows Farming Simulator 17 to display different units of measurement.
How it works is you’re given a simple UI where you can assign what unit of measurement to use for each of the products on your farm. This makes doing the math that much simpler (depending where you live!)
Now here we have the Spectator Mode add-on, which is definitely a must have if you’re playing with some friends – especially if you’re going to be streaming or capturing any gameplay.
The mod basically grants you the option to watch gameplay of whomever other players in your game.
Not only would this be perfect to share what your friends are doing on your own screen, but it makes communication much easier as well.
Instead of having to explain every little detail of what you’re seeing, your friends will be able to simply toggle over to your screen to see exactly what you see.
It gives your minimap an upgrade, allowing you to see much more useful information right on your HUD, instead of having sift through different menus.
You’ll have access to fruit types, growth stages, and soil compositions right on your minimap.
The controls are simple and you’ll be able to toggle between the different displays to get the information you need, too.
Not to mention the mod also adds a resize option, along with the ability to zoom in and out quickly. And you can make it transparent for when you don’t need it directly in focus. Lots of options here!
Moving up a bit to a slightly bigger mod, this one actually adds a new gameplay mechanic that should be very helpful when it comes to managing your farm.
Ever wish you could be in two places at once?
Well with the Contractor mod, you can be in 8.
The mod allows you to hire up to 8 contract workers to help out with the tasks you have going on around the farmland.
You’ll be able to toggle between them with a simple push of a button, and have each of them working on a different task at once.
If you prefer to do things by yourself, there’s a way to make that a bit easier as well.
The Tardis Teleport mod does exactly as the name suggests, allowing you to teleport to and from any point on the map.
Not only will you be able to teleport yourself, but you’ll be able to teleport any vehicle you’re in along with you.
This one is especially useful if you’re playing larger 4x maps, where you’d usually find yourself delivering products back and forth or having to travel between fields across the map.
Once you start building your empire from scratch, you’re eventually going to acquire quite the collection of vehicles and equipment.
When you reach the point where you have too many vehicles to manage, VehicleSort makes it much easier to index and locate everything you have.
VehicleSort basically acts as a customizable vehicle inventory, allowing you to group vehicles as you please, as well as quickly go to any vehicle on your list.
Speaking of vehicles, you didn’t really think I would skip vehicle mods, right?
Equipment plays a huge role in how productive you can be on your farm. And there are tons of custom vehicle options that are sure to help you get lots of your work done.
To start off, you’re going to want to pick up this Kotte Universal Pack from Farmer_Andy.
Kotte Universal is a 14-piece tanker pack that will help with all the liquid work you’re ever going to have to do.
The tankers are able to carry pretty much any liquid type you can think of, including milk, water, digestate, and fuel.
While we’re on the topic of transporting goods, you’re going to want to pick up this mod pack from GTX Mods.
The pack includes 8 different pieces for all your transporting needs.
First off, you have two very powerful tracks: the Tri-Axle 1380 and the Twinstar Duo.
The trailers include animal, flatbed, logging, liquid, tipper, and twin axe transports. So anything you need to take over long distances should be covered.
What’s great about the mod is the vehicles are fully customizable, so you’ll be able to stack as many trailers together as you want.
And don’t worry about the trucks, as these are very powerful and will be able to pull whatever you hook up to them.
We’ll be getting to some of the best placeables you can get for your farm in a bit.
But before that, you’re going to want to download and install Place Anywhere first.
There’s typically a “place stuff anywhere” mod for all building simulators. And Farming Simulator 17 is no different.
Once you start placing all the different structures across your farm, things can get messy pretty quickly. The limitations set by the base game don’t really help either, as most of the time it won’t let you place buildings exactly where you want them.
That won’t be a problem with Place Anywhere though, as you’ll be able to point and click anywhere you like.
These next few mods are great placeables that not only make your farm feel much more alive, but they give you alternative sources of income in between harvests as well.
This first one in particular allows you to place a total of six greenhouses, each to grow a different product.
You can have one for melons, strawberries, cabbage, lemons, mushrooms, and tomatoes.
You’ll need water and manure to keep them going, and will be able to sell the produce once grown.
If you prefer to provide your neighbors with some of the freshest pastries, you’ll be able to do exactly that with the BD Doughnut Placeable.
The mod allows you to place a complete doughnut factory, which you’ll need to provide with flour, vegetable oil, sugar, eggs, milk, and water, all to produce doughnuts.
Just purchase the doughnut factory for $10,000 in-game, and you’ll be good to go!
This next mod lets you place actual beehives on your farm, for a complete line of natural honey production.
You’ll need a few other things to get this up and running though.
First you’ll need a sawmill to produce wood pallets.
Then you’ll need milk triggers to be able to deliver milk to the stations.
Once you’ve got those set, you’ll be able to build your carpenter factory that makes the beehives, which will in turn create beehives that produce the raw honey. Ain’t farming great?
Finally we have a very popular Farming Simulator mod that drastically changes how you play the game.
The Seasons mod adds changing seasons to your game, where the weather will impact everything on your farm.
As expected, winter won’t be too good for farming since most of your land will be covered in snow.
You’ll have to change things up a bit and make sure you have profitable businesses during the off-seasons to keep you in the green. So it’s more of a challenge for sure.
But challenge = exciting, and that’s what modding is about! Breathing fresh air into an older game.
Not only does this mod add an interesting mechanic to the game, but it does so by providing an added layer of realism as well. Very nice touch.
