Desperados Overhaul Patch

I wanted settlers to be able to farm Prickly Pear you planted for them, but DO doesn't have collision to that cactus, which I believe is required to be able for the player to Harvest a workshop-enabled plant. Leastwise I can't find a way to Harvest from that cactus in my earlier test runs, so I did a little research into the growing habits of the Prickly Pear and the Saguaro and also the Joshua Tree. Nurse plants! Of course . . .!

Nurse plants and radiation make all the difference, and solve the problem of harvesting items from a static no-collision object in Fallout 4. So, a nurse plant is one way a Joshua Tree and other plants use to propagate. This other nearby plant becomes a sort of nurse for the little seedling or broken off branch or cactus pad to start growing, including even being fed off of by the little parasite. Now, how did the otherwise slow growing Prickly Pear cactus find itself so vibrantly in the northeast? Well, the answer to that is that we modded it to do that, right? lol, ok ok, pipe down now.

The RP reason is that radiation really kicked up the propagation mechanics of the cactus, resulting in a wide and rather invasive spread across America in a matter of just decades. How? The nurse plant most conducive to hosting the cactus seed was the regular old carrot, found everywhere, and carried from place to place by beasts that ate them, people that ate them or carried them in caravans. Spreading the love, baby, like manure!

Follow me here. It's really interesting stuff!

The cactus seeds actively--through the miracle of radiation--will of course naturally land on carrots and dig their heels in so to speak. Basically most carrots in America have micro Prickly Pear cactus seeds attached or dug inside the outer skin waiting for the best time to start growing. 

Growing Your Very Own Prickly Pear Cactus

Rather, your settlers grow them because the cactus has no collision with which you can manually Harvest. The underlying game mechanics don't care that settlers can't collide with them, however, and will still harvest the fruit from them for you to use (found in the workbench later like any other settler food item).

So in my DO patch, you need to find any ol' carrot in the wasteland. Pick one, any one and we'll see how the magic trick works. 

• Take that random carrot you found on a dead raider to the chemistry bench
• Look for the recipe under Utility, which requires the carrot, cork and oil*
• Craft the item, which gives you a "Prickly Pear Cactus seed for planting" -- don't eat them though, they're high in the rad count
• Open Workshop and plant the Prickly Pear Cactus from the seed
• Wait
• Hope the Prickly Pear Fruit that the settler eventually harvests isn't all eaten before you have a chance to grab them
• Eat your tasty PP Fruit OR take it to the cook station and make yourself a very fortifying Prickly Pear Juice beverage
• Rinse and repeat for each carrot you find, grow or steal