Hydroponics & Fertilizer

[meraco]

I have looked for wiki's, posts, guides but I seem to be unable to find an answer. Maybe you veterans have the answer.

Question about the Hydroponic station in it's current state (main game build):

I built the Hydro station. filled it with fertile soil, planted seeds. two of the three plants germinated. (one didnt take, so discarded) All seems fine so far.. The question: What 2 barells should be on the station as the plants grow..

one is water..

The other: Is it?

Fertile soil barrel ?
or
Fertilizer barrel ?

[grybeard]

The first time I used the thing I put a barrel of fertile soil in the hydro planter and it sucked it dry with no change to the planter. The last couple times the planter took about half the barrel of soil and I could see a mound in the planter. Not sure exactly wny we need to add water as it takes 1 litre and thats about it.

[Aira]

From my previous experience, it takes 80 (or maybe it was 50) fertile soil and fills the station. I had the remaining fertile soil and water attached, but the fertile soil never drained anymore and the water never drained at all. I was able to grow ~8 plants in this configuration. I assume as the game updates, it will drain fertile soil and water as plants grow.

[meraco]

Originally posted by Aira:

I had the remaining fertile soil and water attached, but the fertile soil never drained anymore and the water never drained at all. I was able to grow ~8 plants in this configuration. I assume as the game updates, it will drain fertile soil and water as plants grow.

These are similar to my results. 6 plants so far. leaving the fertile soil & water on the Hydro station. The water only went down 1 litre during the initial setup, but the fertile soil barrel never changed.

As a side note: I am using the .3 atmo with carbon diox mix. ( not sure if that makes any difference. But I figured... Plants need CO2.. So why not :)

** Next test will be to add a fertilizer barrel to the station with the water to see if it consumes any of it during growth cycle.

[Mr. Monochrome [Hood Certified]]

Fertile Soil and Water is what needs to be attached to the hydroponics station. Just leave them attached regardless of it not draining the barrels for each time you plant a seed.

[meraco]

Thanks for the info Mr.M. Enjoying the mods btw... :)

[cstreet13]

Originally posted by meraco:

As a side note: I am using the .3 atmo with carbon diox mix. ( not sure if that makes any difference. But I figured... Plants need CO2.. So why not :)

Plants also need nitrogen, though there is some already in the fertilizer.

If you look on the LSM, you'll notice some of the options have a little leaf beside them. They're optimal for hydroponics.

[riotintheair]

Based on the scripts it does not appear that there is any mechanism for depleting the fertilized soil amount or water after 50 units of the first and 1 unit of the second are taken, nor does having the barrels plugged in matter in terms of productivity. There is a mechanism to drain the barrels, but after that the GenVec that stores the soil and water values in the station (that make the soil appear to have a certain height and color) will never update again as the game runs through it's code - the game faithfully checks if it's time to add soil and water each cycle of the simulation, but since nothing ever changes the GenVec it'll never find that it needs to.

Edit: There's obviously a chance I overlooked something, but that's how it appears as best I can tell.

[dariusz1983]

Riotintheair FTW