Solar flare kills hydroponics plants too quickly

[Hillius]

So I get a solar flare that lasts less than a day (really only a few hours) and it kills my entire hydroponic crop? Come on, that's a little ridiculous...

[Granite]

That's odd, are they in a cave or a building?
I've had to plant indoors and the flares haven't killed the plants.
I'm not in a cave though

[Crimsony]

Originally posted by christopherkeveny:

That's odd, are they in a cave or a building?
I've had to plant indoors and the flares haven't killed the plants.
I'm not in a cave though

actually I have had this happen to me before and in all honestly I think solar flares are bull in general (food wise) they will almost always mess with your food from your walk in refridgerator to your hydroponic crop or even your sun lamps its just really the most annoying because its just so common (which is stupid by its self because realisticly solar flares are super rare in irl) and they could potenial destroy your colony because you ran out of food because of your crops easily dying not growing fast enough or your food that you put in the freezer has no power.
So all in all solar flare to op and very annoying unless you have some way of combating it then it souldnt bother you that much or you just dont have electricity.

[Crimsony]

I hope I helped

[Overeagerdragon]

I actually don't mind solar flares though it is the general death of hydroponics....hence why I usually build indoor greenhouses in favour over Hydroponics. Also because there's really no reason for that x3 growth rate if you build your greenhouse big enough (and I'm ALWAYS drowning in food/fruit/stims)

I saw another user use the same technique and I'm pretty sure others do too:
Simply build another room and put a roof over it (or don't if you're in a temperate climate with a year-round growth season). I recommend you DO build a roof (easier) but it DOES cost a bit of extra power.
Place heaters and coolers so you can manipulate the temperature and grow lamps
Place your growth zones.

Now the pro's and con's are as follows:
A "greenhouse" will generally be less affected by solarflares because the plants simply go dormant over hydroponics that will generally kill your plants when a solarflare hits. Often enough it will take MUCH longer for a greenhouse during a solarflare to kill off your crops because it takes some time for the temperature to reach critical/killing levels. In a pickle you can even rip off the roof of a greenhouse and you won't be affected by the solarflare AT ALL (unless you play in a desert/arctic.)
A greenhouse will take up more power and space than a hydroponics-lab though...
In door growing means your peds won't be attacked by wandering wild animals and if you set your zones correctly your animals won't use those planted crops as a source of food. (with the Vegetable Garden mod you can even build pastures and you won't have to worry, much, about feeding your animals as it allows you to grow grass)

If you don't mind mods; the mod "Tilled Soil" or "Vegetable Garden"(I prefer the latter) give you garden soil and tilled soil which aren't as good as hydroponics (150% growth for Gardensoil and 200% for tilled soil) but good enough to make solarflare-annoyancea a thing of the past.

In general, using this technique) 4 zones of 5x5 will net you SO much food you will HAVE to sell raw goods to the traders or your freezers will clog with raw food and you migh even welcome the occasional solarflare or blight event so you can empty out your fridges a bit.
As such I ONLY build hydroponics for crops I DON'T need a lot of but DO need to have quickly (think smokeleaf/psychite & Hay, if you even have animals that is) and I use greenhouses for food production for a more steady flow of raw food (Corn/Rice/Beans/Spuds)

[Zourin]

Rice hydroponics are highly labor intensive, and highly power dependant. One solar flare can kill off an entire crop, so you need alternate growing methods. You shouldn't use, or need, these if you have a smaller colony when less risky methods are fine.

Your seasonal 'bread and butter' should be Corn in a big ol' regular field during the normal growing cycle. It's a plant-and-forget crop until harvest time, and makes a great barn-stuffer through winter. The exception to this is your first year, where potatoes are better for short-term survival.

Strawberries in a modest open-ground greenhouse works really well to help weather through winter. It's less resource intensive, less power intensive, and it won't die off in a flare. If your corn/potato storehouse runs thin, you have something you can mix with meat for fine meals (or eat raw in a pinch). I tend to grow this side-saddle with Healroot for year-round supply. Devilstrand also comes to mind for this as well.

You don't need much. My first-year plans are a 5x10 of potatoes, a 6x10 plot of cotton, and a 5x10 plot of haygrass around two windmills while I work on a 5x11 plot of healroot and 5x11 plot of strawberries in a one-lamp greenhouse.

Never wanted for food, only building supplies and labor.

[Eisenfell]

Solar Flare = Hydroponics Death.

there is nothing that you can do but set plant cut to Priority 1 , Harvest them if they are over 66% and hope to save some of the food.

on Icesheets with not usable soil this can be the death of a small colony.

[Zourin]

Originally posted by Eisenfell:

Solar Flare = Hydroponics Death.

there is nothing that you can do but set plant cut to Priority 1 , Harvest them if they are over 66% and hope to save some of the food.

on Icesheets with not usable soil this can be the death of a small colony.

In this scenario, the only failsafe is severe overproduction.. which is expensive as hell.

[Eisenfell]

Originally posted by Zourin:

Originally posted by Eisenfell:

Solar Flare = Hydroponics Death.

there is nothing that you can do but set plant cut to Priority 1 , Harvest them if they are over 66% and hope to save some of the food.

on Icesheets with not usable soil this can be the death of a small colony.

