here's an idea for a multiblock you could maybe work on in the distant future: a "greenhouse" of sorts that would allow one to do ic2 crop breeding inside it. it would be like a cleanroom, but for ic2 crops. essentially it would simulate the effects of a swamp biome and a height of 240+ (both of which requirements right now to grow ic2 crops without the help of extra water/fertilizer)

in terms of gameplay, it would help make ic2 crops a little more viable in that, you don't need to actively look for swamp biomes or go stupidly high up in the air just to grow some crops. the other big thing is that it would allow for plots of crops in a "vertical" set up, because right now, crops won't grow without a direct line of sight to the sun. so this kind of forces you to spread "horizontally" only, if that makes sense. since the greenhouse would get around that requirement, you could set up vertical "layers" of greenhouses as well as horizontal

crops won't grow without a direct line of sight to the sun. <- wrong.
both of which requirements right now to grow ic2 crops without the help of extra water/fertilizer <- wrong.

you can grow them anywhere where you got light (even torches work). biome and height are just required for max statt crops.

Yeah that line of sight thing is wrong I agree. Different crops have different lighting requirements anyways (I found that out literally after I wrote this suggestion, with knightberries lol)

As for the extra water/fertilizer comment, you're nitpicking. Yes you can crossbreed new breeds of crops without the help of water/fert, but, like you said, you need naturally or artifically high nutrition/hydration to actually grow them as high stat crops. "High stat crops" are what any player ultimately cares about when they undertake this painstaking effort known as ic2 crop breeding. My mistake for assuming that would be implied. In either case, the practicality of a "greenhouse" such as this still stands. It gets around needing a naturally high nutrition/hydration biome/height. And also, getting around this height requirement implies you can vertically stack a great number of greenhouses for growing your high tier crops (another side-effect "buff", which is intended with this multiblock).

The goal of this multiblock isn't to make ic2 crops TOO easy. The main "grind" is still there, which in my opinion, is 1) requiring a block of metal for EACH farmland you're trying to mature a metal crop in and 2) no automated way of "duplicating" your ideal crop. In both these regards, bees trump over crops, no contest. Bees only require block metals for the initial mutation crossbreed and bees are stupidly easy to duplicate your "ideal" bee.

That being said, ic2 crops still have a special place in the pack because they can grow things that bees can't. And for that, imo, it's still worth getting into. I can see crop breeding is inherently designed to be a pain in the ass and I can truly appreciate that. But shit like "build in this biome here and build in this height here" is honestly so damn arbitrary from a gameplay standpoint. If there could at least be a way around that, that's what I was going for.

So this is overall a pretty good suggestion, but it is probably somewhat unnecessary because these things aren't really a huge problem anyways - you can use a forestry farm to fertilize (or cropmatron if you have tons of fertilizer) and you will be able to grow max crops anywhere, albeit with an efficiency loss. The bigger problems with ic2 crops are how hard they are to duplicate and how weak the drops are, which should probably be looked at in a separate issue at some point.

Also, if this is added, make it big enough to fit a whole forestry farm in it pls

Bart pointed out you could just use cropmatrons to fert/hydrate the crops instead of needing a whole new multi. valid point.

Also forestry farms work with ic2 crops too which is nice.

Maybe this multi isn't needed :P