arbor trees & petro gen

[Grek]

how many arbor trees do i need to support 1 petroleum generator?

[Maltsi]

1 generator needs 4 ethanol distillers to run full time, 1 distiller needs 1 domesticated or 4 wild trees. so in short, 4 trees ( or 16 wild trees) for one generator to run full time

[Grek]

thank you

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Maltsi:

1 generator needs 4 ethanol distillers to run full time, 1 distiller needs 1 domesticated or 4 wild trees. so in short, 4 trees ( or 16 wild trees) for one generator to run full time

This is incorrect.
1 wild tree produces 5 branches every 18 cycles, each bearing 300 kg of wood. This is 1500 kg of wood every 18 cycles. A cycle is 600 seconds, and you need enough trees to maintain 1 kg/s.

1/(1500/(600*18)) = 7.2 trees per ethanol distillery, or 28.8 for a full generator with 4 distilleries. This is wild.

This drops to 4.5 for domestic.
1/(1500/(600*4.5)) = 1.8 trees per distillery or 6.4 trees for a full system.

Finally, if you can apply farmer's touch constantly forever, this halves the time.
1/(1500/(600*2.25)) = 0.9 trees per distillery or 3.6 trees for a full system.

4 trees will only work if you can farmer's touch them fairly frequently. 16 wild trees will never work. They grow too slowly. Finally, you need to make sure that each tree has room to grow 5 branches in the 7 possible tiles it could grow a branch. If it grows less, it's only part of a tree in this calculation.

i.e. 4 branches able to grow = 80% of a tree, or 0.8 trees.

[Strygald]

Farmer's touch doesn't work on arbor branches.

[Maltsi]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Originally posted by Maltsi:

1 generator needs 4 ethanol distillers to run full time, 1 distiller needs 1 domesticated or 4 wild trees. so in short, 4 trees ( or 16 wild trees) for one generator to run full time

This is incorrect.
1 wild tree produces 5 branches every 18 cycles, each bearing 300 kg of wood. This is 1500 kg of wood every 18 cycles. A cycle is 600 seconds, and you need enough trees to maintain 1 kg/s.

1/(1500/(600*18)) = 7.2 trees per ethanol distillery, or 28.8 for a full generator with 4 distilleries. This is wild.

This drops to 4.5 for domestic.
1/(1500/(600*4.5)) = 1.8 trees per distillery or 6.4 trees for a full system.

Finally, if you can apply farmer's touch constantly forever, this halves the time.
1/(1500/(600*2.25)) = 0.9 trees per distillery or 3.6 trees for a full system.

4 trees will only work if you can farmer's touch them fairly frequently. 16 wild trees will never work. They grow too slowly. Finally, you need to make sure that each tree has room to grow 5 branches in the 7 possible tiles it could grow a branch. If it grows less, it's only part of a tree in this calculation.

i.e. 4 branches able to grow = 80% of a tree, or 0.8 trees.

oh then they did change that just before leaving early access, because 4 domesticated without farmer buff or 16 wild ones was enough back then. or thats i did them atleast at it worked flawlessly

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Strygald:

Farmer's touch doesn't work on arbor branches.

I have used farmer's touch on arbor branches. What do you mean? It seemed to work for me.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Maltsi:

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

This is incorrect.
1 wild tree produces 5 branches every 18 cycles, each bearing 300 kg of wood. This is 1500 kg of wood every 18 cycles. A cycle is 600 seconds, and you need enough trees to maintain 1 kg/s.

1/(1500/(600*18)) = 7.2 trees per ethanol distillery, or 28.8 for a full generator with 4 distilleries. This is wild.

This drops to 4.5 for domestic.
1/(1500/(600*4.5)) = 1.8 trees per distillery or 6.4 trees for a full system.

Finally, if you can apply farmer's touch constantly forever, this halves the time.
1/(1500/(600*2.25)) = 0.9 trees per distillery or 3.6 trees for a full system.

