Farming efforts don't pay !

[cancer352]

I'm annoyed by the farming: Let us grow potatoes on an irrigated farm. Then you get 50 % yield in 3 months = 16.6 % potatoes per month in the long run.
With green manure between you get 83 % after 3 months and 0 % after further 2 months = 83/5=16.6 % potatoes per month in the long run.
So it's senseless to put in green manure, the result is always the same yield.

Calculations has led me to the result that for 1 potato greenhouse 1 fertilizer-II line is needed (NH3->fertilizer I ->fertilizer II), this is ridiculous. It is questionable if the increase of potatoes is more than needed by the necessary workers for producing the fertilizer and hydrogen.

Diesel is precious and to produce diesel->gas->hydrogen from it makes only sense for rockets. So you need more water for electrolysis with poor 0.5 hydrogen/20 sec for the NH3=8 electrolysis (24 pops) for 1 fertilizer line (for 1 potato field).

All that doesn't pay !! Why the heck is this fertilizing inside the game if there comes out such poor results for all the efforts ??

[Peter34]

I agree, farming needs a re-balancing.

[TLHeart]

Since I get ammonia and sulfur from the oil refinery as waste products, I just turn them into fertilizer, and throw it in the farms. All in how one approaches the game, and how much you just want to dump the waste products and not use them, or use them. i always have population to work, so that also is never a concern.

[cancer352]

I am doing exactly the same and are using the refinery byproducts for sulfur and ammonia but that's far not enough for the farms, so I build 3 additional fertilizer production lines and even that isn't enough - the result is as I described it.

[sergetechone]

I do agree with the OP here. farms needs lots of fertilizer in order to have the maximum yield per farm ( at 140 % fertilze farm ) In order to feed your population properly, you need lots of farms and with lots of food varieties. More food varieties, less demand for potatoes.

And in order to produce meat, need lots of farm to make "chicken feed", make bread, need farm too. Anyway ... you get the picture.

[click]

Farming seems a bit hand wavy could definitely use some work. For example it gives you an average/60 with several assumptions (basically how you have crop rotation set) but it doesnt take into account how frequently and how much you water them. I guess if you wanted to know exactly how much its producing you could sit there and count?

[Oragepoilu]

The most easy way to know how much a farm produce with your specific rotation is to start from the first rotation, connect a water tank to it (to be sure it never ever miss water) and some storage for the product. Wait a few years, and each year check how much you got.

[Wat]

Originally posted by cancer352:

Why the heck is this fertilizing inside the game if there comes out such poor results for all the efforts ??

I make fertilizers out of waste products only. Also rotate 2 different crops per farm which gives about 65% natural fertility. No green manure. Then set fertility in farms to 70% (5% above natural fertility).

It's a slight increase in production. Still better than burning/discarding the waste products and generating extra pollution.

[CaPY]

Sour water -> ??? -> fertilizer! And you will save a lot on pollution, you get free water as a bonus and sulfur as a bonus too!

[cancer352]

Yes, I've a contract to sell slags and get sour water, so I can get NH3 without the difficult to obtain hydrogen. But even that isn't enough to get enough fertilizer.

Obviously only brute force helps, that means building ridiculous many farms for getting enough food. More food=more workers=more factories that you can drive.

[cancer352]

By the way, thanks for the interesting contributions to all of you.

[Synical]

The gold -> oil or vehicle parts II -> oil contracts look interesting for fertilizer generation. Been toying with a medium oil power plant design that will run 100% uptime and produce fertilizer and sulfur as a byproduct. Processing the sour water and burning the heavy oil for cracking the medium oil makes the production of medium oil "free" in terms of energy and water. It's not too crazy to run a 10MW plant through a design like this if you're trading gold or parts for it.

The other two options are electrolysis and fertilizer from food. Electrolysis seems expensive, but it's very space efficient, and 800KW might not be a lot endgame if you're running nuclear power; It's less than an arc furnace II. Fertilizer from food is better than you think; 3 farms running potatoes and wheat at 140% directly feeding into digesters gives you 48 fuel gas; that's 120 fertilizer II. The farms themselves only need about 13 fertilizer II a piece, so you export 81 fertilizer II total, or about 54 fertility per farm. It takes a lot of space and power, but all it needs is water, limestone, and sulfur.

[cancer352]

Are we talking about the same dimensions ?

Let 1 untreated potato field produce 30 potatoes:
=10 potatoes/min=3.75 gas/min=1.25 gas/20 sec=1.25 NH3/20 sec=2.5 fert. I/20 sec.

From waste, treaty and refinery I'm already producing 30 fert.I /20 sec and it isn't enough - producing that by potatoes requires 12 potato fields=264 additional workers and an uncalculated amount of WATER. These are the numbers.

Getting crude by treaties isn't the problem because you already get enough crude from wells. I'm trading slags and getting sour water instead, that's a more direct way to get the required NH3, but even that doesn't create enough fertilizer as already told.

[Synical]

Originally posted by cancer352:

Are we talking about the same dimensions ?

Let 1 untreated potato field produce 30 potatoes:
=10 potatoes/min=3.75 gas/min=1.25 gas/20 sec=1.25 NH3/20 sec=2.5 fert. I/20 sec.

From waste, treaty and refinery I'm already producing 30 fert.I /20 sec and it isn't enough - producing that by potatoes requires 12 potato fields=264 additional workers and an uncalculated amount of WATER. These are the numbers.

Getting crude by treaties isn't the problem because you already get enough crude from wells. I'm trading slags and getting sour water instead, that's a more direct way to get the required NH3, but even that doesn't create enough fertilizer as already told.

I was talking in terms of /60. A 140% fertilized wheat + potato farm produces 16 fuel gas per 60, so 40 fertilizer II per 60, and it needs 13 of the fertilizer II of it to be fed back into the process. Each farm therefore nets you 27 fertilizer II. This setup I made exported 81 fertilizer II net after feeding it back into the source farms.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2833994927

The key here though is that you need 140% fertilization on Greenhouse II and you must rotate wheat and potatoes, or else you're going to be spending too much on fertilizing the source farm (non-rotating farms incur severe fertility penalties). I did the math on lowering the target fertility on the source farms and including a green manure rotation, and it always came up lower net fertilizer II production than 140% wheat + potatoes.