How to survive in desert or frozen biomes

[Boomer Click Bait]

So what do I use for food? I know nutrient paste but I am running out of animals to stock the hoppers with and I can't grow food.

[Steelfleece]

Depends on if there's any usable soil. Even rocky soil/gravel. There are ways to create greenhouses in both biomes if you have ample power, just won't be super efficient. Without mods. If you have Ideology, there's that edible fungus too. Colonists may not like it too much without the right ideology, but they usually don't like the paste either.

Honestly, I like desert starts when there's mountains involved. Tends to be gravel at the edges you can grow some crops in, especially taters.

[Locklave]

In the perma frozen zones

Cannibalism is a primary food source and your best source of meat. Optimally you build underground and create several airlocks to maintain heat more easily.

If you are an underground meme you plant mushrooms and create biofuel this works great since it doesn't require lighting. Once you have biofuel the biofuel generators end up being a major source of heat. In that their passive heat production means you won't need heaters if you do a good ventilation system.

Those mushrooms are also food.

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

Outside of sea ice there is always somewhere to grow food, the question is how to bring the temperatures to a safe level.

Tunnellers in any mountain zone have it easy, fungal gravel can also provide for fibercorn as a wood source (only needs regular light but is faster with a sunlamp) as well as nutrifungus which doesn't care for light but is very good for a source of food or chemfuel or light (fungus torches).

A sunlamp needs two solar panels and ideally a battery, cooling or heating can be provided by other power sources and with hydroponics will fully fix any food issues. Without hydroponics you will need enough soil to provide food but there is always some on all but sea ice.

[The Yeen Queen]

Much easier with a desert than, say, ice sheet. Toggle the fertility view on, there's going to be a patch of soil somewhere that you can grow in. And since it's desert, it's usually going to always be growing season. Chances are the soil will be sub-optimal, but that's what taters are for.

Nutrifungus will be what saves your life if you have Ideology in a frozen biome. Dig a farm out in a mountain or hill side, make sure no light gets to your growing area, lay down that fungal gravel and grow some 'shrooms. Non-Tunnelers won't like it much, but they like it better than starving.

In both scenarios, getting hydroponics researched and set up will make everything much easier.

[Pinhead]

use nutrifungus if you have ideology, you can grow it in hydroponics or fungal gravel and it only gives like a -3 mood debuff when put in meals or nutrient paste

[Astasia]

Desert you just find soil and grow plants as usual, it's easier than temperate forest since you can usually grow year round. Extreme desert, grow in stony soil around hills, it's not much harder early on, later game with higher population you usually need hydroponics.

Cold biomes, same deal but you need to build a room, keep it warm and use sun lamps. Tundra has some soil to use like desert, ice sheet only has stony soil around hills like extreme desert. If you have ideology you can use nutrifungus here to make it really easy, no sunlamp required, and you can use geothermals or campfires to keep the room warm without power.

Nutrient paste is only "necessary" on sea ice.

[MadArtillery]

Dryads and cannibalism a lot of the time. Dryads are free food in any climate forever. Just get pods from rituals and you can have a whole forest of em. Perfect use for plant skill in any non growing climate. Slaves are by far best for Dryad upkeep especially for multiple trees but a normal colonist can struggle with two. Depending on getting enough tech for growlights you can also make a greenhouse. Never done a desert but my last and my current are cold. Fishing mods also help a lot, though vannilla fishing expanded needs it's fishing time halved in the options to be anything but a mental break simulator as it takes so long they'll just break before getting anything. Fishing Industry is better though.

[The Yeen Queen]

Originally posted by MadArtillery:

Dryads and cannibalism a lot of the time. Dryads are free food in any climate forever. Just get pods from rituals and you can have a whole forest of em.

Pretty sure G-pods from rituals is not a vanilla thing. Sounds pretty OP if a mod makes them THAT easy to get...

[Khan Boyzitbig of Mercia]

If you have the right meme in vanilla with the ideology DLC you can indeed get more pods for free, iirc the same meme also lets you combine dryads into pods too.

[Astasia]

Nature Primacy and Tree Connection to be specific are the memes that allow gauranlen pods as a ritual reward.

[ASS]

in cryptosleep casket.

[Tam]

Just grow op nutrifungy, there are some soil patches even on extreme desert

[Chibi Life]

It's a lot easier now with the introduction of nutrifungus to be honest. Just find any place with mountains, dig in, plant the mushrooms and use campfires to heat the room (You can block the light of the campfires while still using the warmth) (or heaters if you aren't tribal).

Sea ice however requires extremely specific playstyles to survive.

[SievertChaser]

Wait, fingal gravel can accommodate any crop?

[Chip56]

yes but it has low fertility so its not very well suited for plants with high sensitivity