Guide (Farming)

Info

Choose Farming Plot

There are 5 farming plot items are available in normal gameplay, Portable Hydroponics, Planter, Hydroponics Tray, Hydroponics Device and Hydroponics Station. Automated Hydroponics is labeled obsolete thus only accessible via Creative Mode.

• Portable Hydroponics, early game item
  • pros
    • Early game item, normally provided in starter crate.
    • No piping needed. Insert starter water canister can last a long time.
  • cons
    • Can not be automated.
    • Portable item, clutters base floor.
    • Requires external lighting (sun/ Grow Light)
• Planter, early game item
  • pros
    • Early game item, do not need alloy to build.
    • No piping needed. Accepts water canister, water bottle, or dedicated water pipe.
    • Can be automated.
  • cons
    • When not using liquid pipe, watering the plant can be labor-intensive.
    • Has only one water port so it can not be chained, making the green house layout less compact.
    • Requires external lighting (sun/ Grow Light)
• Hydroponics Tray, mid/end game item
  • pros
    • Do not need alloy to build.
    • Can be automated.
    • Extremely space-efficient, one plot per small grid.
  • cons
    • Requires piping network to feed water.
    • Data port is absent. Does not support data interrogation for logic systems.
    • Requires external lighting (sun/ Grow Light)
• Hydroponics Device, mid/end game item
  • pros
    • Do not need alloy to build.
    • Can be automated.
    • Data port supports data interrogation for logic systems.
  • cons
    • Requires piping network to feed water.
    • Not space-efficient: requires a pipe segment between two consequtive plots, as well as wiring from the data port.
    • Requires external lighting (sun/ Grow Light)
• Hydroponics Station, mid/end game item
  • pros
    • Built-in light source.
  • cons
    • Requires steel to build.
    • Can not be automated.
    • bulky, 4 plot for 3x4 small grid, not space-efficient.

Setup

• Using Portable Hydroponics, Planter, Hydroponics Tray, Hydroponics Device or Hydroponics Station

1. All of them use an open-top design so a controlled atmosphere (greenhouse) is required to operate this equipment. Build an airtight room with an airlock. Use simple airlock if the environment outside is a vacuum, or advanced airlock if the outside world has pressure.
   • If you plan to rely on Grow Light or Hydroponics Station, direct sunlight is not required, so you can build the greenhouse anywhere using any material.
   • If you want to use sunlight as well, the greenhouse should be planned with maximum sun exposure in mind, and all walls/ceilings facing the sun trajectory are made of glass.
2. Build an entire set of pressure/temperature/gas mixture control for the greenhouse, either manual system or automated (via logic chips or programable IC chip). Make sure the following conditions are met, or the plant will wither through a declining health bar:
   • 7.7 kPa < Pressure < 190 kPa. Glass panel collapses near 200 kPa pressure difference.
   • Atmosphere and pipes being mostly free of pollutants and volatiles, maximum of 3 mols for volatiles.
   • 40 kPa atmosphere of minimum 1% carbon dioxide.
   • 15 °C < Air Temperature < 50 °C.
   • 5 °C < Water Temperature < 60 °C.
3. Provide grow beds with water, or the plant will wither through a declining health bar. Insert a canister of water into the slot of Portable Hydroponics. Apply water bottle or water canister directly on Planter. Connect Hydroponics Tray, Hydroponics Device, Planter or Hydroponics Station to a liquid pipe network containing water.
4. Seed the farming plot. Can be done with either seeds or raw fruits.
5. Provide illumination to the plants. Activate the UV light on Hydroponics Station, turn on your dedicated Grow Light, or wait till the sun comes up. The plant won't die for lack of light exposure, merely stops growing. Low sunlight strength on Europa will produce a misleading warning saying 'no sunlight', but really it is just growing at a reduced rate.
6. Fertilizer (obtained through Portable Composter or Advanced Composter) can be used to speed up growth or boost yield depending on how it is made. More detail to be added.
7. There is a seed mature stage right before the fruit mature stage, so seed harvesting is time-sensitive. Point cursor at the plant at the right growth stage there will be a hint saying how many seeds are available for harvesting. If one waited too long there won't be any seed left, only fruits. You can however replant fruit as if it's a seed. Harvesting seeds does not affect fruit yield.
8. Wait till the fruit matures (cursor hints current yield), and harvest. The current patch note says the decay timer begins when the fruit matures, even when it is still left on the tree.
9. A healthy plant consumes water and carbon dioxide, then produces oxygen and radiates heat into the surrounding atmosphere. Constant manual intervention or another feedback loop into the environment control will be necessary to keep the greenhouse running in the long term.