4 trees will only work if you can farmer's touch them fairly frequently. 16 wild trees will never work. They grow too slowly. Finally, you need to make sure that each tree has room to grow 5 branches in the 7 possible tiles it could grow a branch. If it grows less, it's only part of a tree in this calculation.

i.e. 4 branches able to grow = 80% of a tree, or 0.8 trees.

oh then they did change that just before leaving early access, because 4 domesticated without farmer buff or 16 wild ones was enough back then. or thats i did them atleast at it worked flawlessly

I don't know. I played before the space release, and then put it down until after release, so tons has changed for me. The trees are completely new to me, so I set about testing them.

For the record, I've been playing on Arborea, where arbor trees are one of the ways to deal with the asteroid. I also feel that they might be a trap for early colonies. I put together a presentation slide for myself to fully grok how bad the Tree -> Ethanol cycle is. Here is my results:

3.6 Arbor Trees w/ Farmer's Touch (18 total branches) -> 4 kg/s wood -> 4 ethanol distilleries -> 2 kg/s Ethenol -> 1 Petroleum Generator -> 0.42 kg/s Polluted water used 0.33 kg/s excess polluted water (If you want to not run out of water in a closed system, you need farmer's touch)

1 Petro Gen + 4 Distilleries -> 1.16668 kg/s CO2 -> 4 Carbon Skimmers (can replace with 35 slickters)

1 Petro Gen w/ Tune up -> 3 kW gross -> 4 Carbon Skimmers + 4 Ethanol Distilleries -> 1.56 kW net (only 560W for all of this when tune up runs out!!!!)

Replace the skimmers with slicksters it becomes
1 Petro Gen w/ Tune up -> 3 kW gross -> 4 Ethanol Distilleries -> 2.04 kW net (only 1040W for all of this when tune up runs out!!!!)

The sheer amount of CO2 this cycle produces is ridiculous for how much usable power you have at the end. It can easily kill an early or mid game base that is not ready for it.

Also, do not put your carbon skimmers close to the generators, as the CO2 is necessary to carry the heat away. I lost a base simply because my generator kept overheating everything and killed half a dozen dupes. Ethanol power is not heat negative in the slightest, but with the CO2, it helps you heat up your slickster farm.

[Hedning]

The trees were changed multiple times during the testing branch phase. As were many things. Unsurprisingly considering testing is the purpose of the testing branch.

[Strygald]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Originally posted by Strygald:

Farmer's touch doesn't work on arbor branches.

I have used farmer's touch on arbor branches. What do you mean? It seemed to work for me.

The buff works on the trunk, making it grow 100% faster but it does crap all for the branches, even though your dupes will still keep applying the buff.

[CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate]

Originally posted by Strygald:

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

I have used farmer's touch on arbor branches. What do you mean? It seemed to work for me.

The buff works on the trunk, making it grow 100% faster but it does crap all for the branches, even though your dupes will still keep applying the buff.

This is not my experience. In my experience the trunk is getting the buff, but it is what is growing the branches and all 5 branches grow faster. I was harvesting the 3 trees I had on hydroponics every 2-3 days. (I had 40 of them growing naturally with this)

[Strygald]

Originally posted by CPT Chthonbeard the Pirate:

Originally posted by Strygald:

The buff works on the trunk, making it grow 100% faster but it does crap all for the branches, even though your dupes will still keep applying the buff.

This is not my experience. In my experience the trunk is getting the buff, but it is what is growing the branches and all 5 branches grow faster. I was harvesting the 3 trees I had on hydroponics every 2-3 days. (I had 40 of them growing naturally with this)

Well, it's easy to test:

go into sandbox and make 2 separate rooms, plant one arbor tree in each room and let them mature. As soon as they start growing branches place a farming station in only one of the rooms. I can guarantee you that the branches of the arbor tree in the greenhouse with farmer's touch buff will not grow faster than the branches of the other tree that is not receiving any buff.