Hydroplonics bin vs sun lamp green house

[F3ral H0und]

okay people, what are the good things and bad things about theses?

[Proteus]

Hydroponics basins still need light so, if you grow them indoors you will have to add a sun lamp to them as well.

Good thing about Hydroponics:
You can put them on stone floors and don't require any soil
They provide a fertility bonus

Bad thing:
They consume power
Without power the plants in them will die very quickly ... if you have a solar flare say goodbye to your plants in hydroponic basins

[Myriad]

Hydroponics has a greatly increased growth rate. For instance, rice grows at 280% in one. That's pretty huge, but they can only grow certain crops. They also take 70W each to maintain, and if you lose power for, say as long as a solar flare lasts, you'll lose all your crops.. which may not be detrimental given how fast they grow, unless you're starved.

Sun lamp and greenhouse is quick and easy, with the added bonus of being able to grow ANY crop (or tree for that matter with enough heaters and a few holes in the roof.)

They're basically self sustaining if you find a thermal vent across the map near a good patch of rich soil. Plant some devilstrand there and come back in a few months. The thermal generator can sustain a sun lamp easy.

Both are viable and good for different situations. Plant your corn and such in greenhouses, and if you have extra power, use hydroponics too. You can place hydroponics under a mountain on rough stone. The 70W isn't too bad. If you had 20 bins, that's 1400W needed.

[Radiosity]

Originally posted by Myriad:

Hydroponics has a greatly increased growth rate. For instance, rice grows at 280% in one. That's pretty huge, but they can only grow certain crops. They also take 70W each to maintain, and if you lose power for, say as long as a solar flare lasts, you'll lose all your crops.. which may not be detrimental given how fast they grow, unless you're starved.

Sun lamp and greenhouse is quick and easy, with the added bonus of being able to grow ANY crop (or tree for that matter with enough heaters and a few holes in the roof.)

They're basically self sustaining if you find a thermal vent across the map near a good patch of rich soil. Plant some devilstrand there and come back in a few months. The thermal generator can sustain a sun lamp easy.

Both are viable and good for different situations. Plant your corn and such in greenhouses, and if you have extra power, use hydroponics too. You can place hydroponics under a mountain on rough stone. The 70W isn't too bad. If you had 20 bins, that's 1400W needed.

To be fair, while the 70W each for the basins isn't bad, the 1900W for each sunlamp is a little trickier ;p (Or however much it is now, can't imagine it was lowered though)

[Myriad]

Not in game atm, but I believe the sun lamp is 2700W. I left that out because you have to add that regardless. Unless you place the basin outside, which I never actually tried. I wonder would it be an issue in the rain...

[WarWise]

It is 2700.
I´ve just started a single naked survivor game on polar tundra, takes me two wood generators and a windmill with a batery atached to keet it running.

The thermal generator gives 3200W AFAIK.

[Astasia]

Hydroponics used to breakdown, a lot because of the number required, and would chew through components very quickly. Glancing at the files it looks like this was changed, they no longer have CompProperties_Breakdownable, so that might make them worth using again. The power cost for each basin is pretty trivial, and solar flares wiping them doesn't counter the extra growth speed. If you are at the point where you can afford the resources for the basins and the extra power gen, then hydros are a good way to compact your farming a bit.

[Radiosity]

Originally posted by Myriad:

Not in game atm, but I believe the sun lamp is 2700W. I left that out because you have to add that regardless. Unless you place the basin outside, which I never actually tried. I wonder would it be an issue in the rain...

Ah yeah, I'm thinking of the old value that was around 900 iirc. So yeah, it's even higher than I remembered (haven't used hydroponics in a while, been rocking greenhouses instead, yay for the skylights mod).

[Immortalits]

I'm using simply soil, so I can create soil anywhere (also have growing plots, but that's a sleeping mod for now until it gives the option to grow corn).
I'm also using replacable steam geyseer mod and fluffy breakdowns -> no comp requires, but maintenance, if maintenance goes below 50%, then things still can breakdown, maintenalnce slowly degrades, and has a slidebar at what poins colonists start repair it back up to 100% (base is 70%).
So component wise it affordable for me, but I still dislike the energy consumption and the extra maintenance and only create greenhouses even for neutroaleafes.
My personal energy setup is to have 4-8 (depending on turret ammount) geothermal power and 16 or 8 (at least 8, even with 8 geothermal) solar panels, those help keeping up the sunlamps duing the day.

For a regular base without mods, I recommend using 2 solar panels instead of a geo for a single sun lamp with a battery, because geo is better used for other electricity, that are constanly at use.
If you're not extremely short on space, then I recommend not using hydroponics, if you realy want to reduce the space you need for your base, then use them with rice, but that also kills of the 'misc' work power of your farmers, because they have to constantly plant and harvest with them... the yields are great too, but the extra work power required is also great.