In this scenario, the only failsafe is severe overproduction.. which is expensive as hell.

once you at the stage you are overproducing a solar flare is just bothering , but then you just starting to slap down the first hydroponics and wait for the first harvest and then get a blight and a Solar flare its a real bummer..

[Hillius]

Originally posted by Zourin:

Rice hydroponics are highly labor intensive, and highly power dependant. One solar flare can kill off an entire crop, so you need alternate growing methods. You shouldn't use, or need, these if you have a smaller colony when less risky methods are fine.

Your seasonal 'bread and butter' should be Corn in a big ol' regular field during the normal growing cycle. It's a plant-and-forget crop until harvest time, and makes a great barn-stuffer through winter. The exception to this is your first year, where potatoes are better for short-term survival.

Strawberries in a modest open-ground greenhouse works really well to help weather through winter. It's less resource intensive, less power intensive, and it won't die off in a flare. If your corn/potato storehouse runs thin, you have something you can mix with meat for fine meals (or eat raw in a pinch). I tend to grow this side-saddle with Healroot for year-round supply. Devilstrand also comes to mind for this as well.

You don't need much. My first-year plans are a 5x10 of potatoes, a 6x10 plot of cotton, and a 5x10 plot of haygrass around two windmills while I work on a 5x11 plot of healroot and 5x11 plot of strawberries in a one-lamp greenhouse.

Never wanted for food, only building supplies and labor.

Yeah, we had plenty of prepared meals and food in the freezer, my psychoid harvest was delayed and I just find it annoying that indoor (deep in mountain basically) hydroponic platnts die with a solar flare...the power wasn't really down long enough to justify 90%+ plants dying. It wasn't super devastating to my economy really, as this colony is doing fairly well, it's just a balance oversight in my opinion.

Plus I'm just not sure I follow the logic of a solar flare killing plants instantly...

Either way, in the cold regions, yes I agree w/above posters, you need a walled in, roofed, heated, & backup battery supplied growing zone....It is also hugely helpful if growing Devilstrand is a priority.

[Othobrithol]

I've always assumed that the planets we're stuck on don't have the benefit of a magnetic field. Solar flares are actually extremely common, we just don't notice because we're protected on Earth so only the big ones pointed more or less straight at us are an issue.

As far as how fast the plants die, yes that's a horrible implementation. It should be something like a blight (where half of them die) or the growth rate needs to be turned down some so letting them survive a solar flare isn't unbalancing.

There is a great mod that adds a researchable device that negates solar flares, but has a ludicrous energy consumption while active. You'll end up having to make a large array of batteries to keep powered during the flare, but it does mean that planning and work can overcome the event mid to late game. the same author also has a nice fuse mod that can be used to mitigate zzzzt.

[Mytheos]

Originally posted by jfreeze10:

Originally posted by christopherkeveny:

That's odd, are they in a cave or a building?
I've had to plant indoors and the flares haven't killed the plants.
I'm not in a cave though

actually I have had this happen to me before and in all honestly I think solar flares are bull in general (food wise) they will almost always mess with your food from your walk in refridgerator to your hydroponic crop or even your sun lamps its just really the most annoying because its just so common (which is stupid by its self because realisticly solar flares are super rare in irl) and they could potenial destroy your colony because you ran out of food because of your crops easily dying not growing fast enough or your food that you put in the freezer has no power.
So all in all solar flare to op and very annoying unless you have some way of combating it then it souldnt bother you that much or you just dont have electricity.

We arent on earth so solar flares could be very different.

Yes no electricity for a short while shouldnt cause so much harm to plants...but its a balance to make hydroponics have a drawback.

You could increase the chances of blight on hydroponic crops, or increase the duration of solar flares...

Personally I'd just increase the chance of disease and have the same overall result that way.

You really only use Hydroponics as a last resort, otherwise its far better to just grow things outside, or in a covered room with a heater, etc.

[Crimsony]

Originally posted by Mytheos:

We arent on earth so solar flares could be very different.

Yes no electricity for a short while shouldnt cause so much harm to plants...but its a balance to make hydroponics have a drawback.

You could increase the chances of blight on hydroponic crops, or increase the duration of solar flares...

Personally I'd just increase the chance of disease and have the same overall result that way.

You really only use Hydroponics as a last resort, otherwise its far better to just grow things outside, or in a covered room with a heater, etc.

To be honest with you I never really use hydroponics really. I just get a mod that lets me til the ground and then the plants start to grow really fast.

[Zev]

My problem with Solar Flares is that there is nothing you can do to prevent it. With the power shorts at nighttime you can have some backup generators and wind turbines , turn off non vital things.... You can lower the chances of it happening by making sure your batteries are indoors at a good temperature....... But when you get raided at the same time a Solar Flare hits and you rely on Turrets for your primary defense, your dead. Having a solar flare hit with 3 non violent people during a raid was funny though.

[Astasia]

Solar Flares are an extra crop blight for rice growing hydroponics that aren't usually bothered by a single crop blight. Rice grows so fast in them that losing a single crop generally shouldn't matter, so solar flares are a thing so you lose twice as often. Growing slower crops in a greenhouse isn't a better solution because crop blights will hurt you that much more. In either case you just need to have a food stockpile. Always be growing far more than you need to survive, if your surplus gets too large sell some.

[Brassqund]

Get a bigger farm and pile up food.
Frozen food don't rot and there is no events (yet) that target them.
Also there is always hunt... (if your biome/season make that possible)