Need help automating hydroponics.

[Striker]

I recently researched hydroponics and places 3 greenfruit, 3 riceweed, and 3 hemp hyrdoponic benches. I also made 4 wells, and 3 (or 4) water tanks. How do i automate this with my workers. Do i assign 1 worker to bring water from well or tank to hydro platforms, or is it only from the water storage tanks, and leave well alone. Do i assign 1 workers to each of 3 growing benches or 1 for each. Or do i assign workers only to the hydroponics and wells/tanks automatically have those workers fill their hydroponics with water? It just seems there are different ways to do this and I don't know what the best method is. (I also have 9 barrels to store the harvest for each plant type.)

[GIJoe597]

I would assign a farmer to hydroponics and a worker to the wells. As long as you have ditch resources on, they will do their thing in a logical manner.

The farmer will grab water as needed and the well worker will drop off water where needed/storage.

Once the farmer has high enough farming skill and harvests fast you can also assign them as the well person and free up the other worker for something else if you like.

[Zee_]

The farmers will water the crops as needed, as will the person set up to fill the water tanks. Farmers will also put the harvest into their respective storage bins, so no need to set up runners for those if you set the storage bins near the hydroponics bays.

With only 9 hydroponic farms you can get away with setting a single person to work them all. They'll water them and harvest. At first it may seem like it's impossible, but once a characters' farming skill gets up a bit they can handle 9 hydroponics farms no problem.

Until you have a good farmer or two though (90+ skill), I'd set up 2 people farming and 1 running water. Just set the farmers to work the hydroponics bays and set the water runner to use the wells, they should fill the nearest water tank first then move on to the rest. When you notice the farmers are spending more time sitting instead of working, you can set one of the farmers to another job or set up a few more farms.

For example, in one of my games I have 1 person farming 4 XL wheat farms and 2 farmers working 30 hydroponics bays (doing 15 hydroponics farms each) and they spend about half their time sitting in my bar. I'd build more farms but I'm already farming more food than I need with around 240 characters, much of the crops are being turned into liquor and being burned to ash for a tattoo mod.

Farming should skill up pretty fast so long as you aren't doing something silly like having shek or skeletons doing it, however even if you are they'll eventually be just as good as a greenlander, it'll just take longer for them to skill up.

[Incunabulum]

Assign someone to work the well (until it gets automated). Assign someone to work the hydroponics.

If dump resources is selected in the AI tab, the well guy will make water, the hydro guy will grab water and place it as needed and move from harvest to storage.

If he's taking too long to move to storage you can assign someone to the storage itself - 'Hauling to Storage: Hydroponic Wheatstraw' (for example). They'll move the product to storage.

Depending on how many of these you have, one guy can do the whole thing. Set 'haul to storage' then 'farm' then 'well'. He'll move everything to storage, then go put some water in, and then he'll operate the well until its time to harvest again.

[Striker]

But if i setup 1 worker to use hydroponics, and I have 3 types of hydroponic (Riceweed, greenfruit, and hemp), will the 1 worker maintain all 3 types of hydroponic work tables or will he just stick to riceweed only or will he even just stick to 1 hydroponic riceweed out of 3?

[GIJoe597]

As long as you click on the hydroponics and set it each one as a job they will do them. Unfortunately you cannot click on only one and set "farming". It has to be each individual machine.

[Striker]

If i assign 1 farmer to all the different hydroponics benches, will he store each vegetable as soon as he gets it or will he fully farm enough to get a full inventory and then deposit the vegetables in their storage container?

[GIJoe597]

The farmer will farm until the farms internal storage is full, then store, come back to farm more. If you put the hydroponics as first priority, each individual one, they will also get water without it being a job if water is available in range. They will even take it from the well, no need for a water storage. I am assuming your wells are automated, if you are far enough along to have hydroponics. With ditch resources checked, yes, they will deposit crops in storage or a oven/machine if needed.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Excelsior:

But if i setup 1 worker to use hydroponics, and I have 3 types of hydroponic (Riceweed, greenfruit, and hemp), will the 1 worker maintain all 3 types of hydroponic work tables or will he just stick to riceweed only or will he even just stick to 1 hydroponic riceweed out of 3?

The only work that needs to be done here is 'put water in', 'harvest', and 'take crop out'.

So what will happen is that it will put water in one - and be done with it for a while - so it moves on to the next one and puts water in it. And the same for the third.

When the first one is ready to be harvested, it will harvest it. when its done it will harvest the second. And then the third. Then it will come back and start moving product to storage.

If, at any time, one needs more water, well since maintaining the farm is at the top then it will stop and add water and then go back to what it was doing.

[Incunabulum]

Originally posted by Excelsior:

If i assign 1 farmer to all the different hydroponics benches, will he store each vegetable as soon as he gets it or will he fully farm enough to get a full inventory and then deposit the vegetables in their storage container?

Put the 'move to inventory' jobs at the bottom so they are overridden by the higher-level jobs until those jobs are done.

[GIJoe597]

Do not use haul to storage jobs, or haul water to, no need as long as you have ditch resources checked.