How to feed mountain base?

[Valen]

I have a 17x13 plot growing Nutrifungus for my Tunneler/Darkness colony but even with only 4-5 people it's not enough to sustain them. How do I keep them fed? Is this a bug? When I put plots outside I never end up needing this much growing room

[RCMidas]

You're still hunting and fruit/berry-gathering, I take it? Fungus alone grows a little too slowly I think. Either that or you've got yourself a Gourmand and they just keep eating everything in sight.

[Valen]

I've been gathering to fill in the gaps but I'm trying to sustain only off fungus since other food gives them a mood debuff. It says 6 day growing period for 25 units of food but my colony is constantly starving so I'm wondering if this ♥♥♥♥ is bugged or something

[ZS Maeklos]

I didn't have an issue with an underground colony that I made. I had a few tiny 4- and 5-square plots in the cave itself where the soil was good enough to grow nutrifungus. And outside, I had a 10x15 building where I grew nutrifungus. That, supplemented with the occasional hunting (mainly for leathers) was all I need to support my burka-wearing tunnelfolk.

[CrazyOdd]

On normal soil, 10x10 is about enough to keep up with 5 people. Fungal soil, is 70% fertility, so that adds 30 more plots? Yet you have double that amount and cant keep up.

I'm guessing its more a worker issue, then a direct food issue. Like you need more farmers on higher priority, to account for the darkness debuff to workspeed.

[ZS Maeklos]

Or your people don't have high Plant skill and are failing to harvest completely?

[Valen]

Originally posted by ZS Maeklos:

Or your people don't have high Plant skill and are failing to harvest completely?

It has to be dark in the room so maybe they are failing at harvesting due to the darkness

[Cryptic]

Hydroponics

[lemurs2]

That would be hilarious.

[Valen]

Originally posted by Corrosion:

Hydroponics

I tried this but it only boosts the growing rate from 96% to 126% and early game it just costs too much to build a lot of these. I guess I could hunt/grow food outside but it defeats the point of playing an ideology of dark tunneling people who want to be caves

[Astasia]

Grow time listed is total time growing, it doesn't include rest time. At 100% grow speed that means roughly double the listed grow time for actual grow time. Fungal Gravel has 70% fertility but Nutrifungus has virtually no fertility sensitivity so it still grows at like 95% rate, meaning about 13 days per harvest. Each plant yields 11 fungus, one simple meal.

You need about 26 plants per colonist if you are just making simple meals to live on, if they are being harvested and resown quickly. That's at 100% harvest yield.

Originally posted by Valen:

Originally posted by ZS Maeklos:

Or your people don't have high Plant skill and are failing to harvest completely?

It has to be dark in the room so maybe they are failing at harvesting due to the darkness

Colonists following an ideo with the darkness meme have 0 penalties for being in darkness. Full workspeed, full movement speed. This also isn't Kenshi, there's no harvest fail chance for being in darkness anyway.

[Valen]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Grow time listed is total time growing, it doesn't include rest time. At 100% grow speed that means roughly double the listed grow time for actual grow time. Fungal Gravel has 70% fertility but Nutrifungus has virtually no fertility sensitivity so it still grows at like 95% rate, meaning about 13 days per harvest. Each plant yields 11 fungus, one simple meal.

You need about 26 plants per colonist if you are just making simple meals to live on, if they are being harvested and resown quickly. That's at 100% harvest yield.

Thanks for that. So to feed a colony of 5 people off nutrifungus, if it's about 5x5 per colonist that's 25x25 plot of fungus. Pretty large

[Astasia]

Hmm, a 25x25 is 625 plants and would feed like 24 colonists. A 13x10 should work for 5 colonists, barely. I started with a 9x9 for 3 colonists, when I got a 4th I had to add another 9x9 and after getting my 7th I added a 3rd 9x9. It's definitely a lot more growing than if you were using like rice or corn, but not quite that extreme. I don't know why your 17x13 wouldn't be plenty of food for 5, unless they are gourmands and like binging.

[Averagedog]

as far as I've seen, tunnelers don't have issue with meat, but they do have issue with consuming daywalker plant products.

I've been sustaining my colony with meat as the nutrifungus grows and its a good thing too because I am running out of meat on my map and the first fungus harvests have begun. I also only have 3 people so it is easier to feed them and the 2 chickens I started with has multiplied to 8 so far... in a few more seasons I shall reap half of their number as well muahahaha I mean hehehehehe

[Raelic]

I blocked off a Valley and just planted outside. Three Granite walls deep will prevent most raiders from going that way. If they do, it's usually slow enough I can come out and meet them in the funnel they've created for themselves.

When you can, you can line the wall with two or three rows of wooden traps too.

[Valen]

Originally posted by Astasia:

Hmm, a 25x25 is 625 plants and would feed like 24 colonists. A 13x10 should work for 5 colonists, barely. I started with a 9x9 for 3 colonists, when I got a 4th I had to add another 9x9 and after getting my 7th I added a 3rd 9x9. It's definitely a lot more growing than if you were using like rice or corn, but not quite that extreme. I don't know why your 17x13 wouldn't be plenty of food for 5, unless they are gourmands and like binging.

yeah typo 25x5. I think I will restart similar ideology but add cannibalism so they can eat raiders and the like