Night lights for plants? how?

[DrakenKin]

I want to use the sun lamps to light up the garden at night so plants keep growing at night.

These things use a lot of power. Is there a way to program it so they stay on at night time and off at day time?

[Chama]

Mods my friend
Base game, no

[Astasia]

Even if you could keep a sunlamp on at night plants wouldn't continue to grow. Plant rest is based on time, not light level, sun lamps turn off automatically to save power because it's pointless to run them at night. There are mods that change the plant growing system to allow growing at night, I can't point to them offhand and don't know if they have been updated recently.

[the.lovewyrm]

As the others said, not in basegame.
Plants in vanilla need to rest at night and can't grow during their little timeout.

[DrakenKin]

I see, thanks!

1. Any benefits to adding extra lamps during the day then? can it make things go faster?

2. I am looking into growing things inside for the winter, someone suggested this in another topic (walls, roofs, heaters, sun lamps). Anything i should know before attempting that?

3. I put a light in my research room and it says 50% light if i hover the ground, is there any benefit to multiple lamps?

(For now focusing on beating the game on vanilla before doing DLCs. I don't think i want any mods for now since i want the pure experience of how the designers wanted us to play this game.)

[jessitap]

Extra regular lamps won't make it go above 50% unfortunately. That's the snag because most plants require 51%, but really the only way is sun lamps, which will get damaged in the rain.

You pretty much just have to be patient. The light can't go above 100%, so more of it is just a waste of power. If you want more food, then have more farming, or hydroponics (good for the winter) indoors. Hydroponics are faster too, though of course consume a lot of power and don't have a lot of harvest (not like doing a 10x10 plot or something).

[RCMidas]

1) Nope.

2) I'll get to this in my next post.

3) Nope. Any number of lights only provides a certain max level. Regular lamps will only EVER go up to 50%, so they won't be enough for plant growth because plants need 51% minimum to grow. Sun lamps provide more, so you need them to grow plants in the absence of natural light.

[RCMidas]

2) So, the long and short of it is that you're going to need a LOT of power, and I mean a LOT of power, to grow stuff over the winter indoors. You need to keep the heat in, you need to keep the light up, and you need to do both at the same time. This is a problem because putting a roof on your greenhouse will keep the heat in, and block the light, and sun lamps need effectively three solar panels each to keep going. If you're using hydroponic bays, you'll also need a lot of extra steel and components, and even more power, but you'll be able to harvest your crops faster.

First things first. What sort of winter are you going to have? Are you in a warmer biome that has a very short 10-20 day winter, or are you looking more at a 40-50 day winter because you got too close to the poles, or something in between? This will determine how much you need to prepare for winter.

The longer the winter, the more power you will need to keep supplying just to be on the safe side. If the winter is a colder one, you'll need even more so as to power sun lamps and roof the place over (or have someone constantly roofing and unroofing the place, and instead using a stupid amount of heaters).

I personally advise establishing a freezer in your base first - somewhere that, thanks to coolers, is perpetually below 0 degrees and thus able to stop food from deteriorating. Keep all your meals in there, and eat them slowly over the course of the winter whilst slowly gathering the materials for a better base. If you're a tribal colony and don't have electricity yet, make some shelves and leave meals on them outside in the cold - the shelves stop them from deteriorating from being outdoors and the natural cold keeps them frozen. Hell, if you're a spacer colony, do the same if need be, as it requires less in the way of resources like components.

The first year will be the toughest, make no mistake.

[Sevrun]

2) Use mods for skylights and your power consumption will drop DRAMATICALLY.

[DrakenKin]

Ok here's the thing, it's my second summer. I have 7 guys, and just captured an 8th i am trying to convert to my clan. This guy will be my 2nd guy dedicated to planting.

The first guy wasn't enough, far from it. The only reason i am surviving is killing all the animals in my area, and i even had to buy food a couple of times.

So there is no way i am storing enough for the winter.

I have 55 tiles of rice on rich soil (140% fertility) which wasn't enough. Planted roughly the same number in potatoes and corn (55+55) on rich soil.

1. I wish i knew how much rice fields a person needs
2. I wish the descriptions weren't so confusing. Corn for example says 0.4 nutrition when you plant it, but if you click an actual corn piece it says 0.05 nutrition. In fact everything seems to say 0.05 nutrition and i am not sure what is the difference between nutrition on the planting description and nutrition on the actual vegetable.
3. Can i just plant hay in the fence area for the animals? Right now it seems i have to feed them manually or something. I am assuming all kinds of animals eat grass, from cow to chickens? Except for the predators that need meat?

[trmcdougle]

Perhaps mainly use corn instead of rice ... unless the relative balance changed in 1.3 the food crops each have 1 advantage :-
Corn produces most over time (lots per harvest) ... but grows slowly (P.S. this saves on grower time!)
Rice grows quickly (useful for the first harvest of the year) ... but produces less than corn over time and wants 140% soil or in hydroponics
Potatoes grow almost anywhere ... but don't give that much
Berries can be eaten raw ... but also don't give that much

[DrakenKin]

>>> grows slowly (P.S. this saves on grower time!)

Big tip, thanks! :)

[Diarmuhnd]

Ultra Tilled Soil mod = uber harvests