Flower planting

Flower planting is a game mechanic in. When it is turned on, small flowers will be planted in a trail behind the player, and will appear on the map screen as the player walks around the real world. Planting flowers consumes petals of the type that is being planted. Planted flowers on the map are visible to all players.

Planted flowers are used to bloom Big Flowers. While within a Big Flower's radius, players can plant flowers in the circle to encourage growth and allow the Big Flower to bloom.

Having flower planting on also grows seedlings faster. If a player is planting flowers, seedlings will reach maturity faster with an automatic step-count bonus. Initially it starts with a 10% bonus and eventually reaches a maximum of 30% as the player's flowers are continually planted.

For every 250 flowers planted, one coin is earned, up to 60 coins a day. Progress is reset when planting ends.

Flowers last for 7 days and then vanish, though they can vanish a few days earlier if approached by the player while planting more. Flowers within the radius of a Big Flower instead last until the Big Flower wilts.

Changing the selected petal type during planting will change to planting that flower type without interrupting the session, though doing so will immediately spend a petal and start the spending timer from there, so it will always be slightly less efficient. Running out of selected petals while the device is asleep will cause it to rumble; by the time this happens, it is already too late to salvage the session before it ends.

Mechanics
For the purposes of flower planting, the world is divided into a grid of cells that are around 5 by 5 meters. These cells are determined by a grid of larger cells sized at 0.00036 decimal degrees across both dimensions. These larger cells are then divided into a number of smaller cells, depending on their respective latitiude. At the equator, as well as for the majority of the populated ranges of the earth, the division is into 64 smaller cells, each with edges sized at 0.000045 decimal degrees. The cells are not shown to the player, but are used to calculate many features of flower planting.

One flower can be planted in each cell, and once a flower is in a cell, another one cannot take its place until 5 minutes have passed. As a player walks with flower planting turned on, they will plant flowers in nearby grid cells. This will only happen if the player is moving less than 20 kilometers per hour, to prevent players from being able to plant lots of flowers from within a vehicle.

Not all flowers are rendered on the map screen. When flowers are directly adjacent to eachother, only some will be shown, and the density shown depends on how far in front of the camera they are, as well as the performance of the device being used to play the game. Flowers are also not rendered when they are on top of roads. However, all flowers, including non-rendered ones, are counted in the banner at the top of the screen that says how many flowers have been planted in a session.

During flower planting, flowers are set down around the player in a rectangular area, which is longer along the north-south axis. The size of the player's squad controls the size of this planting area. For every 10 Pikmin added to the squad, the rectangle will increase by one cell along both dimensions. The rate at which petals are consumed will also increase, though this does not outweigh the benefits of increasing the planting area.



With Others
The flower planting menu contains a setting that toggles the "With Others" mode. When a player is planting flowers in this mode, other players will be able to see that player's Mii and their squad walking around and planting flowers. This mode does not display player usernames, and is disabled for child accounts.

Privacy zones


Privacy zones allow a player to designate circular areas within which their own flowers will temporarily cease to be planted during planting. However, planting will otherwise continue as normal, consuming petals at a rate proportional to squad size, and maintaining coin count as well as the seedling growth rate bonus. Zones do not affect other players or their planting, nor are they visible to other players.

To place a privacy zone, a player must open the settings menu, followed by the "Privacy" and "Flower Planting" submenus, and then select "Create Privacy Zone". A zone's radius of effect can range between 50 to 300 metres. Zones will be named after their district location by default, but this can be changed by the player. A player may add as many as 5 concurrent privacy zones, which can be deleted or have their locations, sizes and names edited at any time.

Flower planting accelerator
The flower planting accelerator is an item unlocked at level 12 (previously level 10 until 14) that doubles both petal usage and flower output for 15 minutes during flower planting. It is a consumable item that can be bought from the shop or obtained in rare circumstances. One can be used by pressing the "Accelerate" button while flower planting and confirming this in the pop-up box. If another accelerator is used before the current one expires, the period is extended.

The doubling effect is done by planting 2 flowers in each cell instead of 1, not by increasing the planting radius. The cooldown period before the same player can plant into the same cell again remains the same. Big Flower flower counts are also affected by the doubled output.

Badges
There are 5 badges the player can gain from flower planting:
 * Apprentice Flower Badge: Plant 1,000 flowers.
 * Novice Flower Badge: Plant 20,000 flowers.
 * Enthusiast Flower Badge: Plant 500,000 flowers.
 * Expert Flower Badge: Plant 1,600,000 flowers.
 * Master Flower Badge: Plant 3,000,000 flowers.

Flower types
On the map, planted flowers are shown as 2D sprites that turn around to face the camera. The sprite depends on the type of flower.

History
The following changes have been made to flower planting over time:

Trivia

 * Flowers cannot be planted in military areas.