• Using Automated Hydroponics

1. This item is obsolete. It's only accessible in creative mode. Check its own article for detail.

Fertilizer

The following data was collected on tomatoes in version 0.2.3456

Fertilizer	Number of uses	Tomato growth speed, planting to mature	Tomato yield (seeds and produce)
none	n/a	616 seconds1	2
3 biomass	7	416 seconds1	4
3 food	3	314 seconds1	5
3 decayed food	3	279 seconds1	4
1 biomass + 1 food + 1 decayed	3	314 seconds1	4
2 biomass + 1 food	4	349 seconds1	4
2 biomass + 1 decayed	4	336 seconds1	4
2 decayed + 1 biomass	3	311 seconds1	4
2 food + 1 biomass	3	327 seconds1	5
3 food + 3 biomass	4	330 seconds1	5

• 1: The grow times were recorded in the shade using grow lights on Mars, where plants will grow faster if they recieve sunlight. The times comes from a Stop Watch and an Integrated Circuit (IC10), starting from Hydroponics Device Slot 0 "Occupied" = 1 and stopping at Hydroponics Device Slot 0 "Mature" = 1.

Fastest way to create decayed food:

• Gas: X
• Pressure: <0.2 kPa
• Temperature: >200 °C
• A Fridge Small is perfect for this
• Cooked food decays faster than raw
• Gas at very low pressures can't be heated by a Pipe Heater, heat the gas before reducing the pressure.

Plant consumption and production of gases and water

version 0.2.3456

Plant	Temperature (air)	H2O (mol/tick)	CarbonDioxide (mol/tick)	Oxygen (mol/tick)	Volatiles (mol/tick)	Nitrogen (mol/tick)	NitrousOxide (mol/tick)	Pollutant (mol/tick)
Food crops + fern + flowers	15-52 °C	-0.00000596	-0.00240	+0.00120
Tropical Lily	17-56 °C	-0.00000596	-0.00400	+0.00200
Peace Lily	13-52 °C	-0.00000596	-0.00400	+0.00200
Darga fern	15-52 °C	-0.00000596	-0.01700	+0.00850
Mushroom1	15-52 °C	-0.00000596	+0.00120	-0.00240
Winterspawn, alpha	best at ~18 °C	-0.00020000		+0.0001812	+0.0003622	-0.0060
Winterspawn, beta	best at ~20 °C	-0.00040000		+0.0002812	+0.0005622	-0.0100
Hades, alpha	?	-0.00000596		-?3	-?3			+0.0040
Hades, beta	?	-0.00000596		-?3	-?3			+0.0025
Alien mushroom	?	-0.00000600		+0.00080		+0.00120	-0.00480

• 1: Mushrooms only grows in darkness
• 2: Depends on temperature, alpha is max at ~18 °C and beta at 20 °C, the plant must be mature
• 3: Depends on the O2 and H2 concentration
• Comment: Plants have been observed to consume much less CO2 when the air has a low concentration of it, with O2 still being produced at full capacity. The reverse is also true for mushrooms. Water doesn't behave like this, below a certain amount a tray will no longer count as hydrated and the plant will start dying.

Efficiency of raw food and meals

The following table compares the sustainability of everything eatable in meals:
(1 meal satisfies 100% of hunger. In this way, 1 muffin for example satisfies 200% of hunger, which sufficient for 2 full meals.)

• per unit (e.g. 1 cereal bar, 1 tomato or 1ml of milk.)
• per stack (e.g. 20 mushrooms or 5 raw corn grains.)
• per plant / grow cycle (e.g. some soybeans or pumpkins, which grow to several (more than 1) on their plants.)

Ordered List of plantables and cookables

Name	Efficiency															Ingredients	grows / prepare in
	(short range)							(medium range)				(long range)
	Portion	of	Unit	do	Hunger	⇒	Meals	by	Stacks	⇒	Meals	by	Yield	⇒	Meals
Fern			1						100				2				Hydroponics
Flower			1						100				2				Hydroponics
Milk	100%	→	1ml	→	100%	→	1,0	→	100	→	100,0	→	1	→	100,0	100ml Soy Oil, 50g Fenoxitone Powder	Chemistry Station
Soy Oil	100%	→	1ml	→	20%	→	0,2	→	100	→	20,0	→	1	→	20,0	1 Soybean	Reagent Processor
Soybean	100%	→	1	→	10%	→	0,1	→	100	→	10,0	→	2	→	20,0		Hydroponics
Wheat	100%	→	1	→	10%	→	0,1	→	100	→	10,0	→	2	→	20,0		Hydroponics
Tomato	100%	→	1	→	30%	→	0,3	→	20	→	6,0	→	3	→	18,0		Hydroponics
Pumpkin Pie	17%	→	1	→	100%	→	5,9	→	1	→	5,9	→	1	→	5,9	100g Flour, 1 Egg, 10ml Milk, 1 Pumpkin	Microwave
Mushroom	100%	→	1	→	20%	→	0,2	→	20	→	4,0	→	2	→	8,0		Hydroponics
Potato	100%	→	1	→	20%	→	0,2	→	20	→	4,0	→	3	→	12,0		Hydroponics
Muffin	50%	→	1	→	100%	→	2,0	→	1	→	2,0	→	1	→	2,0	50g Flour, 1 Egg, 10ml Milk	Microwave
Fries	63%	→	1	→	100%	→	1,6	→	1	→	1,6	→	1	→	1,6	0.5ml Soy Oil, 1 Potato	Microwave
Pumpkin	100%	→	1	→	100%	→	1,0	→	1	→	1,0	→	2	→	2,0		Hydroponics
Rice	100%	→	1	→	2%	→	0,0	→	50	→	1,0	→	2	→	2,0		Hydroponics
Baked potato	100%	→	1	→	80%	→	0,8	→	1	→	0,8	→	1	→	0,8	1 Potato	Microwave
Tomato Soup	100%	→	1	→	70%	→	0,7	→	1	→	0,7	→	1	→	0,7	1 Tomato	Microwave
Cereal Bar	100%	→	1	→	60%	→	0,6	→	1	→	0,6	→	1	→	0,6	50g Flour	Microwave
Corn	100%	→	1	→	2%	→	0,0	→	5	→	0,1	→	2	→	0,2		Hydroponics

Food storage

Food decays at a rate determined by the environment it is stored in. The main factors are gas composition of surrounding atmosphere, temperature of the surrounding atmosphere, pressure of the atmosphere, and whether or not the item is in a fridge. Decay rate multipliers for a given gas are listed below:

Gas	Decay Rate Multiplier
Nitrogen	0.6
Carbon Dioxide	0.8
Vacuum	1
Volatiles	1
Oxygen	1.5
Nitrous Oxide	1.5
Water	2
Pollutant	3

Also not all foods decay here is the list of foods unaffected by decay.

• Cereal Bar
• Corn Soup
• Pumpkin Soup
• Tomato Soup

The Soups being canned goods, and the cereal bar being a processed food hence why they do not decay.

The decay rate also contains a factor determined by temperature, the pressure of the environment, as the food that needs to be preserved now has to be above 101 kPa as preservation gets debuffed if its below 1 earth atmosphere. And the temperature decay factor is a complicated calculation summarized in the graph below (/u/LordRavenX, 04/2021):

Storage of food within a powered fridge also multiplies by a factor of 0.3, reducing decay by 70%.

To minimize decay, food should be kept in a powered fridge in a nitrogen atmosphere of over 101 kPa at a temperature of at least 110 K (-163 °C) as the calculation has been tweaked to not penalize preservation for being to cold.